Stress Management Will Help You Get Your Stress Level under Control
Stress is a two-edged sword and it’s important you find the proper balance. Stress occurs when things happen that disrupt our routine. Too little stress and we’re under-motivated. Too much stress and we could be heading for an early grave.
The stress of building a business, hitting goals and asking for commitments never goes away.
You’re not going to escape it. You must learn to manage it. Your career depends on it.
You are in the business of influencing others, of getting along with folks. That means you must communicate effectively; comport yourself properly and be in control of yourself and the relationship.
Stress hampers effective communication and comportment.
When you’re stressed, you don’t think clearly and your behavior suffers. You lose control. You say and do things you later regret.
Stress also adversely affects concentration in the long run.
The more something needs to be done, the more we stress. The more we stress, the harder it is for us to focus. We are so focused on opening new accounts that we fail to do so.
One helpful remedy, of course, is self-control.
When effectively dealing with stress, attitude is not optional. Those Advisors who do a better job of containing stress simply have better methods of self-control.
They react how they want. As you go about your daily business, keep a positive attitude and focus on your own performance. Don’t focus on how well the other guy might be doing.
You can teach yourself to control stress and use it to your advantage.
I read an interview with a woman who represented the United States in the biathlon at the Sochi Olympics.
The biathlon is a combination of skiing and shooting. It’s fast cross-country skiing broken up by target shooting. The shooting distance is 160 feet. When the biathletes shoot from a prone position, the largest target they must hit is 1.8 inches in diameter. When standing, the largest target at which they aim is 4.5 inches in diameter.
She was competing against the best biathletes in the world on the biggest stage in the world. Stress is rampant. She told the viewers to imagine running a marathon.
Instead of stopping periodically for water breaks, we must periodically stop and do miniature painting. It sounds impossible, but the athletes do it. They practice incessantly, until the mandatory becomes routine. They have a repeatable process.
If you have a repeatable process
If you have a repeatable process you follow for prospecting, for processing new clients, for conducting reviews and for all the other tasks that bring on the stress, your life improves immediately. All of a sudden, you are doing one thing at a time, not multi-tasking. You have reduced the number of decisions you need to make. You have reduced stress.
Don’t worry about things you can’t control.
The biggest single waste of time on earth is wishing things were different. We all want things to be predictable, but life doesn’t work that way.
You can’t get rid of stress in this profession, but you can get it under control.
Every Financial Advisor has too much on his or her plate. Certain Advisors are overwhelmed and certain Advisors deal with it. The ones who deal with it have as their goal consistency, not perfection. They go slow to go fast.
