< Go Back Reducing Your Stress Levels - the 'Two-Question' approach. Posted: Mar 26, 2014
Reducing your stress levels by knowing what to tackle and what to
release
Stress can often become all-consuming. You get eaten up with doubt
and worry and then so swamped by everything that you become unable to act to
reduce the stress.
When facing a stressful time you will almost always find it very helpful
to categorise and prioritise all the individual things that are causing your
stress. Draw a simple 'Priorities' chart and then start adding all the
things that are stressing you into the chart. All the time you are doing
this you need to be asking yourself two critical questions:
By asking yourself these two questions (high priority or low priority,
easy to change or difficult to change?) and listing all the things that stress
you in the Priorities chart you will be able to see clearly where it's best to
put your time and energy.
Now take action! Start with the 'high priority, easy to change'
things first then move rapidly on to the 'high priority, difficult to change' items. Having done all these, reassess the low priority things. You
may well find that they are no longer stressing you and can be dismissed
altogether!
Remember, in the grand scheme of things not every issue or situation is
worth the amount of attention we give it. Sometimes we get stressed over
things that really don't matter or things that we can't change. Use these
questions to help you decide which problems deserve your attention now and
which ones can wait, and then you will be able to spend your time and effort
most effectively.
