Stress Management Tips

Heads up: this is a pretty personal post from me, but I think what I have to share is important enough for me to put a lot of this out there. So here goes....

I don't think it's possible for me to hide it anymore (if indeed I ever was): I am a workaholic and a perfectionist and, as a result, a pretty continuous ball of stress if I don't manage it all well. So how did I get here and how do I keep it in check?

Let's start with how I got here. Perfectionism feels like an inherited trait. Everyone in my family seemed to have it and express it in different ways. For one, it was an immaculate house. For another: tediously beaded or painted ornaments that were still never really good enough. The list goes on and on and as I (inevitably) attempted one thing or another, I too was held to those rigorous standards. Since I am at my core a people pleaser, I pushed myself to look at everything with a critical eye that bordered on self-loathing. Occasionally this habit extends to those around me, but for the most part I am proud to say that I have managed to keep it to myself.

The workaholic side also feels a bit inherited, but I can definitely pinpoint it to a very depressing and stressful time that started right before high school. During that time, allowing my mind to wander seemed to only invite frustrating or saddening thoughts. I very quickly caught on to how little time there is to think when there are 87,000 things to be done that require focus and attention and then are so tiring that you just fall asleep which means still no time to think. That was...not healthy. But it felt like a win to 14 year old me.

However, this also collided painfully against the aforementioned perfectionist tendencies. I wanted to get all these things done, but I also wanted them to be the very best. Some real examples:

• I wanted to create the extra credit menu in Spanish (even though I didn't need the points), but I decided it had to be multiple pages long, each page decorated with hand drawn artwork, each dish having its own unique name and description, and include an original poem to explain the origin of the (fictional) restaurant's name.
• The social studies project needed a hand cut map with a VERY detailed shoreline that could have been the envy of a cartographer.
• I needed to have read the entire book when we had only been assigned the first few chapters and I needed to already have a detailed analysis of what was occurring in history at the same time that might have influenced the storyline.

But knowing that these tasks needed to meet such exacting standards also gave me so much anxiety that I would find myself procrastinating, sure that I would never be able to produce anything worthwhile. So chalk up another crippling habit to break.

Eventually, the panic attacks and crying clued me in that this was not a healthy way to live and I would have to figure out something else. I ultimately created a cycle that I want to share with you today.

1. I create a brain dump. If I can write down literally every project I have going on and every little thing that is stressing me out, then I don't add to my stress by thinking I forgot something or mentally doubling the tasks I have to do because I mentally name something multiple times. It's all written down in my planner so I can start tackling it and marking it off.
2. I figure out what is really important and prioritize that. I give it a real deadline if it doesn't have one already.
3. I figure out what isn't important, what can be delegated, what can be simplified, or what can be eliminated completely. Maybe I still need to bring something to the potluck, but it doesn't have to be homemade.
4. I select a task, then I figure out what the very next tiniest step is that I can take to put me on the road to completion for this task. Is it emailing or calling someone? Is it figuring out what I want to take a picture of? What is the most infinitesimal step I need to take and what does that look like? Once I figure that out, then I do it. Often the tiny step becomes a trigger for someone else to pick up their part. Other times, it bolsters me to move on to the step after that (and of course the one after that)
5. If I feel like procrastinating, I remind myself that the project doesn't stand a very good chance of being perfect if I put it off. While leaning into the perfectionist tendency doesn't seem the greatest idea, it gets me over the hump.
6. When I think about the results being perfect, I remind myself that nothing is perfect. I'm expected to deliver a completed item, task, or concept that will probably be altered anyway. And if it is a complete item on its own, then the recipient will be excited to receive it. 
7. I remind myself that it's ok to say no and it's ok to ask for help. I don't have to do it all just because I'm asked and I don't have to do it all by myself. 
8. I make sure I'm making time to do something that calms me. Call it me time, call it self care, call it whatever you want. It doesn't stop it being vital and, when you think about it, the things that count in this category might surprise you.

If you find that your life feels like it's spinning out of control, try this full cycle to reel it back in. It has made a world of difference for me. I hope that it makes one for you.