Stay in control – Seeing the wood for the trees? See each tree for what it is
I love the saying ‘life gets in the way’ or ‘we plan and life is doing what is wants, anyway’. We all know the feeling when one thing after another seems to happen and before you know it, you feel totally out of control, emotionally out of kilter and all over the place.
Not a good place to be.
However, it is not too difficult to start to take control back. The only thing you need to do is: separate issues, compartmentalise and deal with one thing at the time. Often ‘stressors’ (things that are stressing you out) are not a reality, as they are potential situations that might manifest in the future. Such as worries about getting ill, or maybe become redundant, etc.
Tips on how to get control back
1. If you feel you are losing the control, take a step back and allow some time to ‘re-organise’ yourself.
2. Start with a bit of deep breathing, which helps you to calm down. As your breathing is the carrier of emotions, you have a shallow breath when stressed and a deeper, slower one when calm. Trick your mind by breathing slowly and deeply to feel calmer.
3. Write down the different things that are stressing you out at the moment.
4. If there is one mega-project, break it down in small elements.
5. Look at each ‘stressor’ and decide if this is actually taking place or if this is a future event. All future events go into their own compartment or container and you close the lid. Don’t spend any energy on these stressors.
6. Look at the stressor, which you can tackle in this moment. Look at what you want to achieve and break it down in small actions. Then plan your actions and last but not least, execute it.
7. Once you have taken care of one stressor, choose the next one to tackle.
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