Is it possible that we cause our own stress?…. YEAH! Duh…

Probably the most frustrating thing about life is the fact that most of the stress we have in life is self inflicted. But so what? It is still stress.

Today our problems in the western world are nothing. We have food, water, shelter, health care, transportation, insurance and all kinds of opportunities to make an extra buck.

Considering the misfortune of people who happen to live in the distressed areas of the world where poverty is the standard, we have absolutely no reason to be stressed.

But we are, our standards of life are different and it is these standards that give us unnecessary stress in our lives.

Sure it is normal to want nice things, or to go on a vacation or buy a new car. But, so much of what is spent today is paid for on credit, and credit gives you stress.

Owing money is stressful, unless you have no conscience.

Now, a great place to start when getting rid of stress is to organize your money to get yourself out of owing people money. Being in the black makes life much better.

The second place to start from is to make more money and this is the part of the equation that most people don’t even take into consideration. You can make more money when you get a second job, but that is going to cause you even more stress, isn’t it?

Why wouldn’t a person build a business instead of getting a job. Nobody seems to want to say, when asked ”Do you have a job?”, ”No, but I have my own business.”

Now, can business cause you stress? Yes it can, because you are your business, without you and your ability to get results you will have a lot of failure. But, you are in control of you and your abilities, so your business is dependent on you, not on anyone else.

That is great power! To determine your own destiny is the promise of America.

Stress often comes from pushing to be the best

There is a lot of hype in the field of success. The following statements cause stress…

Go for it,

Let it all hang out,

Live with passion

Just do it

I’ll succeed or your will find me on the side of the road dead,

You can give it all you have and still fail, and that failure can be devastating if you placed all of your energy in that one thing. It can destroy you.

Does it take a lot of effort to succeed? Well yes and no.

One of my voice teachers told me something once that really made a lot of sense…

”If it isn’t easy, you can’t do it consistently.”

Making something easy is not easy, but it isn’t hard either. It is all about getting good training and practicing the same thing over and over again until it becomes easy.

The other part is, you have to have a certain natural ability for something to be able to succeed at something. When you look at elite athletes or artists, you will find that their physical attributes make it possible for them to be better than others.

Lebron James, Michael Jordan and Shaquille O’Neal all have incredible physical attributes. So, it is easier for them to do certain things than it is for most people.

However, they aren’t the only people who have those physical attributes. They worked at taking their attributes and talents and turning them into excellence to create careers that overwhelm what others do. Lets face it, there are a lot of guys out there who are 6/6 or 6/9 or 7/0 that don’t become superstars. But it is questionable if these guys could have become superstars without their physical attributes.

But here is the truth, we are all given an equal amount of determination and desire. That you can use to do anything you want.

Being a professional anything requires a certain amount of passivity, coolness and levelheadedness. Anyone can go and practice something for a day or a week, but it is the people who can consistently do the same things day in and day out without being too high or too low that will become the professional success.

That is what relieves stress, being a professional and having a professional attitude about what you are doing. Don’t get to high or low, stay even, don’t rely on others to support you or approve of what you are doing, becoming a master of something requires a quiet diligence, not a loud demonstration.

So, while you will get hyped at events and games and everything, it is the calm and cool folks that win the day. When you look at it, you never see the greats jumping up and down, showing everyone how pumped they are, the true greats actually look kind of lazy, don’t they?

I think of all of the great athletes, none of them were flambouyant, with maybe a rare exception, but they were calm, collected and then when the moment comes, they go faster, jump higher and hit the ball farther than anyone else.

I’ll never forget going to an Atlanta Braves baseball game. Hank Aaron was playing and I was pretty excited to see him play. But, watching him was a disappointment, because I figured someone as great as he was would walk around like the boss with supreme confidence showing everyone how great he was. It was exactly the opposite, he walked up to the plate as if he had just lost his best friend, he calmly made a couple of lack luster practice swings and then, boom, the ball went out of the park! As if it was the most normal thing on earth. He ran the bases as if he was going for a morning jog, and when he crossed the plate he simply went to the dugout, no beating the chest, no hey look at me, just a professional doing his job as few other could.

I respect that.

Here is a guy who was one of the first African American professional baseball players, growing up in a culture of hatred toward the color of his skin. He never pushed his success in anyone’s face. A class act.

Stress is caused by an overert emotionality, taking on too many promises and owing others. Yes, stress is caused by thoughts, and that is another discussion, but we can divert stress by being smart about what we are doing and acting as a professional in everything we do, dispassionate, serious, fun but not hyped.