StResstriction

Stress jeopardizes. It threatens our health, our performance, our viability, our relationships. Learning how to reduce and restrict stress (aka StResstriction) is key to our ability to function optimally, as individuals and as organizations. 

Stress is typically the result of real or imagined urgencies, expectations, ambiguities, conflict, problems, and/or frustrations. 

The healthiest people, and the best leaders, I know effectively counter -- StResstrict -- stress by employing one or more of the following "therapies"...

• They focus their attention positively, avoiding negativity as if it were the plague. 
• They intentionally address stress points futuristically, refusing the backward-looking downers of blame, recrimination, regret, and lament.
• They stop trying to "fix" themselves and others, choosing rather to follow a daily and incremental regimen of continuous improvement.
• They deal with problems and challenges as if they were verbs rather than nouns, viewing them as malleable and addressing them with corrective measures and mitigation techniques rather than with hammers/blow torches/guillotines.
• They take purposeful steps toward healthy habits across the physical, cognitive, and socio-emotional-spiritual domains. For themselves and for their teams.

Stress is a natural emergent when we attempt to do important things and do impactful work.

Unless we take intentional steps to restrict stress, we'll experience more of it. Funny how that works.