Stress affects us all. In fact, according to Forth, 42% of women and 36% of men believe that they are too stressed. The main causes for this are money for women and work for men. 54% of all illness related days off from work are due to stress in the UK.
In this post I want to explore 4 types of stress and how you might deal with them. But before I continue – one word of warning.
Meetings can feel like the bane of our life. “I have too many meetings, to do my job”. They can cause burn out, or the team are always in meetings and not doing their work. Just restructuring your diary, reorganising the meetings and making them more effective can clear your diary, and make the whole team deliver more. Here’s 5 tips to take yourself on the way. 
I recently spent the morning with Bryan McCrae from Sales Motivations looking at how cognitive behavioural psychology can apply well with meetings and sales teams. There are 10 types of automatic negative thoughts (ANTS) that hold us back in thinking clearly in meetings. If you can catch yourself or notice others using them, it can help uncover assumptions, and life rules that are being made – and might hold back form making clear decisions
Have you wondered why people might find you haughty, when you’re just trying to explain something? Or perhaps you wonder why you might not be taken seriously in meetings?
Just the way we talk, stand, and hold ourselves can have a huge impact on others.
I am currently on an improvisation training programme with the Nursery Theatre. This is a great opportunity to look at your growthtraps and try out being, and acting differently. One area we are we are looking at character at the moment and what status do you hold in an interaction. Sometimes we want to be powerful, other times sub-servient. In all cases it’s useful to know specifically what choices you are making.
It’s taken a while to get the 12 week Break Through Growth Traps email programme complete, but it’s now being sent out to all of you who signed up. It’s possible that the emails are going in your SPAM folder, so please add growthtraps.com to your safe sender list to get the e-mails to your inbox.
This is the first version of the course so we’re asking for feedback on how well it works for you, and if there’s anything we could adjust.
In the meantime, I hope you find the insights and exercises helpful to make the change you want.