I’m pleased to introduce Becki Houlston who has tackled the “issue” of stress for me. Becki is a highly qualified life coach and NLP practitioner. I’m very grateful to Becki for digging me out of my own head after a business venture I was involved in went badly wrong in the 2008-2009 Recession. It is probably quite fair to say that my current success is the result of her interventions in my life. I wholeheartedly recommend Becki.

How Stressed Are You? Top 10 Tips to Manage Stress

The word ‘stress’ has become part of our everyday language. Most of us can freely express that we are stressed and entrepreneurs often confuse this as a barometer of achievement, as if our stress levels are related in some way ‘the more stressed I appear, the more I am achieving!’

Unlike pressure, stress is never good for you and never a positive thing. Stress is a condition, or feeling, experienced when a person perceives that the demands placed on them exceed the resources the individual has available. The symptoms of stress significantly affect both your emotional and physical health. Pressure is short term, creates adrenaline and you remain resourceful, stress assaults your nervous system and contributes to 95% of all physical illness.

The antidote to stress is to learn to build resilience and better emotional resources even if we don’t feel we can do anything about what we believe to be the cause of our stress, such as illness or financial worries. The true cause of our stress is rarely what we observe it to be. Its epicentre is always a lurking fear, such as the fear of loss, for example, or fear of confrontation, or the ultimate trigger, fear of discovering you aren’t good enough.

Our relationship with the need to be in control has a huge influence on our stress levels too. Never before in life have we needed to learn to become more adaptable, rather than the old model of control and dominate. Becoming adaptable requires self-confidence, strong self-belief and identity, great listening skills and trust in others. Most humans have had a few knocks in these areas and are battle weary at times. This is when we are most prone to stress, you can’t pour from an empty glass.

On a scale of 1-10 how stressed are you now?

*10 being high

1-4         Share your secret!

5-8         Your adrenal systems are over active. You will be showing symptoms of stress. Important notice – take time to relax

8+          Stop and assess your life. What’s working? What isn’t?

If you scored high, imagine how much better you would feel and look without it.

Say ‘No’ to stress – 10 Top Tips to becoming stress free

1. Be Honest – Do you listen to and trust your instincts. Identify the fears that are really causing you to feel stressed. What’s stopping you from making the changes you know you need to make? What do you need to start or stop doing? Stop making excuses, even ones that sound plausible!
2. Slow Down – Focus and do one thing at a time and complete it.
3. What makes you happy? – Do more of it. Often we have forgotten what lights us up in life when we are too busy being busy.
4. Be thankful – Tell yourself ‘I am thankful’ 10 times. For example, some people keep a gratitude journal. You can also just take a moment each day to think of everything that you are thankful for.
5. Be kind – to yourself! Check your self-talk. Would you say that to someone else? No? Then why say it to yourself?
6. Simplify your life – Let go of clutter, drama, and people pleasing
7. Ask for and accept help – Both practical and emotional help. And not just when you’re at your lowest – involve people all the time since people do like to help! It’s not weakness, its smartness.
8. Body care – Get the right fuel into your body and limit the booze. There are links between vitamin deficiencies, gut health, dehydration and high stress levels.
9. Move it – Hit the gym, dance, skip, break-dance, whatever floats your boat. Unused energy turns into negative, lethargic energy and can turn against you.
10. Relax – Park your brain then breath in slowly through your nose for the count of 7… breathe out slowly through your mouth for the count of 11. Just 5 mins sitting with a quiet mind will switch your nervous systems into relax even when chaos surrounds you.
    

Putting these tips into practice will be sure to reduce your stress. Make sure that you implement these tips on an ongoing basis – you will start to see your stress levels reduce and be able to put this energy into making your business succeed.

Stress can ruin your life. If you have stressful clients learn to compartmentalise. Don’t take the stress home with you and into your private life. I highly recommend getting a life coach if you have a high-powered always-on job.

We as a family have our own version of Becki’s point 4 above – when we run through our days in the evening we always make sure to identify at least THREE positives we can take from the day.

If you would like to contact Becki her website is http://www.beckihoulston.co.uk/index.php and all her contact details are there.

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Other posts on challenges facing entrepreneurs and small business owners are available in our ‘Top 10 Challenges’ series here, and other posts on related issues  – To be notified of new articles from the Outsourced Finance Director please subscribe using the form, below: