I’ve often found that stress will happen regardless of the situation. If I’m in school, I’ll be stressed about how much work I have to do; if I’m in sports, I’ll be stressed about not being good enough; if I spend a week laying in bed watching television, I get stressed about not doing enough. There is always something to be stressed about.
The important thing is to identify what it is that’s stressing you out, and from there determining whether or not it’s worth keeping in your life. The goal of this isn’t to not be stressed, it’s to make room for things that are worth being stressed out about.
An easy example of this is that of personal relations. People come and go. If someone is making you feel bad about yourself, and has for a while, then they’re causing a stress that isn’t productive in your life, and I would always recommend cutting them out for the sake of your own health. If, however, this person is your significant other and, rather than it being a reoccurring problem, you’ve just had one fight, you may want to wait it out, because this person has been with you for a long time and adds something special to your life.
Currently, I am incredibly stressed, but that’s not a bad thing. I have paper proposals for school, I have to invent new courses for work, and I’m going through the process of applying for my dream. It’s all terrifying and time-consuming, but it’s also exciting, because these stressors are things which add to my life.
If you hide from stress, you hide from life. You are going to be stressed out, and you will be able to manage yourself anyway. You might fail, which is probably what you’re stressed about, but you’ll regroup and figure out the next step when you do. And you might not fail, which is even better.
Try to cut the bad stress out, and try to keep your “good” stress levels down by exercising and preparing for what you have to do, not by never challenging yourself to learn and do new things and progress in life. You can always do better, it just might be a little scary first, but that just means it’s worth doing. x.
dream.think.work. 