Pressure v Stress
/In developing leadership potential you will encounter moments of ‘heat’ and challenge. These experiences can have different impacts and influences on all of us. As a leader we want to become conscious of these impacts so that they don’t stop or hinder us from reaching our desired goals and outcomes.
When people talk about pressure and stress they often do so, as if they the same thing. When we look closer however we can see they are indeed different. This video explains the relationship between pressure and stress, while highlighting two cognitive thinking errors that we should aim to manage effectively.
As a leader the ability to effectively manage the pressure(s) we are faced with and the stress that is manifested from it, is vital to achieving sustained performance.
PRESSURE – is the external demand in the environment that we operate within. Everyone has pressure in their life with: deadlines, projects, family demands and expectations.
STRESS – is what people do with that pressure in their minds. How they cognitively manage and appraise the various pressures they have to deal with.
Aligned to this there are two influences that can impact our internal feedback loops and negatively increase our level of stress. These disabling thinking patterns are called rumination and worry.
RUMINATION – is the mental process of thinking over and over about something, which happened in the past. When we are ruminating we generally think about a past event with a “if only I had done this…” or “I should have done….”point of view.
WORRY – is similar to rumination though the event caught in the negative feedback loop is set to take place in the future or could potentially happen in the future. Worrying about the future is associated with “what if this, or what if that happens?”
Both rumination and worry are examples of cognitive thinking errors that can increase stress and negatively influence us in the pursuit of our goals. They can also severely impact cognitive and physical health. In both instances we can become gripped by the negative feedback loop that is played over and over again, to the point of anxiety and distress.
To overcome this faulty thinking we need to leverage our capacity for metacognition. As soon as we can identify these negative feedback loops we can take action to manage them. This is a powerful first step to ensure they don’t cause unnecessary harm or a reduction to our performance state.
By bringing yourself back into the present moment you can then determine what actions to take in order to move forward with a positive and purposeful intent.
In striving to be a high performing leader you want to spend most of your time ‘above the line’ with your thinking, this means consciously planning and reviewing, before bringing your attention back to the present so you can live, work and operate in a proactive state.
For more information on the BESPOKE LEADERSHIP development program or to have an informal discussion regarding your development goals, please contact: philip@bespokeleaders.com