How To Relieve Your Stress Daily
Put a stop to those nagging thoughts in the back of your mind.
We all have something we stress about on a daily basis, whether it be finances, work-related, family issues, dating problems, health-related things, etc.
It’s okay to stress and worry about things that are important to us, the problem is when we let those things take over our lives and we’re unable to enjoy our day-to-day life because you constantly have this nagging thought in the back of your mind telling you, “you have this to worry about.”
Over the last year, I’ve experienced stress like I never have before. We all did. I was struggling to pay my bills, pay my credit card debt, I was avoiding emails because if you don’t read them, are they even really there? And every time I’d go out with friends or grab drinks with my partner, I’d once again experience that nagging thought, “You have x, y, and z to worry about. How can you possibly be having fun right now?”
The stress would feel like a toothache, one that goes away for a few blissful hours but would return at the most inconvenient of times.
Two things have helped me relieve my stress on a daily basis.
1. Action.
Taking action instead of constantly sweeping problems under the rug in the hopes of them somehow, magically resolving themselves has helped immensely.
Instead of avoiding the issues that come your way, or putting them under your “non-urgent” category because you don’t want to deal with them, you need to face them firsthand and identify what you can do to get the issue resolved as quickly and as efficiently as possible.
Economist Tyler Cowen says:
“The more information that’s out there, the greater the returns to just being willing to sit down and apply yourself. Information isn’t what’s scarce; it’s the willingness to do something with it that is.”
The problem isn’t that you don’t know how to resolve it, it’s that you’ve gotten so comfortable avoiding it that you’re starting to think it’s okay. You know what to do, and it’s not putting it off till later.
If you want to relieve your stress and move past the roadblock, you need to have a willingness to actually get through it by doing the things you’re constantly avoiding.
It’s not about paying off your debt in full, if you can do that — amazing, but if you can’t, then take small, actionable steps to eventually get your balance down to zero.
It’s not about resolving all of your marriage issues right away, it’s about figuring out how to meet one another halfway and doing your part instead of avoiding the problems.
2. Progress.
Have you ever made a credit card payment and felt an instant sigh of relief when you saw your account balance go down?
Even the smallest amount of progress in the right direction can take a huge weight off your shoulders. Think about it, you’re stressed out because you don’t see a way out of your problem.
You don’t see yourself getting out of debt, you don’t see yourself getting that dream job you’ve always wanted. You don’t see yourself losing the weight you’ve been thinking about losing the last few months, but the minute you start actively applying yourself and identifying a route to get to your destination, the progress makes you significantly more motivated to push through.
If you want to do anything in life you have to be proactive about it. Sometimes the fear of it being way outside of your comfort zones hinders you from making the progress you need to make, but the moment you start trying you’ll realize, “it’s not actually that bad.”
The next time you’re feeling overwhelmed by the things going on in your life, take a moment and ask yourself, what can I do right now — today to make some progress?
Despite your first instincts to move on to whatever is easier, or to tell yourself, I’ll get to it tomorrow, choose to make some form of progress on the issue right then and there.
It doesn’t need to get you across the finish line that very moment, it just needs to get you moving.
Over the last few months, I made it a priority to do everything I possibly could to get out of debt, and deal with anything that comes my way rather than putting it off for ‘later’.
It’s not easy, it feels overwhelming at times but there’s no better feeling than coming up with solutions and proving to yourself just how capable you truly are.
Days later you’ll look back and not only thank yourself for getting through it, but you’ll feel significantly more confident when something else arises in your life because you’ll know if you got through it once, you can do it again.