Presentation I delivered at this years "Futures Conference" on using the resources available to help you live a balanced life-style and cope with the daily stressors in your professional and personal lives

1. Achieving Life BalanceAchieving Life Balance
Coping with Stress @ Work and @ HomeCoping with Stress @ Work and @ Home

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Seminar Goals
• Eliminate any misconceptions about stress
management
• Learn to avoid or eliminate stressors
when possible
• Build upon your current coping resources
and stress-management skills
• Develop new coping resources

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Stress is Life
Worth Remembering …
“If you want to avoid worry live in a day-
tight compartment and don’t stew about
the future. Just live each day until
bedtime.”
- Dale Carnegie

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Stress Busters
Questions Worth Answering:
• What is creating stress in your life?
• What can you do about it?
• What are you prepared to do about it?

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Life is About WIIFM’s
Questions Worth Answering:
• How satisfied are you with where you are
in your career, your home or social life?
• If you could make a change in your career,
your home or your social life what would
it be?
• What do you need to do to make that
happen?

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What’s Your WIIFM?
Worth Remembering …
“Those who cannot tell what they desire or
expect still sigh and struggle with
indefinite thoughts and vast wishes”
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The Attitude Challenge
• Does everyone have an attitude?
• Are they all the same?
• Do you own 100% of yours?
• Does your attitude have an impact on the
outcome in any given situation?

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Attitude
Worth Remembering …
“Change what you can – influence what you
will – and give up all of those things that
you cannot control”

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Change Model
C – Commit – to a new beginning
H – Habits – break old and start new
A – Action – take one step at a time
N – Never – never give up – be persistent
G – Goals – set SMART targets
E – Evaluate – your plan & reward yourself

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Good Habits = Good Results
Worth Remembering …
“As long as you keep doing what you’ve
been doing then you are going to keep on
getting what you’ve been getting. Change
the habit – change the result”
- Zig Ziglar

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Stress?
Questions Worth Answering:
• What is stress?
• What do we know for certain about
stress?
• What do we know for certain that can
help us cope with the negative health
side-effects of stress?

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Relax – You’re Alive
Worth Remembering …
“Bless this stress. It helps me see that I’m
such a mess”
- Loretta LaRoche

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Functional
Dysfunctional
ExcitementComfort
Boredom
Low Balanced High
Frustration
Stress Level

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Three Methods for Coping
with Stress
• Eliminate the stressor or change your
response to it
• Use the coping resources available to you
• Develop new coping resources

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1. Most Critical Issues
2. 4. Least Critical Issues
3.
Able to Change Difficult to Change
HighPriorityLowPriority

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Most Critical Issues
• Your most critical stress issues are those
you feel are a high priority to change and
you are able to change them. If it is
blocking you from achieving your goals
then it should be a high priority.

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Least Critical Issues
• Your least critical stress issues are those
with a low priority and are very difficult to
change. For those stressors that you can
change - develop a plan. For those
stressors that you can’t change - than you
need to change your response to them.

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Balance
Worth Remembering …
“Much of the stress that people feel doesn’t
come from having too much to do. It
comes from not finishing what they’ve
started.”
- David Allen

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The New Reality
Worth Remembering …
“I thought 24/7 was a new kind of Mac’s
Milk not a new way of life. This new
technology was suppose to improve the
quality of our lives – not compound it”

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Just Say No
Worth Remembering …
“Besides the noble art of getting things
done, there is the noble art of leaving
things undone. The wisdom of life consists
of eliminating the non-essentials.”

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My De-Stressor
Worth Remembering …
“If you don’t like something change it; if you
can’t change it, change the way you are
thinking about it”
- Mary Engelbreit

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Relationship Coping
Resources
• Problem Solving -- the ability to deal
directly with the difficult situations you
face and make positive changes to resolve
them.
• Communication -- the ability to share
thoughts and feelings with others in order
to promote mutual understanding, even
under difficult circumstances.

