Stress Management Action Plan – The Four Things You Can Learn in Order to Control Your Stress

Some years ago I was faced with some very challenging financial situations. The extent of my challenge was such that I was incapacitated with stress. For those of you in this state you will know what I mean. I had the constant tightening of the stomach that very frequently turned to churning in response to many simple events that occurred in my day to day life. This was exasperated by my inability to breathe properly which in turn made me feel worse and resulted in me experiencing hot sweats.

Sleeping became a literal nightmare. What little sleep I did managed to get was laden with dreams brought on by the feeling of impending doom. Of course, little and disturbed sleep causes tiredness during the day and resulted in my under performing in any thing I tried to do. Sometimes I was so low I thought it is all not worth the effort. As things got worse, and compounded, I began to physically shake at times and my body felt like it had become weighted down.

At this point things got even worse when my relationship with my girlfriend was badly affected by all the stress and we agreed to part. I took on all the debts and I began to think everything was really too much. I thought I was in so deep that I would never be able to get out of it both financially and emotionally.

Then I had a lucky break. Someone introduced me to the world of self improvement. Before all of this I always deemed myself as more of a positive thinker than a negative one, so I took to the self improvement ideas pretty quickly. I sought out different materials on the subjects and read in the order that I felt would be most beneficial to me. Below are the four major things I needed to learn to overcome my stress and start getting things done.

The first thing I had to learn was to live life in day tight compartments. In short, the only thing that matters at any point in time is NOW. There is no point worrying about what has happened in the past. It is gone and there is nothing you can do about it. There is no point in worrying about the future, it is not here yet and I realised that 80% of the things in the future we worry about never comes to pass. So the lesson to learn is live life now and cut out the worrying about the past and the future.

The second thing I learned was to look at the worst possible situation. My worst possible situation was that I go bankrupt. I used to look at this as being a terrible thing but I realised that even if I did go bankrupt I would still survive, eat, drink and have a roof over my head in one way or another. I would still have my mind which can be used to create things in the future. So it was important for me to realise that the worst possible situation was not that bad really.

The third thing I learned was that I had to gain control of my own thinking. I realised that I was constantly talking to myself in a negative fashion and I needed to get a grip on my thinking in order to improve my situation. I realised that my negative thinking was giving me instructions to fail and it was my responsibility to change this. I started to monitor exactly what I was thinking and when I caught myself thinking negatively I was pre prepared to substitute this thinking with positive thoughts. I learned that the thoughts that I gave out actually seemed to attract corresponding situations. By thinking positively it seemed to automatically attract positive things into my life.

The fourth thing I learned was that I had to work out a step by step plan to get to where I wanted to be. This requires identifying a challenging goal and putting in place each step that is required to achieve that goal. By doing this you are constantly putting your efforts in the right place at all times. The most important thing here is to set a meaningful goal that is set in stone, whilst always remembering that plans never go according to plan. Therefore, you must be constantly monitoring your plan.

The above four realisations have meant that I was able to turn around my situation very quickly. I was very receptive to learning as my situation at the time felt terrible and I was sick and tired of being in my position. So it was imperative to become receptive to new ideas and knowledge as this will affect the pace at which you learn. Within days I was able to completely remove the stomach churning, the hot sweats, the restless sleep and the tiredness by applying the points made above. After training my mind to think correctly, I was able to sit down calmly and apply my energies to a step by step plan in a direction I believed would gradually pull myself out of my challenging situations.

I know it works from experience. I have been there and conquered it. I know that anyone who really wants to achieve anything must apply the principles outlined above. So if you want to get out of the rut you will have to become receptive to learning, start to control your mind in terms of worry, and of your thinking, and put in place a plan of action designed to get you where you want to be. Most importantly, I know you can do it if you want to.

Stress Management Action Plan – The Four Things You Can Learn in Order to Control Your Stress by Neville Park