Want less stress in life?

Me too.

Here’s the thing, we often do it to ourselves.

Life is full of outside stressors. Adversity to overcome, conflict, and trauma. It’s exhausting under normal circumstances.

That’s why we need to lessen the stress we cause ourselves.

Here are 3 areas we can work on this:

1. Loose ends

Unfinished tasks at work, unopened mail, unfolded laundry, that bill that needs paid, the hard conversation you’ve been delaying.

Each of these things cause stress. Probably more than if we just did what we need to do to tie up these loose ends.

We spend so much mental energy thinking about doing things that are usually easier to finish than we thought.

So get it done and move on to bigger things.

2. Letting go

Some loose ends are loose for a reason. They don’t need our attention. In fact, they need to go away for good.

Sometimes, if a relationship is causing you more stress and pain than anything else, you have to let it go.

Many times, the things you spend time doing during the day aren’t worth the effort…

What if you didn’t respond to that email?
What if you paid someone to clean your house?
What if you didn’t care what happened to anyone on “This is Us”

I stopped responding to emails and it made me better at my job.

I paid someone to mow my lawn and I spent that time with my kids – which left me less guilt ridden and more energetic for work on Monday.

I stopped caring about the next episode which led me to stop late night snacking, binging TV, read more books, sleep better and on a regular schedule.

3. Fooling Ourselves

Life will never be stress free. Stress can be healthy. It pushes us to grow.

We’re fooling ourselves if we think that “One day…”

Stress will never disappear.

However, we can choose (to a point) what stress we allow into our lives. We can learn to better navigate stress and learn to let go of stress that drains us unnecessarily.

Never fool yourself into thinking that a stress free live is right around the corner or that someone else is living that stress free life.

Some people are more skilled at managing and navigating stress – either naturally or through experience.

And there’s the hope – you can learn to navigate stress better too.

Keep moving forward,

The Define My Day Effect

I learned a lot in the first few months of using Define My Day.

My huge To-Do List was full of tasks I would never finish. I can still open that app on my phone and see literally hundreds of things I never accomplished. Reviewing that list, I can see that none of it mattered. I had to let them go.

Defining My Day helped me grow my self-awareness. The daily practice of reviewing my goals, accomplishments, values, feelings, and energy – though difficult at times – taught me what was important and what I needed to let go.

I also got tired to writing some tasks over and over because I never got them done even though they were important. But I never let myself stop writing them because I knew they were important. The only way to stop writing them over and over was to actually do the task – tying up that loose end and releasing the stress of it hanging out there.