Work Related Stress: Is it a Problem?
If you live in dread much of the week because of your job being too stressful it’s a sad situation. It is important to try to make every workday more satisfying and less stressful. Life is difficult enough for many of us and we definitely don’t need any extra stress from work.
Oftentimes people live for the weekends just because they find their work environments stressful for them. Some common stress factors at work include presentations, anxiety when your boss is around you, office gossip, and office politics. Some of us get real anxious and stressed out over impending deadlines.
Living for the weekends cuts out a large chunk of your time during the week. It puts your life on hold in a big way. Living for two days out of seven means a big waste of your time. Situations like this require some definite action on your part to help ease the stress you’re experiencing.
Sometimes we have to step out of the box to solve stress problems. Toastmasters is a helpful organization available in many larger communities that helps people practice their presentations and learn skills to feel comfortable in group meetings. This can assist you in improving your focus as well as speech skills and can help you also with writing. All the typical “buts”, “ands”, and “ifs” are more eloquently re-phrased through training. Toastmasters and similar groups can help in this.
Such training will have an impact on your presentations as well as even casual conversations with people in upper management. Your presentations will become more professional, putting you in a good light with your superiors on the job. That certainly can’t hurt and can potentially open doors for you in the future.
If you experience undue stress that is related to interpersonal relationships such as that between you and your boss or you and co-workers, first examine your communication skills and personality style. Are you too passive? Are you too blunt? Do you think before you blurt out an answer or criticism?
Is there anything you do that may help contribute to the problem? This might require some critical thinking or self introspection to get at the answer. Sometimes its a good policy to be neutral in situations where you can if you don’t have much to contribute.
It’s important to avoid participating in office gossip. It can often backfire. If it does, you could then be the focus of these petty conversations. You’re not one to show off or try to one-up others in an effort to be noticed are you? That’s a game that’s difficult to win for it can lead to loads of gossip and strong feelings and talk against you.
Some situations that occur with one’s boss may sometimes be touchy. Your employer can feel you aren’t doing enough or even view you as a potential competitor and threat if you are working at an above average level. Doing your best, asking for suggestions and staying away from any job taboos like making or receiving loads of personal phone calls, surfing the Internet, being a few minutes late several times a week, etc is important.
Don’t let you boss’s personality quirks get to you. If others are speaking about certain traits of your boss that you also find annoying, you can get at least some validation it’s not just you. Still, things may not change at work unless your boss seeks therapy. Of course that will almost surely never happen so you’ll have try to make the best of each situation.
Changing jobs is always an option but you need to study your own work history to see if you would find the same difficulties in a new situation. After evaluating your situation then you can make an informed decision about whether leaving will be a fresh start for you or may end up just repeating the same patterns.
It’s possible you might have to just “bite the bullet” and make changes in yourself to accommodate better those situations that cause problems or excessive stress for you. It’s hard for an outsider to tell you what to do without knowing the exact situation, but often they can see things you overlook or take for granted that could ease some situations and stress.
An example of this might be one of my son’s friends. I assumed he was irresponsible from knowing him from childhood. He was now about twenty-two and apparently didn’t care enough about his job to keep a job, let alone advance. Let’s call him Jacob. Jacob had many jobs, but none lasted long at all. He somehow got a decent job, making good money for his lack of a college education or even experience in anything that counted.
I voiced my opinion to my son not to loan him any money – Jacob was just too unreliable to pay it back. If you met Jacob you would think he was such a nice person, which he is. He doesn’t hang around the wrong crowd, doesn’t drink, doesn’t use dope and seems like a model twenty-two year old.
Jacob had no car so my son loaned him some money to buy a used car, thinking it would help Jacob get to and from his job easily. It wasn’t but a short time later that Jacob wrecked the car. Shortly afterwards Jacob had an argument with his boss and was fired.
It’s been three years since then and Jacob has had one or two other jobs that lasted a few weeks. He was kicked out of his house. Although he worked only a few weeks the past three years he somehow managed to go through three more cars, all becoming wrecked and trashed. Of course my son is still out of the thousand dollars or so that he loaned Jacob. Jacob still hasn’t made the common sense changes needed to keep a job. It’s clear to everyone else that Jacob needs to change or he will never hold a long term job. Sometimes it takes self evaluation and changes to advance.
If you can’t leave your job and it seems that the situations that are stressful will be ongoing, then you can use the workplace setting to develop or improve skills such as how to express yourself, having patience, and dealing with work situations that test your resolve. This will carry into all your activities and you will gain personal growth through being in a challenging situation that forces you to look inwards and continuously be on your toes.
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