Stress is bad. That’s a non-controversial statement if there ever was one. For one thing, it’s an unpleasant feeling.
But there are other, more insidious side effects to stress. It can cause health problems, including high blood pressure. It can also cause lost productivity. The more time you spend worrying about your business, the less time you actually spend getting work done.
In a perfect world, we’d be able to eliminate stress altogether. But it’s inevitable in life, particularly if you’re an entrepreneur.
Thankfully, stress doesn’t always have to be as bad as you think it is. New research suggests that a lot of everyday stress can be turned into a positive thing. You just need to harness it and use it as fuel for productivity.
To use an example, think of the last time you succeeded at a challenging task. Were you stressed out?
Almost certainly, the answer is “yes!” Of course you were stressed. You just handled it the right way.
Vithurs, serial entrepreneur
We recently spoke with Vithurs, a 24-year old serial entrepreneur based in the UK.
Vithurs’ latest venture is Blessed CBD, one of the UK’s top CBD companies. Their wellness products have been voted “best in the UK” by several noteworthy publications, including VentureBeat, Reader’s Digest, Discover Magazine, Observer, Express, Daily Record, Manchester Evening News, We-Heart, Bristol Post and HerbMighty.
With a current estimated market valuation of £15 million and an annual revenue exceeding £4 million, the sky’s the limit for this young company. Needless to say, this kind of success comes with a certain amount of stress.
Vithurs gave us seven tips for using stress to your benefit, while reducing its negative effects.
1. Learn to Appreciate Stress
To begin with, it’s important to accept that stress is an intrinsic part of life. In fact, not all stress is actually bad. There’s a particular type of stress which psychologists call “eustress”, and which Vithurs calls “good stress”. This is the stress you feel when you’re excited.
Here’s a concrete example. You just landed your first big client. This is a big day. You probably went out with your friends to celebrate. At the same time, you also know that you have a lot of work to do. This is a big deal! Of course you’re stressed!
It’s the same type of stress you feel on a first date. You can be filled with complex emotions, and you’re under a lot of pressure. At the same time, things may actually be going very well.
There’s another type of stress that can be helpful: acute stress. This is the type of stress that happens when you’re surprised. This is a physical reaction to the unexpected, and includes an adrenaline rush.
The good news is that acute stress has no long-term negative effects. It’s simply a physiological reaction that spurs you to action. Once the incident has been dealt with, the adrenaline will go away, and your body will return to a normal state.
2. Resilience is a Learned Skill
Stress is an integral part of life. In fact, it can actually be helpful. For instance, if you’re coming up on a deadline, stress is perfectly understandable. You need to get stuff done, and you need to get it down right now. Embracing this stress is an essential skill if you want to get through this period.
In fact, it’s such an essential skill that there’s a name for it: resilience. Everyone goes through difficult times. Everyone needs to manage issues in the face of adversity. It’s how we deal with these issues and bounce back that matters.
Managing acute stress requires you to learn resilience, and like any skill, resilience is learned through practice. The more challenges you face, the more mountains you climb, the more resilient you become. As you do this, you learn strategies to ignore the stress and focus on what’s most important. You also gain self-confidence, which makes future situations less stressful to begin with.
3. Manage Chronic Stress
We’ve talked about how stress can be a good thing, and even improve your performance. But we haven’t really addressed the bad kind of stress. In fact, even eustress can turn into bad stress if it goes on for too long without any kind of resolution.
When this happens, you’re dealing with chronic stress. This is the worst kind of stress, since it can seem like there’s no end in sight. Your physical health can suffer, and you can feel completely overwhelmed. You might not be able to sleep. When this happens, you can suffer from heart disease, obesity, and depression.
The earlier you can manage this type of stress, the better. Reach out to your friends and family. See a therapist. Get whatever help you need to find the source of your stress and deal with it. Not only will this stop the stress, but it will also help you build resilience.
4. Know When to Say “No”
One common cause of stress is taking on too many commitments. To put it bluntly, this is a no brainer. If you bite off more than you can chew, you’re going to get overwhelmed, and this is going to stress you out. In business, this typically means taking on too many projects or clients. This is an easy trap to fall into. More projects means more prestige, and more clients mean more money. More is always better, right?
Wrong. If you get overwhelmed with commitments, you open yourself up to chronic stress. Conversely, if you keep your commitments to a realistic level, you can manage acute stress as it arises. Moreover, this doesn’t need to have a negative effect on your productivity. Instead, look at obligations that are nonessential, and learn to say “no”. This will free you up to tackle more productive tasks, without putting too much on your plate.
5. Recognize What You Can and Can’t Control
Many times, we stress out over circumstances we can’t control. For instance, a few minutes of watching the news is enough to make anyone feel overwhelmed. In fact, the truth is far scarier: the only things you can really control are yourself and your actions. You may be able to influence other events, but they’re mostly out of your hands. By focusing on yourself, you can avoid stressing over outside events.
A Stephen Hawking quote is relevant here. He said: “One of the basic rules of the universe is that nothing is perfect. Perfection simply doesn’t exist.” In other words, there will always be trouble in the world. The only way to deal with it is to limit yourself to what you can control.
Author Shawn Achor makes a more concrete suggestion. In The Happiness Advantage, he talks about the “Island Experiment”. Make a list of everything that stresses you out. Then sort them into two lists, or “islands”. One island is a list of all the things you can control, while the other island is a list of the things you can’t. Throw out the second island. Now look at the first island, and work your way down the list, coming up with actions you can take to manage those issues.
Will this eliminate all the stress from your life? No. But it will help you manage your stress in effective ways, instead of tilting at windmills.
6. Don’t Ruminate – Problem-Solve
Rumination is the act of continually replaying negative events in your head. Not only is this stressful, it can also lead to depression. Worse yet, it’s utterly useless. Think about it; when you’re ruminating, you’re focusing on the past. There’s literally nothing you can do to change it.
This isn’t to say that analyzing your mistakes can’t be helpful. If there are lessons to be learned, it’s all well and good. But when you ruminate for an extended period of time, there’s simply no benefit.
If you find yourself thinking of a past failure, ask yourself if you’re ruminating, or if you’re trying to find a solution. If you’re working out a solution or a better approach, by all means continue! But if there’s nothing productive to be learned, recognize that you’re ruminating and refocus on something productive.
7. Crisis Equals Opportunity
John F Kennedy famously pointed out that the Chinese word for “crisis” consists of two characters: “crisis” and “opportunity”. There is wisdom here. Stress usually comes from the unexpected, or from being pushed to the limit. With practice, you can take advantage of this.
Not convinced? Look back at the most significant accomplishments you’ve ever achieved. Chances are, you were under stress, and had to adapt in some way. Instead of looking at stress as strictly a negative thing, look at it as an opportunity to learn new skills. By harnessing that inner tension, you won’t just succeed in the moment; you’ll also grow as a person.
