There’s only one thing stressing you out

Your job: Find it
 
As the work and assignments begin to pile up, you get that gnawing, unnerving feeling that they may overwhelm you. This is the typical cycle of business-related stress. 
 
Solving it may be easier than you think. 
 
In this article, we’ll take a look at some common stressors and their causes. We’ll show how you can defuse various situations. And we’ll give you the counterintuitive key to eliminating—or at least alleviating—a bunch of stresses, all at the same time. 
 
Where does it come from?
 
There are two types of stress: actual, and perceptual. Actual stress comes when there’s simply too much on your plate, all racing toward the same deadline, to the point where you’re overloaded. 
 
If that’s the case, the solutions are actually quite straightforward. You need to develop a better strategy for proactively negotiating deadlines (see our article on that subject). You need to offload whatever you can to subordinates or perhaps trusted vendors. You’ll need to push off some other things on your plate (perhaps, unfortunately, personal) to free up some extra time. And you need to eliminate distractions, so you can focus on the remaining task at hand.
 
As we said, these are straightforward. There shouldn’t be too much in that list above that comes as a surprise to you. Indeed, if you follow those steps, you’ll get the work done, and your overload-induced stress will disappear. 
 
Then how come it almost never plays out like that in real life? 
 
The second kind of stress
 
If you’ve been paying attention, you’ll realize that we’ve been using our detailed advice about actual stress as a mere setup to the core subject of this article: perceived stress. 
 
This is the one that actually keeps you up at night, that messes with your digestion and your mood and impinges upon your personal life. 
 
As its name implies, this is stress based on what you think is overwhelming you. Now, just reading that definition should suggest a simple solution. But when it comes to matters of outsmarting your own hard-wired brain, it may be simple, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy. Or obvious. 
 
Surely, you’re thinking by now: “Isn’t there an overlap of actual stress and perceived stress?” Of course there is. So you might think that if you work to reduce the actual stress first, all that would remain would be the perceived stress, which would then be easier to identify and thus resolve.
 
Wrong. Go about it the other way. Many times, if you can identify and alleviate the perceived stress, all stress magically evaporates. 
 
Where does it hide?
 
We keep talking about “identifying” the perceived stress. And that’s certainly the key. If it were obvious and easy, it wouldn’t be a problem; there would be no need for an article like this. 
 
But it’s common. It’s insidious. You’ve probably sensed it yourself: You feel overwhelmed by given day’s (or week’s, or month’s) workload, but you also feel, somewhere inside, that that stress is somewhat irrational. If so, you’re probably right. 
 
The best way to find the perceived stress is actually by identifying the leading perceived stressor. Once you realize that, the rest gets surprisingly easy. 
 
Imagine you’ve got a dozen things on your plate. All hard to do. All due at once. That’s stressful. But does it outstrip your capacity? That is, is it truly actual stress? Here’s how you find out: 
 
Simply jot down a list of each one of those stressful assignments. Now look through that list, and find the one most stressful one on the list. This is the key. There aren’t two. There aren’t three. There’s always one on that list which has you the most stressed. It’s not necessarily the biggest project, or the one with the tightest deadline, although it could be either. More likely, it’s simply an assignment that you’re dreading, that has components you hate completing, or forces you into a situation in which you’re uncomfortable, in order to complete it. 
 
Now. Here comes your moment of Zen. Just for a moment, strike that item off your list. Ask yourself: “If that one item went away right now, would I still be stressed?” 
 
The answer will almost always be “No.” You’ll look at the eleven remaining items on your list, and laugh. They’re easy. Do they outstrip your capacity? Not at all! You could probably do 50 percent more, easily. 
 
What to do next
 
Pat yourself on the back. You cracked the perceived-stress conundrum. You realized that it’s the mere presence of one annoying assignment on your list that has blurred your perception of the others—and your capacity for completing them. 
 
Now you’ve overcome the perceived stress. What’s left is actual stress. The best way to surmount it is to now prioritize that one annoying assignment. Bump it to the very top of your list. Put everything else on hold. 
 
Then use every trick in your book to knock that one out (and out of the park). It’s the hardest part, but once you’re done, you’ll feel wholly rejuvenated. Because 1) you’ve accomplished something real and can be justifiably proud and relieved, and 2) all that’s left are those eleven remaining to-do’s which are hardly worth stressing about. 
 
Offloading options
 
As we’d mentioned earlier, when you’re confronted with actual stress, a go-to option is to offload the extra work to a trusted vendor. Like us. This is the type of work we handle all the time. Contact us today and we’d be happy to discuss your needs. Stress-free. 

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