Part 1: Solving Stress: The Inside Solution

This is part four in a five part examination of the forces that keep individuals and institutions caught a cycle of stress trapped by unexamined assumptions and ill designed solutions.  Part one examined the role of self in our illusory imprisonment, two the often subconscious part played by supervisors in the continuing incarceration and section three delves into the irresistible influence exerted on us by our peers.  Chapter four introduces the value of using the Positive Peer Pull of “Value Adding” employees to re-engage the energy, optimism and innovation that lies dormant in traditional hierarchical systems. Finally chapter five outlines the system for evolving to a Peer Powered Process.

Are you a problem solver or a problem finder?

In a recent survey educators listed problem solving as the most significant skill required of new graduates; but business people given the same survey ranked this ability 8^th in their list of priorities.  What businesses reported they needed most were not people who could solve problems that had already been identified, but those who could identify problems that had not been considered.   In a world where information is ubiquitous it is not the validity of our answers that drives performance, but the quality of our questions.

What really causes stress?

If we are to take a chapter from Brad Blanton’s bestseller Radical Honesty: How To Transform Your Life By Telling The Truth we might have a slightly different insight as to the source of our stress.   After spending 25 years in the private practice of psychotherapy Dr. Blanton believes, “Stress is not a characteristic of life or times but of people.  We make assumptions, we become attached to assumptions.  We suffer from thinking.”

When we feel overloaded we believe there is simply too much to do and too little time.  Of course there are those days when we blame the boss, and other times when we know it is unquestionably the fault of slacking coworkers or this or that or something else, but we know absolutely for sure that the problem is certainly not us.  We never question this fact.  We are simply stretched to-the-limit and are working as hard as we reasonably can.

But now let’s imagine it is the Friday just before you go on a well-deserved vacation. You power through your inbox with lightning speed, slashing through junk, dispatching any obstacle in your path.  To-do’s are done, battles are won and it is barely 10 AM. Why is it that we can sometimes produce more work in two hours than we can in two weeks?

On most days people are focused on solving “problems” that by their very definition carry a de-energizing emotional weight.  In contrast our pre-vacation mode of attention is on an energizing end result (represented by the adjectives displayed on the Love side of the card).  The greater our energy, the more insignificant the obstacles and the greater our accomplishments.  The real problem is not the volume of work but the focus of our attention.  The difference is not the work load, but the stories told.

Stories of stress can scorch a workplace like a wildfire burning through creativity, incinerating resourcefulness and reducing our resilience to ashes.  Many begin each day smoldering with resentment that spreads person to person, day to day kept alive not by the original spark of actual workload but the fanning of flames passed from one to the next.  These fires of frustration become self-fueling infernos independent of external circumstance.  We reach a stage where we feel stress simply because we expect stress, imagine stress and talk about stress.   We have learned one of the most debilitating habits of all.  We have learned helplessness.

Listen to the conversations around you.  How often do you hear people describe themselves as stressed, frustrated, aggravated, or bored?  The truth is their experiences are not coming at them but coming from them.

Observe the difference if you were to change the “ed” to “ing”.  Instead of being stressed we recognize we are stressing, not frustrated or aggravated but frustrating and aggravating.  And what would you do differently if you knew the bore was you?

These are powerful, game changing ideas.  Imagine a culture where everyone knew for a fact that they were the cause of their discontent.  What would it be like to work in a place where blame was uncommon, acceptance the standard and whining was simply socially unacceptable.  None of these things will happen in isolation.  They must become part of a cultural awareness not dictated from above or pushed from outside but discovered within.

For thirty years I honed my teaching skills.  I have studied all the business experts, immersed myself in brain science and explored the universal principles of the greatest spiritual teachers.  I felt that once I mastered this trinity of science, success and spirit I could change the world.  I was wrong.  No level of content mastery or professional delivery is going to significantly alter complex problems in a short term setting.

Technical skills can be taught but changing emotionally charged habits takes community.  This is the secret behind weight watchers, AA, athletic clubs and religious gathering of every denomination. We are changed not by those who lead but with whom we follow.  It is not those who have traveled before us that give us direction but those traveling alongside us.   These are the people who either propel us forward or hold us back.  They cannot be ignored and they should not be underestimated.  Only by creating a community rich in awareness, trusting in transparency and committed to honesty can we hope to achieve the greatness we deserve.