With mental health awareness becoming increasingly prevalent, it’s by no surprise that as sales professionals, we are now embracing the idea of mental fitness and how this could transform our profession.
As part of our mental fitness series, I recently attended an “Mental Health Awareness at the workplace” event and these 7 tips were discussed.
- Remember that stress isn’t a bad thing
Stress motivates us to work toward solving our challenges. Reframing our thoughts can mean that we view stress as an acceptable emotion or a tool.
This is been found to reduce many of the negative symptoms, the goal therefore, is to manage stress, not to eliminate it.
- Be open about your challenges, even if there are no solutions
Talk about your problems even if they won’t be solved. This process releases hormones in our body that reduces the negative feelings associated with the stress.
We should make sure we speak with our friends and loved ones, this simple act is invaluable during times of stress.
- Having perspective on things
We always magnify the situation during the heat of the moment, this leads to ordinarily little things being exaggerated.
The advise, always take a step back, evaluate the situation and ask ourselves – would this matter next week or next year?
Another outlet is to write down how you are feeling on paper. I personally journal and I can attest to how powerful this technique helps to relieve stress.
- Make time for yourself
As humans, we have a tendency to deprioritise our personal time. However, during times of stress, it is believed that spending time on ourselves goes a long way in relieving stress.
When personal time is neglected, it’s tends to have a negative knock on effect on everything else.
The advise is to allocate time to relax and to ensure there are no interruptions.
- Prioritise Prioritise Prioritise
Having too many “to-dos” can evoke the feeling of stress. We should try to always complete the quick tasks first, and where possible, finalise the difficult tasks first without procrastination.
I generally leverage the principle above to organise my tasks on a weekly basis, this may be useful for some readers and perhaps not as much for others.
Quadrant 1 – situations that are important and urgent, of considerable significance and a very close deadline.
Examples – equipment breakdowns, illnesses, meeting customer deadlines.
Quadrant 2 – situations that are important, but not urgent – considerable significance, but also considerable time for completion.
Examples – meeting your wife or kids, product or sales training, personal and professional development.
Quadrant 3 – situations that are not important, but urgent – things of less significance, yet with a short deadline that forces us to react immediately.
Examples – emails of little significance which we are asked to send promptly by a client or management
Quadrant 4 – situations that are unimportant and non-urgent – things that are of little significance and have longer deadlines.
Examples – time-consuming tasks that do nothing to improve our effectiveness or efficiency.
- Refrain from putting all your eggs in one basket
This analogy holds true in every sense, having a balance in life is directly proportional to your level of stress.
We should ensure a balance within our career, family, friendships, hobbies and purpose.
- Always go back to basics
An ex CEO I once had the pleasure of working with always told us this story, and a true story he claimed.
The story goes, an IT Category lead who attended lots of various industry events was always inundated with newer technologies and options. She was always impressed with the level of innovation with these newer technologies however, when it was time for her to purchase, she always went back to the basics and purchased what she trusted.
Stress can start a harmful cycle whereby we neglect our basic needs, which leads to more stress. We should always focus on our basic needs such as eating well, keeping to a healthy sleeping schedule, exercising and other forms of self-care.
Now, the above story might be totally unrelated however, this Category Lead always avoided stress yet accomplished her buying objectives.
Feel free to comment and share which tool or resource you use to help you manage your tasks.
If you found this useful, I would value your feedback and comments. Remember, this is a learning blog and our WHY is to use these blogs as a platform to support others.
P.S- do contact me at mike@metricdrivenselling.com should you need any further questions or support.
To Our Growth
Mike
