Making Decisions With Less Stress

A note from peter@thewealthyattitude.com for Thursday July 10 2008

Welcome to this fine Thursday.

Boy, did our reader yesterday certainly get attention. I’m grateful to all who shared back to me. I’ll be adding in many of your reflections in days to come.

Folks, I agree that “stress” is an issue in today’s world, but we certainly do have the directions and insights to rise way above the vagaries normally associated with it. It’s really us to us.

Perhaps today's offering will shed some more light on the issue.

Making Decisions With Less Stress

Stress is not necessarily a bad thing. It is a requisite part of growth, stimulation and any compromising situation. Too much of it, it however, can short circuit your system and drive you haywire. If you are constantly under stress, without giving your body time for respite, your body will certainly break down.

Decision making is one of the primary stressors in life. However, you can’t really live a life without decisions, can’t you? Every day you make choices, and these choices translate into stresses that cannot be avoided. They can only be mitigated or handled appropriately.

No matter how hard we try, turning decisions into riskless and stressless activities would be an exercise in futility. The best thing we can do is handle the decision making process in a way that that is as healthy as possible. Here are a few things to remember when you have to make a pretty tight decision.

Assess the Situation. Hard decisions entail extra stress primarily because we tend to worry too much about things we cannot control. And worse than that, we sometimes fail to understand what type of situation we are actually in.

To handle such situations properly, you should carefully and calmly assess the situation before making a choice. If this means that you have to step back, take a few breaths, and relax a bit before plunging back into the action, then do so. You will find that this technique works wonders for the stressed mind.

Unnecessary Worry. As mentioned earlier, we have a tendency to worry about things we cannot control. This is where acceptance and proper mindset come in. While thinking about something only shows that you care, it also releases a flood of emotions that could only cloud your decision making abilities.

The best thing you have on your side is a rational mind. This is negated if you give in to unnecessary worrying. So it is best if you calmly work on the decision, taking the consequences and risks as objectively as possible.

Be Aware of the Consequences. Every decision has its consequences and its risks. A primary reason for decision making stress is that we tend to be overly optimistic or pessimistic, expecting something to happen and then banking all our hopes on those thoughts.

It would be better if you instead make a table of risks and rewards for each decision, and accept the outcome of the risks as part of the dangers of the decision making process. Life is like a gambit, you can’t always win, but you can always learn from it.

Take Time Off. As said earlier, stress is a precursor to growth and change. But if you don’t get enough rest in between stressors, you risk your mental and physical health. That is why it is very important for individuals that need to make big decisions – especially those that do so on a regular basis like bosses and managers – to take regular breaks.

They should take time off to relax, indulge in healthy recreation, and allow their minds and bodies to recuperate from the stress.

Preparation. A lot of unwanted stress could be avoided if only people were a lot more prepared to make their decisions. A little research and study on the nature of the decision would go a long way towards making each decision as sure and as stress-free as possible.

Conclusion

While you can’t avoid it, you can at least live with it. Don’t let stress get the better of you. Aim to keep it under control by making smarter decisions and by handling it in the right way.

Do you want to be right - or be happy?

By Hilda Carroll, Life Coach

Sometimes life really sucks. And other times it's just not too great, or could be better. But that is absolutely no reason to despair. Really! Whether or not you are in a place right now where you can accept this, the truth is that there's always an opportunity in every challenging experience to learn and grow. And it's always in our best interests to actively seek that lesson. What a waste to go through a rough patch and take nothing out of it that will help carry you onwards and upwards in the present and future.

And how do we do seek that lesson? By asking ourselves "what is this here to teach me?" And by asking more than once. Because the more you ask yourself, the deeper your enquiry goes, and the more you learn. The answers may not come to you straight away, in fact they probably won't. And there could be many layers of lessons for you that come through bit by bit. But the more open you are to learning them, the quicker they will come.

Your answers may come to you through something you read, something someone says to you (maybe even a throw away comment), or the lyrics of a song that is divinely played in your earshot. There will be all sorts of magical coincidences and you'll come across stuff that will resonate deeply with you and stop you in your tracks. We call them light-bulb moments, and if we pay attention to them they can radically alter our path in life.

Life keeps throwing us the same lessons, over and over in different guises, until we finally get them. Do you find yourself wondering on a regular basis why you keep finding yourself with a difficult boss, an abusive partner or selfish friends? If there's a pattern of similar circumstances occurring in your life, look for the common denominator. Please don't be offended by this, as I say it non- judgmentally, but it really is likely to be you. If you can accept this, then all you need to do is ask what do you need to learn about yourself - not other people - to put an end to the cycle.

This is not to pick up a stick to beat yourself with. It is just about increasing your self awareness, so that you can approach life differently going forwards. You and I are a work in progress, and it is never done.

All through our lives we are meant to be learning and growing. And we learn the most from our challenging experiences. During those times, be prepared to accept something uncomfortable about yourself, for when you accept it (and forgive yourself) you can easily move past it. But what you resist persists. If you deny something about yourself, self-righteously insisting the problem lies with others, you are not done with it.

If you allow yourself to be really open to what the true reason is for this difficult experience, you will ultimately discover some kind of fear at the root of it. Once you identify your fear, you can start to let go of it. If you aren't aware of it, you'll continue to carry it around subconsciously. That is an energy you are putting out into the Universe and it will attract more experiences into your life that match that energy.

So, when you catch yourself woefully asking why this is happening to you, stop and change that enquiry into a genuinely curious one. And then start to pay attention to what your intuition is trying to tell you. Pay attention to each and every coincidence you notice. This is how you cross the bridge between knowing a thing intellectually and really, truly getting it. And that "penny dropping" experience is the kind of moment that influences an effortless change in your outlook and behavior, and as a consequence your coping mechanism strengthens.

But even better than that, because you've now got the lesson, the Universe no longer needs to send it to you in different disguises. You become free of it. Free to move on and learn and grow and stretch some more.