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Relationship Coping
Resources
• Closeness -- the degree to which you have
developed a supportive social fabric in
each area of life
• Flexibility -- the degree of organization in
your life and how comfortable you are
with unstructured and unpredictable
situations

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Personal Coping Resources
• Self-Esteem -- feeling good about yourself
and perceiving yourself as having inherent
worth as a person
• Mastery -- feeling competent and in
control of your life
• Social Support -- having a network of
friends and family you can count on

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Personal Coping Resources
• Spiritual Beliefs -- believing in a set of
values external to yourself
• Nutrition -- dietary habits and motivations
• Exercise -- physical activity that maximizes
or minimizes your ability to cope with
stress

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Problem Solving
refers to your ability
to deal directly with
the difficult situations you face
and make positive changes
to resolve them.

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To Improve Your Problem
Solving Skills
• Deal with the problem as soon as you
perceive it
• Define the problem carefully
• Separate people from the problem
• Separate emotions from the problem

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To Improve Your Problem
Solving Skills
• Determine your desired outcome
• Make a list of creative and practical
solutions
• Don’t get trapped into thinking there is
only “one” resolution

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Problems
Worth Remembering …
“The problem is not that there are
problems. The problem is expecting
otherwise and thinking that having
problems is a problem.”
- Theodore Rubin

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Communication
is the ability to share thoughts
and feelings with others in order
to promote mutual
understanding, even under
difficult circumstances.

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Communication Patterns
• Gender Patterns
• Generational
Patterns
• Geographic
Patterns
• Cultural Patterns
• Educational
Patterns
• Occupational
Patterns

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Communication Realities
• You cannot not communicate
• Whenever contact is made
communication occurs
• Meanings are in people not in words
• Meanings cannot be transferred from one
mind to another … only words can be
transferred.

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“We only hear half of
what is said to us,
understand only half of
that, and remember only
half of that.”
--Mignon McLaughlin

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Active Listening
• Listen to understand, not to judge
• Focus on the message sent
• Use “reflective listening” to summarize
the other person’s message
• Praise others for sharing

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Listening Realities
• Humans have the ability to listen at a rate
of _______________ words per minute
• Humans have the ability to speak at a rate
of _______________ words per minute
• That gives humans ________ words per
minute to tune out.
- Dr. Ralph Nichols

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Effective Speaking
• Use “I” statements when you speak
• Be respectfully assertive
• Speak for a purpose
• As for feedback

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Speak with Purpose
Worth Remembering …
“Let us say what we feel, and feel what we
say; let speech harmonize with life”
- Seneca

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Closeness
refers to the degree to which
you have developed a
supportive social fabric in
each area of your life.

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“We cannot live only for
ourselves. A thousand
fibers connect us with our
fellow men...”
--Herman Melville

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Developing Closeness
• Make relationships a priority
• Share your personal feelings
• Find quality time together
• Focus on the positive and give praise
• Focus on future goals

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Flexibility
Indicates both the degree of
structure in your life and how
comfortable you are with
situations that are unstructured
and unpredictable

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Developing Flexibility
• Be open to diverse ideas
• Brainstorm ideas without judging
• Avoid judging “right” or “wrong”
• “Try on” other people’s ideas

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“The most successful people are those whose
success is the result of steady accretion. It is
those people who carefully advance step by
step, their minds becoming wider and wider, and
progressively better able to grasp any theme or
situation, persevering in what they know to be
practical, and concentrating their thought upon
it, who are bound to succeed in the greatest
degree.”
--Alexander Graham Bell

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Achieving Life Balance
• For stressors you CAN change, develop a
specific plan of action for creating change, then
follow through with that plan
• Change your response to those stressors you
CANNOT change
• Improving stress management capabilities can
increase personal and business productivity,
emotional well-being, and relationships

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Achieving Life Balance
• Stress is not always bad. Moderate stress
can help you be more creative, energetic,
focused, and productive
• When stress increases beyond our ability
to easily cope with it, we begin to feel its
negative effects

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7-Steps to Less Stress
It’s a Matter of Being FOCUSED©
F – Forgiving of others and yourself
O – Organized – invest time wisely
C – Consistent – develop good habits
U – Understanding – show empathy
S – Sincere – help others be successful
E – Energized – live your dreams
D – Determined – never give up

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Your Reality Check
Worth Remembering …
“You can either get FOCUSED or get
STUFFED. The choice is yours”

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Thank You
Thank you for participating in this
workshop. I hope you got your WIIFM.
Brian Smith
Power Link Dynamics
briansmithpld@gmail.com
http://briansmithpld.com