Seeking calm is stressful.
The more you focus on inner calm the more you sense its absence.
Good feelings aren’t a roadmap. Calm isn’t a compass.
Stress means you care.
Discomfort indicates commitment.
Anxiety says, “This matters.”
Calm is a consequence, not a goal. When stress goes up, redirect your attention.
Many books about stress are bandages. They focus on escape. They encourage you to breathe deeply. Close your eyes and notice your breath.
Relaxing is a sinister bandage when stress is self-imposed.
Three distortions give birth to self-imposed stress.
Everything is urgent.
Everything is your responsibility.
Everything proves your worth.
No-win situations feel like running on a hamster wheel. Running faster multiplies frustration.
Three things never go away in leadership: competing priorities, limited resources, and increasing expectations.
It doesn’t matter how fast you run. You must run faster tomorrow. You have to lay off people and still deliver results, for example.
You have choices.
Stress doesn’t kill you, what you believe does.
When you think stress is bad for you – it is.
When you think stress brings out your best – it does.
There’s research…
You can’t lower stress by avoiding difficult situations. But confronting difficult situations causes stress too. Both choices are stressful.
What kind of stress do you want?
Tired people stagger through the desert looking for a drop of relief.
Use your experience to provide water.
Use your experience to give water to the thirsty.
