Leveraging Your Stress: Turn Negative Energy into Productivity

No one likes to feel stressed out. Looming deadlines, hitting quarterly numbers, social obligations – sometimes, everything seems to pile on at once making us want to crawl under the blankets and shut out the world until it passes. But, alas, you have a business to run! So, peel off those covers and start managing your stress head on.

Types of stress

First, let’s break down the two types of stress: eustress and chronic stress. Chronic stress is constant stress that lasts for prolonged periods of time, and it’s detrimental to both your mental and physical health. If you’ve ever felt burnt out or emotionally drained, you were likely experiencing chronic stress.

Eustress, on the other hand, is a more temporary, psychological discomfort, and it’s actually beneficial to our well-being. Think of this type of stress as more anticipatory or fleeting in nature – the pre-presentation jitters or the anxiousness you feel on the first day of a new job.

Stress in the workplace

Work is a primary source of stress for most people. As a business leader, it’s important to create a healthy environment for your employees and coworkers (and you) to thrive in. While you won’t be able to abolish stress completely, you can change the narrative around workplace stress from chaotic to motivational. Here’s how.

Understand your and your team’s stressors

The first step to mitigating your stress is knowing what causes it. Maybe it’s the feeling that there is so much on your to-do list that the light at the end of the tunnel is nonexistent or that you couldn’t possibly have enough time to complete that last-minute request. Take an inventory of all your workplace stressors for one week and then see if there are any process changes you can enact to prevent those things from occurring – like requiring 48-hours’ notice for specific requests or only allowing 30-minute meetings.

Disperse concentrated stress

Some projects have such a large scope that even just taking the first step towards completion is daunting. If all the responsibility – and therefore stress – is falling on one person, see how you can break down the deliverable into smaller, more consumable tasks and then enlist the help of others to disperse the work more evenly. This will make the project seem more manageable and will help employees realize how their work is contributing to the big picture.

Convert your stressors into actionable accomplishments

How often does it feel like you are stressed over the amount of stress you have? It’s easy to get tangled up in this web of feeling overwhelmed and not knowing how to get out. Every time something causes you stress, pause for a moment to clear your mind and then determine how you will translate that source of stress into an action item. Giving your stress purpose and direction will help you overcome it, feel accomplished and move on.

The Bottom Line

While too much stress can take a toll on your health, small amounts of situational stress can actually help motivate you. In order to manage your workplace stress, start by identifying the things that trigger stress, disperse the stress by enlisting the help of others and, lastly, ensure that it results in an accomplishment.