Invest in you … after all, you are your future
Dr. Lynn Scoles, Medical Practitioner, gave the following presentation to the AIPM in February this year. Dr Scoles presents many important ideas for us all to consider. For further information she can be contacted directly at the following email address: lynn.scoles@optusnet.com.au
In the words of Mark Twain, everyone should take an interest in their future — since they have to live with it for the rest of their life. If someone was to ask you “are you fit for business?”, you may take it they’re interested in your qualifications or management experience.
Increasingly however, there’s a focus on physical and mental fitness — particularly for business owners and those in middle to upper management.
Typically, Australians are spending more hours at work, with less resources, yet are under more pressure to perform. Research shows that 95% of managers make sacrifices to work longer hours, with exercise the first thing to go. For men, that’s followed by time with their partners, hobbies or other leisure activities, time with their kids and personal development. Second to be ditched by female managers are hobbies or other leisure activities, then time with their partners, energy and that hoary chestnut, sleep.
Life is stressful. Work is stressful. There is just no getting around it.
In the words of Chris Tennant, professor of psychiatry at the University of Sydney, “You can’t lead a life without stress, so you have to learn to handle better the impact of stress on your body.”
Fair enough, how?
Invest in you
Firstly, by investing in yourself and your life.
You possibly know all these, but here they are again:
- exercise daily
- make healthy food choices
- drink in moderation and have at least two AFDs (alcohol-free days) a week
- don’t smoke
- get adequate, good quality sleep
…and here’s the clincher: have fun!
Look, I just don’t have time…
Okay, so how do you actually do all that when you don’t have time?
Before answering that, let’s look at this issue a different way.
Dr Lynn Scoles, a medical practitioner and executive coach, says women have an average life expectancy at birth of 83 years — but statistics show that the last 11.2 of those years will be spent struggling with a physical or age-related disability, such as dementia, stroke, heart disease, breathing problems (emphysema’s a typical one), cancer, diabetes, poor vision, poor hearing and arthritis. For men, the figures are 78.1 years life expectancy, with the last decade coping with a disability.
Know anyone who seems too young at 68 to be nearly at the end of their physical and mental peak? Thought so….
We all know the preventable risk factors, but let’s review them with the above freshly in our minds:
- being obese or even overweight
- having inadequate physical activity
- smoking
- risk-level alcohol consumption
- poor diet and nutrition
- high blood pressure
- cholesterol
And how do you lessen those risk factors? Exercise daily, make healthy food choices … etc.
(and don’t forget to have fun).
Too fluffy? … or too costly?
Before you think “that’s all a bit fluffy”, think about this: too much stress robs you of profits.
Dr Lynn Scoles says pressure is the aggregate of all the demands placed on us. It can be physical, psychological and social. We need some pressure to be effective, but this is only effective if the pressure equals our perceived capacity to cope. Increasing pressure just leads to stress.
Stress can cause a loss of confidence, depression, anger, poor concentration, procrastination, working harder but less efficiently, self pressure (“I should…”), poor sleep, increased smoking and alcohol intake, aggression and loss of interest in work.
Stress is what happens when we perceive the demands made on us are bigger than our capacity to cope.
So what can we do? What are our resources?
Get connected, find your purpose
Dr Scoles outlines a model for stress management as having equal balance between:
- your identity (a compelling purpose in life that gives you direction)
- emotion (emotional awareness and management)
- energy (physical resilience based on health and wellbeing), and
- cognition (a positive attitude, focus and using the whole brain)
What’s your “why” to live? What’s your source of motivation, perseverance or direction? Get connected to your deeply held set of values beyond your own self interest.
Dr Scoles says, “purpose creates a destination, engagement creates energy”.
Manage your emotions
Managing your emotional response can reduce your stress. Pretty amazing fact, but also incredibly powerful.
Dr Scoles says recognise that when you feel stressed, you must remember that you have a choice. You are in control and you choose the response; your feelings don’t control you. That can be a hard one, but accepting responsibility for your own feelings really puts you in control.
To deal with stress positively, shift your thinking from blame, excuses and denial to ownership, accountability and responsibility.
Disempowering emotions (fear, frustration, anger, sadness, regret and resentment) make you stressed, which is costly and inefficient in business.
Why would you choose to be inefficient?
Conversely, empowering emotions (challenges, optimism, opportunity, laughter, friendship and gratitude) are energising and engaging.
Readers of Steven Covey’s work will be familiar with the term “emotional capital”.
Dr Scoles says work on your important relationships, smile more and laugh often, practice gratitude, manage your time well, enjoy some hobbies and social activities, improve your self talk, change your perceptions of situations, and practice good communication and appropriate assertiveness — try the power of “no”.
“You can do anything, but not necessarily everything.”
Rest your brain
In building your resilience to stress, you must concentrate on cognition too.
Develop a positive attitude, focus your attention, develop and use your whole brain.
Dr Scoles says thinking takes energy: the brain comprises 2% of body weight, but uses 25% of the oxygen. It also needs resting time.
Develop your mental agility by using both sides of your brain. Exercise, meditate or pray, play some music, do art, create something.
Plan your breaks. Where are you when you get your best ideas? Walk outside, breathe in and look up. Learn something new…
Dr Scoles says habits are the key.
She quotes Aristotle, “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then is not an act, it is a habit.”
So get practising!
Sources: Dr Lynn Scoles, “Fit For Business… Achieving Peak Performance Dealing with Stress”, Australian Institute of Project Management Chapter Meeting February 2010; Dr Steven Covey, “The 7 Principles of Highly Effective People”.
Tags: managing stress