Are you a business man or woman and you are passionate about your business? Is this causing you to be over stressed, trying to do all you can to make it work and satisfy your customers? It is common to face stress when running a business, but when it occurs frequently, and it negatively affects your health physically and mentally, then it is bad for you and your business. Stress can cause psychological, emotional, and physical problems, which would affect your health, agility, mentality, strength, and total well-being. The effects of stress can cause damages to your relationship with people at home and at work; if that happens, it would reduce your level of productivity and cause lack of concentration.
What you probably don’t know is that you can operate your business and not experience constant stress in the process. This article is going to expose you to things you can do to achieve this. Before we talk about overcoming stress, let us see some common causes of stress in workplace.
Common Causes of Stress in Work Place
They includes:
Excess Workload – this is the most common cause of stress in work place. Trying to accomplish so many things within a short period of time, probably to reach a deadline would cause tiredness and stress. When there is so much demand for your products and services, this is bound to happen; also when too much is expected from you, this is bound to happen. You can cause this problem for yourself if you set unrealistic goals and set a deadline for yourself which you cannot possible meet. Also, when you don’t want to spend so much financial resources, so you don’t hire help and would rather take the workload upon yourself.
Lack of appropriate equipments and resources – Every job has equipments and resources unique to its purpose, which makes the production process easier. If you lack those appropriate equipments and resources, you would have to do your work without them, and this would take a longer time to accomplish and much exertion of energy; in the long run, this would lead to stress.
Poor Organization Skills – When you are poorly organized, you would end up working with no direction and achieve little over a long time of worknwhile using up so much energy. Organization requires you to setup your environment, arrange and prioritize your work effectively, then follow through with your plans. When you fail to do this, you’ll end up feeling so stressed out.
Conflicts and personal problems – When you are in conflict with family members, friends, colleagues, or employees, it can cause you to experience stress. Also, when you have personal problems to deal with, shouldering that burden alongside your work can cause you to face severe stress.
Not finding a balance between work and personal life – Balance is everything in life; it determines your success or failures. When you don’t find a balance between work and your personal life, they would keep clashing, and that would cause you to experience constant distraction which would lead to stress.
Negativity – Worrying unnecessarily about the outcome of your products and services can lead to stress; this happens when you feel it may come out all wrong, and you over stretch yourself to make it perfect.
All these are common causes of stress amongst others. Now that we have known the common causes of workplace stress, let us see the solutions to them.
Solutions to Stress in Workplace
Here are some tips on how to avoid stress in workplace:
Look for support – Reach out to people around you for support. Talk to those you trust about concerns you are facing, instead of keeping them bottled up within. Hire help if demand for your products is high and the load is too much on you; don’t shoulder the burden alone, else you will break down while doing so.
Don’t set unrealistic goals and deadlines – Know your capabilities, what you can accomplish and when you can do it. When you discover them, work with them. Set goals you can accomplish and deadlines you can reach. Avoid commitments that are too rigid for you.
Find a balance – Find a balance between your business and personal life. Know when it’s time to work, and when it’s time to handle personal affairs. When it’s time for work, devote your time, energy, and concentration to it; and when it’s time for yourself, learn to relax and give up work for that moment. Balancing work and personal life would improve you psychologically and help you avoid stress.
Develop Organizational Skills – Organize your work place, your files, and activities in an orderly manner that would make it easier for you to navigate through your work process. Don’t jam-pack your schedule, instead space it to allow convenience, and prioritize your work to ensure you complete immediate tasks first.
Equip yourself with necessary resources and equipments – Sacrifice the finances required to obtain important resources and equipments, and go for them because they would make the production process faster and easier, relieving you of any stress you would have experienced working without it.
Start Early – Have you noticed that if you start working early in the morning, you won’t get tired easily, and you will cover large part of work needed to be done; while if you start working late morning or afternoon, you will get tired easily and won’t do much work. Therefore, to avoid work stress, start your work early in the morning.
Take regular breaks – Working straight hours would only leave you exhausted with headaches and body pains. Plan to take regular breaks during work hours, so as to relax your mind and body, and prevent them from getting over worked up.
Believe in yourself and be optimistic – Believe in yourself and be positive about your products and services. Erase every negativity that pressurizes you to make everything perfect and makes you afraid that your work is not good enough. You can improve your optimism by seeing value in your work and the solutions it brings to satisfying people’s needs.
Resolve Conflicts and Personal Problems – Try to resolve any conflict or personal problems you’re facing, to prevent them from stressing and weighing you down.
By following these tips, you can surely avoid workplace stress even as you passionately operate your business and satisfy your customers.