Life’s challenges create pressure. I cannot always eliminate these challenges, but I can be smart about how I respond to them.

Action

I feel stressed when I put things off.

To overcome procrastination, I simply agree to do one small thing. A common example is to go for a walk, I lace up my shoes. To do odd jobs around the house, I lay out my tools. Often, this one thing sets in motion my completing small tasks. To reduce stress, I break projects down into multiple, simple steps.

When I am stuck with writing an article, for example, I write a statement. From there I write the information to explain the statement. I might write one paragraph. I save what I have written as a draft. During the day, I may stop and leave my work. However, by coming back with a fresh mind and additional information through the day, I complete the article.

Write Things Down

When something is bothering me, I can write it down. Writing takes the sting out of stress. Further writing helps me process anxiety. Moreover, further writing often leads to solutions to solving problems that bother me.

From there, I have a plan of action that gives me the confidence to be more productive. I have a sense of accomplishment. I feel less stressed.

Eat Healthy Food First

When hunger makes me anxious between meals, a snack cuts my anxiety until mealtime.

Sugar snacks make me hungrier. The sugar demands insulin to burn the sugar. Somewhere in the lack of balance between sugar and insulin, I feel anxious.

Therefore, I try to keep more satisfying snacks handy. Cheese, nuts, peanut butter are calorically dense, but reduce cravings and quiet the anxious voices in my head.

Take Breaks

Being tired clutters my mind. I become less productive. My cluttered mind focuses on problems.

For me, a power nap or a walk help me recover from the fatigue of working on most projects. Simply taking a walk reduces my anxiety.

To remind myself to move each hour, I have notifications on my calendar to leave my desk and move around.

I Take Breaks and Sleep at Night

Not only do I take breaks. I try to get seven hours of sleep. Allowing my brain to rest enables me to make better decisions. Better decisions increase success and cut stress.

Lack of rest is one of the steps to burnout. We reach a point where overdoing our job cripples us in ways that we cannot perform at work.

Keep It Real

It is so easy for me to want to control national or international events. Thinking that I can control these things is completely fruitless and painfully stressful.

People in forums say things that annoy me. Correcting them is pointless. I cannot police the Internet!

Likewise, I can easily believe that I can change other people. There are things that I can do that affect how other people react. However, just changing my own behavior is not always easy. Believing that I can change other people is often impractical.

Frustration over the things I cannot change creates stress. I try to keep it real about the things that I can change and not change.

Talk with Friends

Just having friends helps me beat stress. Talking to friends gets me out of my own head and into the present moment.  Furthermore, in talking with friends, I get practical information on dealing with life’s challenges, thereby increasing success and stress reduction.

Stress Reduction

Reducing stress from life’s challenges clears our mind and increases our long-term success. The steps to stress reduction include steps to increase our health.

Take breaks: I can become so absorbed in my work that I don’t realize that I am too tired to be effective. However, not stopping to rest is counterproductive. When I am pushing myself mentally and physically, I may complete less work. Moreover, I may deal with situations poorly. Not taking breaks can lead to mistakes. I am in fact wasting time that would be better spent working more efficiently after taking a break.

When I take breaks, I feel better. A break restores my energy. I feel refreshed. My attitude becomes healthier. I decompress. My mind clears. With a clear mind, I can focus on my work. My mind and emotions worked together more effectively (emotional intelligence). I reduce the risk of career burnout!

Warning Signs

Learn to recognize the warning signs that you need a break. Here are examples. Additionally, learn to treat warning signs as feedback that you are not at your peak level of performance.

1. Loss of focus
2. Worrying
3. Fear
4. Insecurity
5. Regret
6. Guilt
7. Shortness of Temper
8. Prolonged Feeling of Frustration
9. Fatigue
10. Hunger

Power Nap

A 20-minute power nap has been part of my lifestyle for years. Thomas Edison took power naps every day. President Ronald Reagan once said, “I have left orders to be awakened at any time in case of national emergency, even if I’m in a cabinet meeting.” There is no shame in resting your eyes, mind, and body.

Quiet Lunch

I knew a marketing manager who required his people to eat lunch at their desk. Eating helps restore my energy. It calms my nerves. But when I am trying to eat and work at the same time, three things happen and none of them is good. I enjoy my meal less. My mind must shift back and forth from my meal to my work. Moreover, when working with my hands, I must go back and forth between handling my food and doing my work.

On the other hand, going to a quiet place to eat has is refreshing. Like taking a nap, I give my mind a rest. Anxiety, mental clutter, fatigue may disappear. Meeting a friend for lunch may help even more.

Physical Activity

Physical activity is a helpful way to take breaks. Just walk around a different block. Generally, I leave my work behind for twenty minutes. I go someplace new when you can. It is refreshing to take a different route and go at different times of day. Walking burns away restlessness and anxiety.

