This week I want to talk about Stress. Why? Because stress means different things to different people.
For some stress is that deep rooted feeling that you get when you have to go to work every morning, tinged with dread. I’ve experienced this, it’s deep rooted and makes me feel sick and off my food.
Stress will manifest itself in different ways. My symptoms were quite mild. Others sometimes don’t even know they’re suffering stress, but could experience all sorts of symptoms, headaches, tiredness, frustration, grumpiness……
The problem is we’re all too quick to tackle the symptom and not the cause. Doctors will often advise a little time out, a holiday even. More exercise, fresh air, a healthier diet, a hobby to relax with. Paracetamol or sleeping tablets. And I don’t argue with this. All these practical solutions will help manage the symptoms, but the truth is that unless you tackle the cause the source of the stress will still be there.
So what do I suggest?
A useful exercise is to break down the segments of your life, e.g. work, love, family, hobbies etc and mark yourself on a scale of 1 to 10 how satisfied you are in these areas. With my clients we draw this onto the Reflections Coaching wheel so that if the segments are unbalanced its easy to see that you’re in for a bumpy ride.
Of course you can break this down even further so if you know that work is a problem you can split that into workload, boss, colleagues, commute etc
Sound simple? Well yes it is but it is also incredibly effective at highlighting where you need to make changes. That’s where the real work starts.
A simple Coaching Wheel
If you want to give this a go you can draw it out on a piece of paper, or contact Carolyn at caro@reflectionscoaching.co.uk with your name, email and contact number and I’ll send you a ready to use version.
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