Practical steps to lessen the anxiety in your life
Overview
This “Life Improvement Tool Kit” will help you make some pragmatic choices to deal with stress more effectively.
If you apply these principles, you will have less worry in your life and feel more peace on a daily basis. A simple investment of 45 minutes for some reading, thinking, and planning can make a huge difference in your life.
First, get a piece of paper or open a file to take notes as you go through this kit.
Next, take a short Assessment to help you figure out the role stress is playing in your life.
Then, go through the 5 lessons which follow. Watch the video and read the articles referenced. Each of those lessons addresses certain elements of dealing with stress effectively. Some aspects may apply to your situation more than others, so read all of them so you can select the parts most relevant to what you are going through.
At the end, make sure you take a few minutes to create a plan for what you will change moving forward. Now, it’s time to get started!
Here are a few significant questions you will find answers to within the 5 lessons.
Lesson 1: 5 of the Best Ways to Relieve Stress
- Where is stress created and what is it based on?
- What are some ways we can become intentional about how we react to stress?
Lesson 2: Changing How We Think About Stress
- How can we become more aware of how we think about stress?
- In what ways can stress be viewed as an opportunity?
Lesson 3: Let it Go
- What does it mean to “Let Go?”
- What can we learn from recovery about “letting go?”
Lesson 4: When Life is not Perfect
- How can we learn to enjoy life even when it isn’t perfect?
- In what ways can we alter our expectations about life to be more content and happy?
Lesson 5: Dealing with Workplace Stress
- What are the different ways we can learn to manage workplace stress?
- What are some things you can do personally about stress at work?
Getting Started
Now, it’s time to take steps to better understand the stress in our daily lives and how we can better manage it, even when we’re at work. Take the assessment below to help you evaluate the importance of the stress you face every day and identify some areas of concern.
Then, go through the 5 lessons listed afterwards. When you click the link to each article, you can watch a brief introductory video, listen to a short podcast, and read the text (with the same content as the podcast). Some key points are captured below for each article, but think about what ideas or techniques seem most helpful for your family and capture those notes.
At the end, you can create a personalized plan for moving forward to better handle the stress you face in your own life!
Assessment
Start by taking a quick inventory of how stress is affecting your life now:
1. From 1-to-10 (10 being High), how much stress do you encounter in an average day?
2. From 1-to-10, in a normal week, what is the most severe level of stress you may reach?
3. Name the top few activities you are normally engaged in when you feel stress?
4. What are the triggers (what stimulates it, or the things that seem to set off your anxiety) that often precede your feelings of stress?
5. What actions or activities in your life have seemed to lessen your stress in the past?
Key Points to Consider
Determine which of the 5 best ways to relieve stress seem most useful for your situation:
1. Reframe how you think about stress.
2. Let go of the stress of control.
3. Utilize the positive coping cycle.
4. Let other people help you.
5. Turn to God for help.
Commit to use 1 of the tools for 30 days and keep a journal of the results.
Lesson 2. Changing How We Think About Stress
Action: Take the next step by reading this article.
Key Points to Consider
You can lessen the effects stress has on you by learning to see it as a normal part of life rather than something to be feared.
Your set-point is the emotional level you return to after positive or negative experiences. With practice, you can make adjustments in your set-point (your expectation for how you normally feel), sort of like changing a thermostat.
Other ways to change how you handle stress include: adjusting your perspective, learning to deal with life when things go wrong, and practicing positive thinking skills.
Choose to change how you think about stress, and then work on it one day at a time.
Lesson 3. Let It Go
Action: Take the next step by reading this article.
Key Points to Consider
When something is nagging at you, practice “letting it go” by simply deciding to set that worry down for a while. Choose not to worry. When it comes back, let it go again.
Decide that you will not be obsessed with controlling outcomes in the future, worrying about the past, changing other people, or wishing your circumstances were different than they are. Notice the weight that leaves your shoulders when you let those things go.
Recovery asks you to surrender your will, admit your wrongs, and make amends. Seek the serenity to accept the things you cannot control, even while you also ask for courage to address the things you can.
Christianity teaches you to give in to God rather than trying to make it on your own merit alone, and to appreciate the blessings you receive through God’s grace. In thankfulness, pray for God’s strength to help you address feelings of stress whenever they return.
Lesson 4. When Life is Not Perfect
Action: Take the next step by reading this article.
Key Points to Consider
Stop thinking everything will be perfect once you reach that “next stage” or get that “next good thing,” because life will never be perfect.
Learn to change your point of view:
1. Alter your expectations.
2. Adjust your perspective.
3. Adapt your approach.
4. Count your blessings.
5. Take eternity into account.
Practice enjoying being in the moment, and appreciating life in those moments.
Lesson 5. Dealing with Workplace Stress
Action: Take the final step in this process by reading this article.
Key Points to Consider
Stress does not have to overwhelm you. You can learn to deal with stress effectively and prosper emotionally, spiritually, and personally.
Practice the components of an integrated stress management program:
1. Enhanced Lifestyle
2. Greater Awareness
3. Positive Connection
4. Stress Management
5. Purpose and Plan
Practice being proactive rather than reactive and see stress not as a danger to be avoided, but a positive force to be utilized.
Create a Plan
You have now learned some very important lessons by going through this Tool Kit including:
- You can learn to change your paradigm about stress and reframe it as a necessary and even positive part of your life.
- You can lessen the effects stress has on you by learning to see it as a normal part of life rather than something to be feared.
- Recovery asks you to surrender your will, admit your wrongs, and make amends. Seek the serenity to accept the things you can’t control, even while you also ask for courage to address the things you can.
- Stop thinking everything will be perfect once you reach that “next stage” or get that “next good thing,” because life will never be perfect.
- Stress shouldn’t overwhelm you and once you learn to deal with it effectively, you can prosper emotionally, spiritually, and personally.
Now, it’s time to make plans to help you manage the stress you face every day.
The 5 items below will help you decide what you will change in the future to help you deal with stress more effectively:
1. Which of the principles or techniques from the lessons above are most relevant to your situation? (List as many as are appropriate.)
2. What are the top 2-to-3 actions or techniques you feel would make the most difference in your life on a daily or weekly basis?
3. How will you go about implementing those actions, i.e. what will you actually do?
4. Commit that you will follow through on those actions for at least 30 days and then make adjustments from there.
5. Talk to at least one other person about your stress and ask them to help keep you accountable to take those actions.
Now that you know several ways to manage stress and handle it better, hopefully you are excited and encouraged for the future. Stress is something everyone deals with, but it should never control your life. By no means is life perfect, but understanding this idea and knowing that you have God and other people who are there for you is something special and should always be remembered. You are not alone!
No matter how much stress you may face on a daily basis, know that stress is something that people of all ages must learn to deal with and incorporate as a normal part of life. Don’t worry about the past or your current life circumstances. Stress should not overwhelm you. Take these steps to deal with stress effectively, and prosper emotionally, spiritually, and personally.
Get Started
Take the next right step!
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