When life feels difficult in uncertain times, signs of stress and anxiety symptoms may start to show. Here are five mental well being tips to help you reduce stress and reduce anxiety.
Since March 2020, just about everyone has experienced moments (or months) of uncertainty, insecurity, stress, worry or anxiety. So first of all, well done to us all for pushing on, despite everything.
As a life coach and NLP practitioner, I work with many clients to help them relieve stress, to show them how to reduce anxiety and how to create a better mind body balance.
Here I share five key life coaching tips which you can start implementing straight away to get back on track:
1. Do what is within your power first and foremost to reduce stress
Try not to rely on outside forces or people to provide you with what you want or need.
When you wait for others to provide, you are not in control of the outcome; you are relinquishing power to make things happen.
For example, you may want support, money or a lift to somewhere. If you rely on another person to provide it to you and then they don’t deliver to you what you wanted, you end up feeling disappointed or let down.
If you do what is within your own power to support yourself; eg. develop your internal support system, make your own money, organize a taxi to get you somewhere, you are in control of the outcome. You are taking ownership of your experience.
Independence goes a long way. It doesn't mean you cannot still accept help along the way.
2. Operate at your 100% best
If you put 100% effort into everything you do, you’ll achieve the best outcome possible. If you only put in 50% effort, guess what? The outcome will only be 50% of its potential.
This is another way of taking ownership of your experiences and thought patterns. An outside force may intercept, (hello pandemic), yet as long as you know that you have personally given your all, you have done all you can.
If things do not go as you want them to, despite your 100% effort, please do not give up. This is the moment when many people either give up trying or say ‘it wasn’t meant to be’, but keep your momentum. Effort equals results.
One of the 16 NLP presuppositions is 'We have all the resources we will ever need within us'. Even if we don't have something, we have the resource to identify what we need to get it.
3. Maintain a positive attitude to reduce anxiety
Despite what may be going on in your environment, it is possible to maintain your equilibrium with self care and a positive mindset.
Continually choosing negative thought patterns or unsubstantiated mind stories does not serve you and only perpetuates a bad mood. It takes awareness and practice to focus your mind on the positive, but it is possible. And practice makes perfect.
Read '10 Simple Ways to Develop a Positive Mindset' on this blog.
Also, check out my Udemy course ‘How To Think & Live Positively’ which shares eighteen tried and tested techniques to create and maintain a positive attitude.
4. Let go of expectations to reduce stress
When you expect something to go a certain way and then it doesn’t, you may experience disappointment, anger or sadness.
For example, if you plan an outdoors activity for the weekend, but then it rains, you may feel disappointed. Yet, if you say to yourself that come hell or high water, you’re going to enjoy every minute of your weekend, you are setting a positive intention to value your spare time whatever happens.
It becomes time (and maybe money) well spent.
A second example: If you take a new job and expect your boss to hold your hand and make sure you're doing okay all the time and he/she doesn’t do this, you will feel frustrated and maybe let down. If you start the new job with an intention to do what is needed to succeed and take care of yourself in your own way, you will have no expectations (of someone else) and will create ownership of the outcome.
There is a difference between expecting something to go the way you want it to and setting an intention. Setting an expectation gives power to outside forces or other people (see no. 1 above). Whereas setting an intention, you put energy into creating an experience or outcome.
5. Drop the blame game to reduce anxiety
It is very easy to hang the blame on others. ‘This happened to me because he/she did that’ or ‘I can’t do X now because so and so did Y’.
In NLP, this is called being 'at effect'; being effected by something/someone. The alternative is being 'at cause'.
Here is an example of being 'at effect'; "I had an awful day because Lucy rang for a chat early this morning and made me late."
Whereas being 'at cause' could be "I chose to answer the phone this morning. I couldn't have the catch up I would have liked as I realised I was running late."
Notice if you make 'at effect' statements, either in your self talk or out loud. They delay you in developing a valuable and realistic strategy to move forwards. How can you say it differently to be 'at cause'?
Life coaching will help you to reduce stress, anxiety and worry in your life.
I am a certified life coach and NLP practitioner, trained to help you think more positively and therefore reduce anxiety and stress.
Book a free 30-minute Discovery Call to see how I can help you. I am an online life coach.
