Become a person who handles challenges.,has colleagues' respect.,copes with strong emotions.,manages stress.

When Professional Becomes Personal, Managing Stress is Essential

Does this sound familiar?

A team meeting comes to a close one Tuesday afternoon, and your boss suggests that you and Thalia collaborate on the next steps. You both nod your heads in agreement to this plan, but your stomach knots up. Thalia isn’t your favorite person in the workplace. You find her tone borders on condescending, and you think she tries too hard to impress others. Heading into a team project with her has got you miffed before the co-working even begins. When you see a new message in your inbox, it’s her; she’s trying to find a mutually agreeable time. Grumpily, you close log out of your email and decide you’ll get back to her later; your disappointment in the pairing makes you unenthused about even responding -- never mind getting started on collaborating.  

Stress Management is the key to regulating emotions and maintaining professional relationships

Consequences of poor stress-management

Failure to learn how to manage stress can result in a series of issues -- both personally and professionally: 

• Personally: If you’re unable to resolve stress at work, you’re highly likely to bring that stress home, causing conflict with your housemates as your shortened fuse leads to shortened patience with others
• Personally: The burden of unresolved stress can lead to issues with sleep, eating habits, and other serious health consequences (such as anxiety, depression, and substance abuse) 
• Professionally: Clear expressions of stress at work might lead to a negative reputation, such as a “hot head” or “impossible to please” and that could lead to folks being unwilling to work with you

How do Worksmart coaches help clients with stress-management problems?

Coaches help to identify and customize tools for you, depending upon your preferences and specific challenges. From making a specific plan on how to deal with stressful coworkers to using new strategies and tools and following up with you to increase accountability for the improvements you want to see, our coaches will reflect with you to identify wins, understand roadblocks, and revise plans to help you move towards success. Our coaches can collaborate with you to develop and support effective stress management techniques by: 

• Developing perspective-taking and communication techniques to improve interpersonal skills
• Identifying and practicing a variety of calming techniques
• Creating a hierarchy of support to enable effective problem-solving and improve self-advocacy when you need assistance