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Ditch Stress And See Your Profit Soar
by Henrietta Elegunde Stress can lead to positive or negative emotions. A positive type of stress called eustress, can motivate us into taking positive action about a problem. Eustress can result in a deeper self-awareness. For example; someone decides to take more customer service training, because they are not coping well at work. However, the type of stress that we commonly refer to as stress is distress; this is the type stress being referred to, in this article. Distress leads to negative emotions. It happens at work, due to continually changing customer service environment and work pressure. It can affect staff physically (tiredness), mentally (depression), spiritually (burnt out), and emotionally (low morale). Stress usually alters people's attitude. It doesn't matter how nice people are, when stressed, they are more likely to behave inappropriately and unprofessionally. Learning to manage stress in your business environment, will lead to increased productivity, staff taking less time off and making better business decisions. You will become more successful as a result of this. Your employees will become more productive and enjoy their work more, because your example and your training, will rob off on them. Customers are looking for great experiences, more than they are looking for your product. The experience that your staff create to make their days better is what will make them keep coming back to you. It is not necessarily because you have a better product; they can go to your competitors for a product of similar quality. Customers don't want to be around negative emotions or in a stressed environment. Creating a peaceful environment, will attract more customers. Stress can elicit negative emotions in people, which include: anger, irritability, rudeness and sadness. These negative emotions can also lead to health problems which include: headaches, depression, upset stomach, high blood pressure, heart disease, and stroke. Staff taking time off can also rob us of some our profit! Learning to deal with stress is in our best interest. We need to identify events causing our distress, and change them. We must also identify our stress triggers. Our stress triggers are what we tell ourselves about life events. It is our assumptions about what happened, that triggers our stress and not necessarily what happened. For example, when a staff does something that we perceive unprofessional, do we say to ourselves; how dare you? Or I'm going to see that he gets more training. These two internal dialogues (stress triggers) would lead to different actions and reactions, from us. The first one would lead to distress and frustration, while the second one would lead to eustress. We must identify the way our body responds to the stress. Do we become nervous, angry, or upset? If so, how specifically does this make us feel? When we have this new self-awareness, we can change our stress triggers by replacing them with internal dialogues that would lead to a eustress? These changes will develop into our new habitual reaction, if we do them daily. We can use goal setting and time management techniques, to redirect our focus into more important things, rather than wasting our energy on stress which weakens us. Devil uses idle hands. We should take a break or change our environment, when we start to feel stressed out. For example; we could go for a walk. We could also learn some relaxation techniques. This helps to reduce our muscle tension. Most importantly, we must pray for the stress to be lifted supernaturally by God. This will lead to peace that surpasses all understanding.: Philippians 4:6-7 - "Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus." God does not want us stressed. Stress deforms our character and leads to irritability, which can make other people dislike us. It is hard to be around a stressed person. Stress will get in the way of walking in love. Even if stress is serious and needs medication, these guidelines should be used in addition to medical treatment prescribed. 20 Other Ways Of beating Distress: We must maintain a positive outlook on life. And not dwell on negative life experiences. We must make conscious efforts to focus on positive things. For example, when something traumatic like losing our job happens. We must look at it as opportunity to pray more, train more and land a better Job. We mustn't think that we have to please everyone. Or that other people have to always please us. Unrealistic expectation can lead to stress. We must avoid unnecessary stressful situations. We must pursue goals that align God's will. And not those ones that other people think we should pursue. We must focus on one important thing at a time. We must learn to be assertive: Matthew 5:37a - "But let your 'Yes' be 'Yes,' and your 'No,' 'No." We must read Christian books and the bible. Reading spiritual books will refresh, restore and relax us. These help to conserve (protect from waste or destruction) our energy: 1 Thessalonians 4:11a - "that you also aspire to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business," By using breathing exercises to slow down increased heart rate, caused by stress. We must avoid unnecessary conflicts with people. We must also resolve our inner conflict. We must see the funny side of life, and not take petty things too seriously. By eating balanced diets, and by avoiding alcohol, nicotine and caffeine; these are stimulants. Fitness and relaxation exercises. We must keep smiling and laughing, to trigger a joyful state of mind, even when nothing exciting has happened. The brain does not know that nothing exciting has happened. When we laugh, the brain is programmed to send happy signals to our mind. We must only think positive and Godly thoughts. The kingdom of God is within us: Proverbs 4:23 - "Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it spring the issues of life." We may need to develop organizing and prioritizing skills. Chaos, crisis confusion and panicking will lead to stressful situations. By Practicing smiling within, and smiling with our eyes. By making joyful shout unto God: Psalm 100:1 - "Make a joyful shout to the LORD, all you lands!" By rejoicing as a service to God, and not just because something happened: Psalm 100:2 - "Serve the LORD with gladness; Come before His presence with singing." We don't rejoice by just pretending to be happy. There are many ways we can take charge of our emotions. One way of achieving this, is by talking ourselves into a joyful state. We can also trigger a feeling of joy through dancing and praise and worship. Meditating on happy memories, holiday pictures, God's promises and our good qualities (instead of the bad ones), are other ways we can purposely stir up a joyful state of mind: Philippians 4:8 "Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthymeditate on these things." By joining online Christian communities, forums and blogs Through Christian short breaks and retreats, seminar, events, exhibition, workshops, revival and conferences. Please leave a short comment by clicking the post a comment link, at the top right of this article. Your feedback means a lot to me. You can also email me as I am putting together an online community that will empower people. I will like you to become part of it, and become empowered and learn to control your feelings, instead of them controlling you. Copyright Henrietta Elegunde. Please feel free to distribute free of charge, but always include my details (from the resource box) below. Henrietta Elegunde is an Author, Life Coach, ordained minister and Motivational Speaker. She specializes in teaching how to cultivate spiritual, mental, physical and emotional growth, in order to achieve total wellbeing (being made whole) in your life. She is the author of the book "Hallowed Be Thy Name". For more information on how to book her for your next event, how her book can transform your life, or how to obtain free reading of part of the book; contact her by sending an email Article Source: http://www.faithwriters.com |