Get yourself a notebook or open a new document on your computer and in your own time, reflect on these points:
- How have you felt in the last week or so? Click here for a questionnaire to check in with yourself.
- Notice your physical response to pressure: where do you feel it in your body? If you aren’t sure, click here to check out the common symptoms of stress.
- What beliefs are you aware of when you feel stressed? Click here for a list of common stress beliefs.
- What about thought distortions? The stressed mind takes shortcuts. Click here to learn about a few of them.
- What strengths might you overplay when you are feeling under pressure? At Sixth Sense we use both the Hogan Development Survey HDS and the Hogrefe TOP questionnaire to help explore this. More about the HDS can be found here and more about the TOP can be found here.
- Reflect on your psychological drivers. These are things that you feel compelled to do when you are under pressure. Click here to download a questionnaire and some tips to control these.
- If you are in a spin, do you know how to ground yourself and get back into a calmer state in which you can problem-solve? Click here for an exercise that could help.
- Are you able to control your breathing when you are under pressure?Watch this space for a short exercise that we are producing to help you with your breathing. Available soon
- Sixth Sense runs workshops on this topic that you might enjoy. They are called Stress Works and Resilience Works. More details here.
Want to know more? Search the range of resources here on sane.works. There are book recommendations, links to websites, TED talks and worksheets and we are always adding to the list! Click here to begin.
Have a look at Chapter 2 of Staying Sane in Business. To order a copy, click here.
