Work

Stress Does Not Need to Be a Blocker to Your Performance

COVID-19 certainly changed how we approach the work that we do. Thankfully, much of the work people did before the pandemic is still relevant. However, much work was started due to overestimating the size of the pandemic.

Nevertheless, what most people were doing at work is still relevant today. But how we go about completing our work has become more digitalized. Whether we like it or not, working from home and online meetings are here to stay. Whilst many adapt to the new normal, we still see high levels of stress.

As many companies face a resource issue due to people leaving, we see higher workloads for employees with little reward. The global economy is struggling, and we are now having to work harder whilst experiencing increases in our cost of living.

We have all come across work-related stress before. Many of us face it on a regular basis, and some have even got used to it. The formal definition for work-related stress is:

“A harmful reaction people have to undue pressures and demands placed on them at work”

It is interesting to note that the definition includes “undue”. That tells us that stress comes about when something is put in our path unexpectedly. It occurs when we have a negative response to change.

One of the reasons why COVID-19 caused so much stress on our economy is because we struggled to respond positively to it. Many individuals criticised the actions of their governments, and others disobeyed laws.

Stress leads to reduced performance and an increased likelihood to become disengaged. In fact, one of the major reasons why people take time off work is to not go on holiday and increase energy levels but to recharge and step away from stress at work.

In the ideal world, people would take holidays to build on their energy levels. People should not leave work feeling relieved but instead ready to take on another challenge. However, way too often, we see people coming home from work in a bad mood and deflated.

Research has found that work-related stress affects our ability to perform particular activities. There are four activities that many of us partake in on a regular basis that can be affected by high-stress levels. These include:

Divided Attention Tasks

When we have to complete multiple tasks, we often raise our anxiety levels. Even small tasks like taking meeting notes and trying to listen can often make us feel under pressure. If we are already stressed, we tend to perform even worst.

Working Memory

Working memory is our ability to listen and quickly store a piece of information for later. When stressed, we often have more than one thing on our minds. Therefore, there is no surprise that our ability to keep things in our heads reduces significantly.

Decision Making

We are making decisions all throughout the day. However, when stressed, our decision-making becomes worse. That is because we tend to not be able to think clearly and see a solution to simple problems.

Retrieval of Information From Memory

We have all been in a situation where we needed a piece of information from our memory and our minds have gone blank. It happens to students when in exams and adults when in interviews. High-stress situations make it harder to retrieve a memory necessary for completing the task.

We can all agree that the four activities affected by stress are necessary for our performance at work. Therefore, we need to be aware of times in our lives when we are experiencing high stress to ensure our performance does not drop.

What is interesting is that children do not respond to undue situations the same way as adults. Children are less likely to see failures or unexpected situations as a blocker to their ability to perform and succeed.

Funny enough, children experience the exact opposite. They are more likely to see undue situations as an opportunity to grow. This is where the term, “growth mindset” was found. Children are natural growth-minded because they are constantly in a phase of growth.

Encompassing this mindset is essential for becoming stronger in stressful moments and enhancing our performance. So, here is what we can learn from the children in this world about how to perform better in stressful situations.

Coping in Stressful Situations

When stressful situations come our way, there are two ways we can manage it. The first is by avoiding the situation altogether. Although we would like to believe we are resilient individuals, we tend to deploy this method the most.

Procrastinating is a perfect example of this. When we do not want to complete a task due to the stress associated with it, we tend to procrastinate. We may watch a TV show, flick through social media or talk to a friend. In doing so, we run from the stressful situation at hand.

Avoidance is a technique that is often used to deal with stress, but it is not the best one. However, we are taught to avoid stressful situations because it normally keeps us safe. The “working from home” mandate that came into play in the UK was a safe thing to do. It reduced the likelihood of the spread by ensuring everyone avoided being in contact with one another.

