Last week, almost every coaching call I had touched on the same theme – stress, and letting go of what is stressing us out. Because a lot of the stuff that stresses us out is just life. In life, people do stuff we don’t want them to do, deals fall through, shit happens! And the ‘normal’ reaction of getting stressed about life happening doesn’t help you to fix any problems, make anything better…all it does is ruin your day and raise your blood pressure.
And I’m a big fan of the theory “if it doesn’t help, don’t do it”.
Like self-ciriticism. Doesn’t help. So don’t do it.
And stressing about shit happening. Doesn’t help. So don’t do it.
I know it’s easy for me to say, and trust me, I have my fair share of getting stressed for no good reason myself…but I’ve learned to (as much as I can) let it go.
(Is it just me that starts singing the theme from Frozen every time I come across those 3 words?)
I shake it off, I quit thinking about it, I let it go.
Let’s take an example: your boss keeps giving you some work that isn’t yours to do, despite you telling them about 64 times that it’s not your job. Annoying, yes, but what benefit is there to getting stressed about it? Stress gets in the way of our ability to communicate effectively, it gets in the way of our ability to respond appropriately, it gets in the way of creative thinking. And it usually sends us down an unhelpful train of thought.
Like “I cannot believe she’s done this again. Is she stupid? She’s always doing stuff like this. She never listens. This is so bad. I’m so disrespected here….” and so on. All because someone made a mistake. Maybe because she’s busy and stressed and not thinking straight herself. Maybe because despite the snippy comments you made to her the last 64 times she handed you this work, you’ve never actually said the words “this is X’s job”. Maybe because she’s an idiot. Maybe because she hates the guy whose job it really is and prefers to give it to you to give to him.
Whatever the reason she’s doing what she’s doing, the reality is, she’s doing it. And you getting stressed about her doing it isn’t going to help. It’s not going to stop it. It’s just going to raise your blood pressure and wind you up.
If that helped, I’d say GO FOR IT. It doesn’t, so don’t.
So what’s the alternative? Here’s what I ask my clients to do with each thing that stresses them:
Ask if there’s anything I can do about it right now EASILY.
If so, do that and stop stressing.
If not, let it go as best you can. (theme from Frozen optional)
Shrug it off, shake it off, let it go, say “so fucking what?” Don’t let these irritating things stress you out and make your life a trial. Let it go and go do something more fun (build a snowman? No? Sorry, I can’t help myself.)
Note I said if you can do anything about it EASILY. Sometimes the solution is just as stressful as the problem…so just don’t go there for now. Often when you just quit worrying at and stressing about a situation, it resolves itself.
I am mostly talking about the smaller, relatively insignificant things here…but the advice also applies to big things too. Stress won’t help a relative who’s ill, it won’t pay the mortgage, it won’t help you find a new job. But the more relaxed and at peace you can be about shit happening in life, the easier you will find it to navigate through life. It’s not always easy to let it go when the big shit is happening, but worth trying to do, because stress adds to the pressure you’re under.
And the more you can do this for the ‘little’ stuff, the easier it’ll be for the bigger stuff.
So let go of what is stressing you out. Like leaves falling from a tree or dandelion seeds blowing away in the wind, let it go.
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