As you may (or may not) know, I’ve been into stress management for a very long time.
And even when I really try to walk my talk and… often succeed, there are times when I get into the automatic pilot too.
There is this street, not too far from my house. It’s a two-way street, parking on both sides. Oh, yes, and there are a couple of shops that are open a lot…
For one reason or another, people like to double-park there.
And this is my trigger…
Especially when I spot some empty spaces, 2 or 3 cars away…
“Why do they have to do this?”
“It’s always the same!”
“This is total lack of respect!”
“This is dangerous!”
“These people this…”
“These people that…”
Do you see where I’m going?
But recently, I caught myself in the act quite quickly…
I noticed how I sat up even straighter.
I noticed how my heart rate when up, I started to breathe faster…
I went into a state of stress!
So I immediately changed my thinking into: they are double parked. PUNTO!
(Yes, you could also put ‘PERIOD’ or ‘FULL STOP’ here but … to me it came spontaneously in Italian ;-D)
And this is where the story ends…
And this is also where the stress ends…
When we don’t attribute (a negative) meaning to our observation, we also don’t get stressed…
So when you notice you are getting stressed, and you are noticing the thought patterns causing it.
Go back to the original observation, PUNTO.
And take it from there.
#youalwayshaveachoice #YAHAC
Since then, I’ve used it in other situations…
Participants don’t arrive no time. PUNTO.
Participants haven’t prepared the pre-course activities. PUNTO.
Instead of:
“They don’t care.”
“They are not motivated.”
“Why am I doing my best?”
“They don’t respect me.”
“Who do they think they are?”
…
Ready to try this out over the weekend?
Have a good one!
As you could read above, your thoughts determine your behaviour so… make sure you ‘don’t believe everything you think!’ – Sign up for my new FREE mini-course and learn how to handle this, 1 step at at the time!