With the pressures of body image, we lose sight of the importance of being mentally healthy. In walking 20 minutes, most people burn around 100 calories. The biggest benefit is between your ears. You think better. Even if you work out before or after work, a daily walk is well worth the mental gains.

An Aside

Leaving your desk to exercise does give your mind a break. For additional opportunities for exercise, there are things you can do to exercise at your desk. As you are rearranging things on your desktop, stand up. When you are talking on the phone, stand up. When you are returning or retrieving things from your desktop to your desk drawers, stand up.

While you are working at your desk, tighten your stomach, leg, chest, shoulder, ankles, feet and neck. Roll your ankles. Arch your back. Stretch your arms. As you pause from typing or when you are on the phone, roll your neck.

Take Breaks: Department of Labor

The Department of Labor provides a list of minimum paid meal breaks and rest breaks.

“Federal law does not require lunch or coffee breaks. However, when employers do offer short breaks (usually lasting about 5 to 20 minutes), federal law considers the breaks as compensable work hours that would be included in the sum of hours worked during the workweek and considered in determining if overtime was worked. Unauthorized extensions of authorized work breaks need not be counted as hours worked when the employer has expressly and unambiguously communicated to the employee that the authorized break may only last for a specific length of time, that any extension of the break is contrary to the employer’s rules, and any extension of the break will be punished.

Meal periods (typically lasting at least 30 minutes), serve a different purpose than coffee or snack breaks and, thus, are not work time and are not compensable.”

Balanced Life

Successful people live a balanced life. They work hard. Sometimes they push themselves to finish a project, even weeks at a time. But they know how to take breaks. In addition to work breaks, they take time for the people in their life. They make wise choices in the food they eat. Additionally, they take time to exercise. A time to rest is part of their daily routine. They take time for recreation and entertainment. They live a balanced life. Every aspect of a balanced life is a way to take breaks.

Poise is not always automatic. Nearly everyone feels uncertain and lacks poise from time-to-time. How do successful people restore their confidence and maintain their poise in challenging situations?

Poise starts between our ears and spreads through our heart and our gut and then outward through our face and our gestures. ~ www.jaywren.com

Situations that Weaken our Poise

Our insecurities can make it difficult for us to feel confident and poised.  A lack of experience or a bad experience can undermine our poise. Situations where we fear people are judging us weakens our confidence and poise. Especially public speaking plays with our fears that people are judging us and undermines our ability to speak effectively.

My Personal Experience
Although I feel confident to give a prepared presentation, I can feel uncertain when I know that people are looking over my shoulder and judging me.  When I first became a salesman, for example, I lacked the poise to give presentations in front of supervisors.  It took months before I had the confidence to relax and be more effective. Not only did my product knowledge improve and lead to more confidence. I also learned that my role was not to show how impressive I was. Rather, I learned that the purpose of my call was to help buyers understand what they needed to know to make an intelligent decision about my programs and products.

Even with the increased comfort of giving sales presentations in front my supervisors, I learned the importance of developing skills for restoring my confidence and increasing my poise.

Poise: Steps to Confidence and Increasing Your Potential

Over time, I have developed tools to help me feel more confident.  Some of these are simple. Others take time and practice.  Here are tools I have developed to create energy and confidence around other people.

Breathe

You don’t have to stop for a 20-minute mindfulness meditation to use breathing to gather composure.  Anxiety can suppress our breathing.  A lack of oxygen creates even more anxiety.  However, replenishing oxygen with a breath can reduce anxiety.

Breathe in slowly.  Mentally focus on your breath.  The process will give your body the oxygen to burn the adrenaline from anxiety.  Furthermore, focusing on your breathing redirects your thinking from your anxiety to a calming breath and allows you to become spontaneous.  You will return to an effective mental flow of your tasks. With the present moment mental flow, you will gather composure.

Listen with a Purpose

Focus on what people are saying.  Ask yourself why they are saying those things.  Think of how the information from other people is useful to you.  Seeing the benefits in another person’s message takes your focus off your insecurities and creates positive feelings about what you are learning.

Practice Intelligent Silence

Intelligent silence is powerful. Attending meetings and listening helps us understand the proposals, the discussion, and the decisions. Additionally, listening helps us give meaningful feedback and input. We appear more thoughtful and poised. When we do speak, we become a valuable contributor to the discussion.

Bring an Agenda

Come to meetings with a list of things that you want to know and things you want to say.  This approach is especially helpful when you are attending a job interview. Having the agenda in front of you creates focus and empowers you with confidence that you are at the meeting with a purpose.

Giving Support to Others

Giving your support to others in meetings takes your focus off your insecurities. In seeing how you can help others get their message heard, you create focus on the purpose of the meeting and not on how you feel about yourself.

Conclusion

Creating skills for poise can help us in every aspect of our careers. Additionally, these skills help us enjoy the times when we are with our friends and family.  Equally important, these skills even help us get out of our head and into the flow of the present moment. When we are working alone or simply relaxing alone, we can enjoy the pleasures of poise.