Success Over Stress

We all know what is stress and most of us have encountered it. The biological use of the term stress was first made in 1930 by endocrinologist Hans Selye. Probably that was the beginning of a new culture to which most of us get succumbed in the busy schedule of our lives, irrespective of the demographics to which one belongs – a student or a corporate honcho or a home-maker. In this article we will trace out simple ways to prevent it.

We are raised with the mindset that we are unique, which in turn programs our mind to be the center of attraction. To maintain this stature, the mind always aims to attain excellence in whatsoever activity the individual does. However, limited thought process causes hindrance towards this aim. This limitation gives rise to the menace of stress. This can be at the workplace, college, in relationships, personal lives and hobbies.

So the way out – we have heard the phrase many a times – bringing out the best of oneself. How do we do that? Many philosophers have debated and theorized several principles on this topic. A very basic one would be to go beyond our limited perception and stop identifying with the circumstances. In order to achieve this one has to follow certain simple practices

Shape your Activities before they shape you - Our activities build our attitude, habits and character in long run. If we laze around at present, we will find ourselves lazing around in future as well. It is common in India to blame the ‘karma’ of previous births. We do not know about previous births but we definitely reap the consequences of the actions our present birth. When we say we are suffering from stress, we must have done such actions which gave rise to stress. A check point is critical to filter out such actions and keep us in the right track away from stress.

Detachment – The word reminds us of philosophy. But the core of our success and stress is embedded in this one word. One must learn to disassociate with the results of the work and not getting identified with the activity. This does not mean one would disassociate with work or would escape responsibilities attached to the results of the work. Our efforts bring the best results when we focus on the activity without paying much heed to the reward it might reap. In the reverse case we are so much engrossed with the results that our efforts in performing the activity become blunt. This is exactly what happened to Raju Rastogi (played by actor Sharman Joshi) in the movie 3 Idiots till he learnt to be detached and made a successful engineering career.

Respect and Positive Attitude – Any activity is performed at its best not only when there is dedication towards it but respect and a positive frame of mind towards its surroundings as well. This would include animate and inanimate objects, ambience and temperament. This is why we see where high-handedness fails to resolve problems whereas cool-mindedness and humility do it. Also those who take good care of their office surroundings rarely misplace things.

Fellow Feeling and Team Spirit – A phrase has become very common these days –Relationship Management. Every service sector companies are specializing into it to generate and sustain business. Yes, relationship building and management is the key to survival in today’s super fast world. To expect service from others we need to be of service to them. We often see when a person fails to perform an activity, his friends around helps him out, but what for the man who knows only to make foes! Even the smartest person cannot survive on his own.

Creating the breathing space – We should allow ourselves and others the space to live our lives independently. Only then the best of us will be unleashed. Lack of space creates bondage and the fruits of bondage are never as sweet as that of freedom. We often see the tensions in relationships resulting from lack of breathing space. For example, during cricket net practice a ball does not fly high, but when it is hit without the net around the ball flies away to a long length.

Learning Attitude – An attitude towards learning and development throughout the life helps an individual move forward in innovative ways. True power and knowledge make a person humble and which in turn helps him to learn more.

Conviction – How many times have we heard of the story of the spider in our childhood? Let me narrate once more – a spider was trying to climb up the wall, every time it was trying it was slipping down, but it kept trying every time it slipped down. The story ends without concluding whether the spider succeeds in climbing the wall or it foregoes the idea. The story-teller being a wise person wanted to convey the message loud and clear - to succeed we should have conviction which should not wither away by failures. However, conviction does not mean we would not analyze the causes of failure. In fact a person with strong conviction will find out the reasons of failure and decipher innovative approaches to succeed.

Avoid Repeated Persuasion and Accept Failures and Move-on - When sales professional are given the sales pitch training they are taught ‘to know where to stop’. For them this applies to disinterested customers. But this principle is equally applicable in our lives. In our miss-firing of activities we should know when to keep the gun down. Nothing in this world is more important than our lives and peace of mind. If an activity becomes stressful we should stop it or put it to rest temporarily and refresh ourselves. This does not go against the spider’s story, but it is all about choosing which task is worth trying. At times it is better to let things go, it saves the energy. A Call Center agent when gets through a customer forces his product on the latter despite the fact, that the customer is not willing to buy it. This happens because the agent may have called too many people before he could get through this customer. But in the process the agent not only irritates the customer but loses his own precious time which he could have utilized in making more calls wherein he could have made his much awaited sale.

