Tactics in Life: Name Your Stress to Conquer It

The unknown can be a truly frightening thing.  It’s emotionally stressful if you don’t know or can’t articulate what’s bothering you.  To be mentally unhinged for reasons you don’t know is one of the worst things one can experience.  In such situations, it’s worth the time investment to step back and try to determine that which is causing you much anxiety.

Naming your stress is the first step to conquering it.  This essentially means identifying what’s giving you mental and emotional turmoil.  Dig deeper to verify if this is the true root cause of your issues, or if there’s something deeper and worse to it.  Knowing the enemy helps, so once you’re able to identify what the hell it is that’s causing you so much anguish, you can take the next steps to craft a tactical response to deal with it.

If it’s something that you can do something about, then plan and execute what needs to be done and don’t delay action any further.

If it’s something out of your control, then take the situation into stride.  Assess and see if the situation is really that bad or you’re just over-thinking your predicament.  You either fight to change the situation, or learn to deal with it if you cannot; in either case you’re acknowledging it exists and you’re confronting it.  And for all you know, there might even be an opportunity to use this problematic situation to your advantage if you open your mind to the possibilities.  Try to look at things from a different perspective, and you might even surprise yourself.

At the very least, knowing what inflicts stress upon you is still better than something vague and unknown.  This puts a face (a name) to your enemy, and with that you have a target to watch out for.  There is still some sense of security in knowing rather than not knowing and thus living in the grip of fear.

Name your stress – and then promptly conquer it.

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