I have a much different philosophy about stress than most business owners. I don’t avoid stress. In fact, if there’s something stressful on the plate for tomorrow… well, that’s the first thing I wanna dig into.
No avoidance on this monkey.
However…
… neither do I regard stress as something good.
It is (and current research backs me up) probably the source of all the bad junk in your health profile. So how you deal with it… is probably one of the most important decisions you make early in your career.
Because you’ve got to make dealing with it a habit. Breaking the stress up and jettisoning it from your system must be on your A list of things to do each day.
Otherwise… you’re putting that career in serious danger of short-circuiting.
For me, toys play a big part of steam removal. I’ve loved games and toys my entire life – and that’s what guitars, cars, cell phones, web-surfing, social networking, cable TV, MP3s, barbeques, and every quest you engage in for anything outside Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is: Games and toys.
It’s been a long, long time since anyone could claim to have a handle on how civilization works. The well-educated dudes of the early Renaissance maybe could claim a decent savvy in every skill and knowledge-base in existence.
But that’s simply not possible today.
Humans have never been in this situation before — where no one has a handle on how the essentials of the civilization works. It’s like nobody’s in charge anymore. It’s like glancing down the aisle and noticing that the pilot’s gone. The driver has disappeared. No one goes into the boiler room anymore, because no one knows what to do in there.
A large part of the mob deals with this sense of not being in control… by zoning out. I doubt there has ever been this large a percentage of the population zomibified before in history. Just willingly oblivious. In my experience, you can’t really hide from stress, though. It builds up, it festers, it infects every joint and synapse in the system.
For those of us who are incapable of ignoring the blinking warning signs now flashing… (and our global engine has been overheating for a very long time)… it’s more important than ever to manage stress. You do not make it go away by eating it like candy. It won’t leave unless forced out.
Thus… to be effective today (and oh do we need effective people in the mix right now)… you gotta choose your battles. You can work every day. You can gear up and charge monsters every time you go into work mode.
But you can’t do it 24/7. You’ll fry. So… playtime becomes an essential tool. What rocks your relaxation boat may change, often, though out your life. That’s to be expected. So you gotta keep a tab on your own responses.
You know what makes you happy… what sucks you in so thoroughly and pleasurably that you forget the smell of the trenches for a while. Don’t focus on the what, however.
Instead, focus on how you feel. You will have to alter things — the games, toys, distractions, etc — that trigger the right response often. And the new stuff is only going to work — only going to help you disengage so you can re-charge — if it nails the wheelhouse of your pleasure center.
At various times, playing music has been it for me. But then I go into another phase, and I need something else. Drawing comes and goes — hours spent completely absorbed in putting ink on paper, creating visual worlds from nothing. Games, too. I love video games. Collecting rare stuff, too. Reading history…
I’ve been lucky to have a long list of stuff that works. But here’s the one tip I really can give everyone: One of the most enduring, and most pleasurable, experiences available… is simply going outside and feeling the universe swirl around you.
Fresh air, the cool breezes of early fall, the coming harvest moon (big as the sky), the leaves changing so fast you can almost see them turn.
Especially now… especially with so many entrepreneurs, marketers and copywriters welding themselves to cyber-space at a desk… it’s essential to reconnect with Nature.
In as giddy a manner as possible.
John Carlton’s 25-year career is legendary… as an expert copywriter, a pioneer in online marketing, and a teacher of killer sales copy. He knows marketing inside and out. To read more from John (including accessing the 5-years-deep archive of hard-core tactics and insight and advice, for free) just dive into his globally-read blog: http://www.john-carlton.com.
Author: John Carlton
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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