Now and again we see advertisements or read articles about how to cope with stress. If you do “such and such” you’ll manage stress more effectively or if you do “this and that” you’ll cope better.
What is stress anyways? Where does it come from? And why is it that a situation can be stressful for one person, and not another?
Let’s consider the following for a minute. For instance, if my girlfriend were to be on the way to an important meeting she needed to be on time for and happened to get a flat tire she would experience a large amount of stress.
She would perceive the situation to be very demanding; on a scale of 1-10 (1 being low stress and 10 as very high) she’d likely be a 7 or 8. Furthermore, her perception of her own ability to cope with the flat tire would also be stressful as she doesn’t have the knowledge or skills of how to quickly change the tire herself and still be on time for her meeting.
Although she is an excellent problem solver and would be able to call for help or utilize AAA, these options would likely take more time than she has to make it to her meeting on time, thus stressing her out about her perception of how to cope with a flat tire at a level of 7 or 8 again.
As for myself a flat tire would be an inconvenience which would slow me down but my perception of demandingness of a flat would be a 2 or 3 out of 10 and my ability to cope (change the tire in 10 minutes) would have my perception of my ability to cope at a 2 or 3 as well.
In other words:
Our perception of demand on a situation
——————————————————————————————- = STRESS
Our perception of our ability to cope with the situation
The key components of this theory is our ‘own perception’ or personal view over our perception of how to manage the situation.
How many times have we perceived something to be difficult procrastinating the task for hours, days, weeks, months or even years because some fear held us back from taking the first step. When this happens it is likely due to the awareness that our skills aren’t aligned with the task at hand, coupled with low confidence and motivation.
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Remember, our perception of the demand of the situation over the perception of our ability to cope equals our level of stress.
The only way to reduce the stress level would be to change our perception of the demand or increase our skills thus improving our chance to cope. Expanding our skill set by learning and practicing skills is a fantastic way to help. Not only will new skills make life easier but they will also increase a person’s overall confidence and self efficacy which has a tendency to be contagious.
The other possibility would be to closely examine the perception of the demandingness of the situation to ensure we have an accurate assessment of the situation. All too often we choose to ignore some of the facts which create fear within ourselves which can perpetuate an inflated sense of the true ‘demandingness of a situation’. This is why when we complete something which we procrastinated we say things like, ‘that wasn’t so bad’ or ‘why did I take so long to do that’ or I can’t believe how easy that was?’
Once we realize that sometimes we amplify our own perceptions of certain demands and underestimate our own skills we create our own stress in our lives.
Is there a demand in your life causing you stress these days?
Do you:
1) have an accurate perception of the demandingness of the situation, or possibly
2) lack confidence in your skills or perceive them accurately? or
3) a combination of both.
You already know by the amount of stress you are creating for yourself.
Either way, exploring your perspectives might be a good start.
This has been one Dan’s opinion
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