Staying Ahead - The Rat Race – We live in a society wherein new inventions happen every day. We suffer from the evil of consumerism. With every new thing coming out in the market we run to buy it. We are either in a hurry to catch the bus and hence missing our peace of mind or we are bored fast with what we have. We are never contended with the bird in hand but aim for the two in the bush, that too at a very rapid rate. Hence we exhaust our potential energy and pre-occupy our creativity with trivial things which could have been utilized in a constructive manner.

Unwarranted Acquisition – In today’s world, our wants know no bounds. Just like the number of credit cards in our wallets are increasing so is our shopping bill. We thus fill in our home with things without which we could have lived comfortably although not luxuriously. While most of these wants are momentary, we forget things which are critical for healthy living. The same is applicable to our mind. The more unnecessary information we put in our mind the less effective the grey matter becomes. So we have to unload some of our desires and acquisitions whether physical or mental to keep our mind and body work efficiently. We must have often heard of the story of the duck which if served milk mixed with water, will drink the milk out of the water. Similarly we should be able to understand what is necessary for us and be able to enjoy the essence of the best.

Goal-less Goal - We all are driven by targets in our everyday lives. This target can be anything set either by others or by us. Without these targets we feel de-motivated, aimless in the daily functioning of our lives. We are groomed like this from our childhood with goals set for long-term and short-term. We often forget the idea behind setting such goal and hence demeaning the entire purpose of the goal setting. For e.g. a student gets so tangled with the goal to be the topper that he forgets the main purpose is top-class education and all what he turns out to be is a study-machine which will fetch him maximum marks. Same thing happens in corporate sector where quality suffers as senior management puts too much stress on profit maximization through quantity sales. So before we set goal for ourselves we need to introspect why we are setting it and do we really have any need for that.

Gradual change - ‘Slow and steady wins the race’ – this proverb seems to have become obsolete these days. In our childhood days we were taught the story of the hare and tortoise and how the tortoise wins the race through a steady progress despite being slower than the hare. We have seen many lives lost in hurried revolutions. When we see things are not working, we try to change immediately and failing to do so get stressed out. Instead if we incorporate the same ‘change’ factors through a gradual process we will not only be successful in implementing them but we can sustain that change.

Emotional debris - Emotional stress is the most common of all types of stress. We can control almost everything in life but we are controlled by our emotions. If these emotions are impulsive they take our lives to near destruction. Hence the mind should take charge of this emotional debris. We are controlled by emotions only when we think we are controlled. For e.g. when a student gets scolded in the class for no fault of his, he has two choices, he can argue with the teacher or he can wait for the teacher to calm down and then explain what happened. The first act is easy but impulsive. Here the boy is controlled by his emotion. In the latter case, he takes charge of his emotion and act accordingly.

Laughing Out Loud - The chat /text lingo of LOL meaning laughing out loud is a common terminology these days. One stressful event gives rise to a chain of stressful events. Hence it best to laugh out loud at the stressful event and get rid of it. Does it remind us of Dr. Asthana of the movie Munnabhai MBBS played by veteran actor Boman Irani? Funny but true – he always laughed when stressed to keep his mind cool. If we take a look at the great personalities and orators of the world we will find most of them had great sense of humor. They also took life seriously but they never choked the spirit of joy which was the continuous source of their energy and success.

So much said but the underlining principle is self-discipline. We get stressed because we allow our mind to be stressed. It is said in the Bible, even Satan had to request permission from Jesus to enter Judas Iscariot’s mind who later became the cause of Jesus’ cruxification. If we direct our mind away from stress so will it be. However, this requires application of simple practices mentioned herein along with many other good habits which we already pursue. Swami Vivekananda said once - the road to the good is the roughest and steepest in the universe. It is a wonder that so many succeed no wonder that so many fall.