Delete, Delegate, or Ask for Help
Stress can feel overwhelming when everything in your head seems equally important.
Work deadlines. Family responsibilities. Bills. Emails. Things you forgot to do. Problems you can't control. Decisions you haven't made yet.
One of the simplest ways to reduce that mental load is to get it out of your head and onto paper.
Start by writing down everything that's currently causing you stress. Don't organize it or try to solve anything yet. Just make a stress inventory.
Once it's written down, go through each item and ask yourself:
Can I Actually Control This?
Some stressors are within your control. Others aren't. You can't control someone else's behavior, the economy, traffic, what already happened, or every possible outcome in the future. Spending energy repeatedly worrying about those things usually doesn't change them. It just keeps your stress response activated.
Next, look at the things you can influence and ask another question:
Does This Actually Require My Time and Attention Right Now?
This is where three simple strategies can help:
Delete It
Some things simply aren't important enough to deserve your energy.
Maybe it's an unnecessary commitment, an unrealistic expectation you've placed on yourself, or something that feels urgent but really isn't.
Give yourself permission to remove it from the list.
Delegate It
Just because something needs to get done doesn't mean you have to do it.
At work, that might mean assigning a task to someone else. At home, it could mean sharing responsibilities with your spouse, kids, family members, or friends.
Delegating isn't avoiding responsibility. It's recognizing that your time and energy are limited resources.
Ask for Help
Sometimes you can't delete something and you can't completely hand it off, but you don't have to handle it alone.
Ask a coworker for assistance. Talk to your spouse. Call a friend. Hire someone if that's an option. Ask someone with more experience for advice.
We often create additional stress by believing we should be able to handle everything ourselves.
The goal isn't to eliminate every stressful situation from your life. That's impossible.
The goal is to stop carrying stress that doesn't need to be carried.
Write your stressors down. Identify what you can control. Then look for opportunities to delete, delegate, or ask for help.
Sometimes managing stress isn't about becoming better at handling more.
It's about realizing you don't have to handle everything.
Get After It!!
-Austin
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