Companies have used avoidance strategies over the pandemic by firing unnecessary resources. Although it sounds harsh, companies avoided resource problems by letting their employees go. Finally, some solo entrepreneurs and small businesses decided to claim bankruptcy and close. In doing so, they avoided the tough times ahead of them.

Avoidance seems like an easy way out, but it tends to leave us worse off than before. Unfortunately, not all problems can be run from, and work-related stress is one of those problems. Whether we like it or not, we need to work to make a living, and we will need to go to work again at some point.

Children are less likely to avoid stressful situations and instead use another method called, “approach-oriented”. In this method, the individual slowly moves toward the stressful situation whilst actively solving problems in their way.

By doing this, the individual can break down high-stress situations into small chunks whilst making their way through them. People who partake in this method have a completely different mindset than those who avoid it.

The person who avoids inherently believes that stressful situations are bad for them. The person who approaches it believes that stressful situations can enhance their performance and provides them with an opportunity to grow.

A baby that constantly seeks to stand up and walk does so because they have an approach-oriented method. They will fall over from time to time and sometimes even hurt themselves. However, they do not avoid the challenge of trying to walk even though it is a stressful learning process.

They realise that the stressful process provides them with an opportunity to grow and develop.

Developing an Approach-Oriented Mindset

Building an approach-oriented mindset is hard to do as adults. For most of our lives, we have been developing a strong avoidance strategy in stressful situations. As a result, we have become pretty good at avoiding anything that can put us under stress.

However, our work-related stresses provide us with an opportunity to develop our skills and grow. With many individuals having the wrong mindset, people are wasting the chance to grow during these tough times.

Research has shown that having an approach-oriented strategy for dealing with stress has proven to help companies throughout the crises. These are the organisations that have continued to lead in the market and will continue to thrive for years to come.

To begin approaching our stressful situations in a slow and strategic way, we must first believe that embracing them is a good thing. To do so, we must build our belief system by remembering points in our life where stress made us better.

That may be performing well in an exam, learning to ride a bike or working with a difficult team. All of these situations would have provided you with experiences that have now made you better off than you would have been.

It is all well and good being able to approach your stressful situations, but you must put yourself in an environment that supports this method of dealing with stress. Here are three ways you can do that:

Positive Appraisal

You can practice positive appraisal by reframing the stressful problem in a positive way. Instead of asking:

“Why are people leaving the organisation?”

You can ask:

“How can we better engage our employees with our organisation’s purpose?”

Reframing the stressful situation in a positive way invites you to take the first step to solve your problem.

Mindfulness

Children do not tend to think too far ahead. That is one of the reasons why they get themselves in trouble so often. However, this way of thinking reduces our stress in the present.

Taking time to remain present and focusing on what is causing you to stress at that moment will help you identify a way to solve it.

Affirming Stress Enhancement

Taking time within your work-related stress to identify where you are being stretched out of your comfort zone is key. Almost like preparing for an interview, think about the new qualities you are putting on display whilst attempting to approach the stressful situation.

It may be time management, people skills or more. Doing this helps us feel accomplished whilst affirming that stress can drive us to become better performers.

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References:

Bowen, S., De Boer, D. and Bergman, A.L. (2017). The role of mindfulness as approach-based coping in the PTSD-substance abuse cycle. Addictive Behaviors, 64, pp.212–216. doi:10.1016/j.addbeh.2016.08.043.

HSE (2021). Work-related stress, anxiety or depression statistics in Great Britain, 2021. [online] Available at: https://www.hse.gov.uk/statistics/causdis/stress.pdf.

LeBlanc, V.R. (2009). The Effects of Acute Stress on Performance: Implications for Health Professions Education. Academic Medicine, 84(Supplement), pp.S25–S33. doi:10.1097/acm.0b013e3181b37b8f.

Paustian‐Underdahl, S.C., Palmer, J.C., Halliday, C.S. and Blass, F.R. (2022). The role of stress mindsets and coping in improving the personal growth, engagement, and health of small business owners. Journal of Organizational Behavior. doi:10.1002/job.2650.

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