Don’t sweat the small stuff for Men

Simple Ways to Minimize Stress in a Competitive World

Richard Carlson

ISBN: 0-7868-8636-6

• Do not be very serious and heavy hearted towards life. Else, life will become a drag.
Focus on the most important things in life. E.g. Your family and live each day to the maximum. You will else dread opportunities instead of looking at them as challenges.

• Do not let your thoughts wade you away from your present peaceful state of mind.
Backing off your thinking once a negative thought enters your mind will allow you to remain calm and deal more effectively with whatever situation presents itself.

• Spend more time with your kids
Whether the kid’s are less than one month old or nineteen years old, they have incredible gifts for us.
The qualities of children compliment our own qualities. In other words, youth, playfulness, lightheartedness, curiosity and intuition is exactly what we need, as this brings about a balance in our lives.
This reminds us that the best things in life are not things. Instead, the magic of life is revealed by the interactions we have with others, particularly those we love.
Remember, at the end of your life you will never regret the time you spent with your kids, and I am sure you will wish you had spent more time.

• Take your wife’s advice
Check for a pattern and then act on the findings. Request her to give you constructive criticism and time it appropriately. Sometimes they have the best advice as they know us best.

• Admit if you do not know the answer, rather than pretend you are in control and make the situation worse
This will help you avoid maintaining a facade, which will lead to an immediate reduction in your stress level

• Have a special cause
Be it teaching unprivileged children to read and write, cleanliness in society. It is important to have one cause. This one thing is guaranteed to bring a lot of joy into your life.
It will help you feel connected to the world as though you are doing something worthwhile for others.

• Be able to laugh at yourself
Do not take everything so personally. Not only will it make you feel less tense and anxious, but it will give you better judgment as well.
If someone does not call you on your birthday, does not bring you a expensive gift, let it not bother you.

• Do not let your competitive nature get the best of you
You should know when to draw the line.

• Be patient and grant yourself a minimum of 15-30 minutes every day

• See stress as non sexy (Not to boasted about)

• Share your dreams with your loved one’s
A good idea is to share your dreams instead of frustrations. Because of whatever we share gets reinforced. Besides, people do not like to listen to complainers.
It also helps you get closer to others

· Treat people with respect

· Run an ethical business, pay people generously

· Forgive easily

· Take responsibility for your own actions & admit when you have made a mistake.

• Imagine the worst form of stress and compare it with your current level of stress
Not being able to provide food on the table at the end of the day for the family.

• Step back and introspect to understand whether the reason you are getting all worked up, is worth it in the first place

• Spend time with your close friend

• Be 100% in the present
Do not ruin the present by comparing it with the past or thinking about the challenges in the future. (Family on vacation)
Do not let your mind to wander. Concentrate fully on the person you are speaking to.

• Do at least one nice small thing for someone, once a week
Something special for your wife or girlfriend that she does not expect

• Take up yoga
Gives you a good awareness of your body and breadth, gives you positive energy and genuine inner peace.

• Take up a sport and learn from it
Tennis, Golf

• Embrace change with open hands, believe that is a brighter future waiting for you
Anticipate the future to turn out well

• Do not let the difficult people pull you of track

· Think out of the box to create an easier life
Hire a gardener, house cleaner, move to a smaller house or apartment, quit a committee, and practice saying no

· Think ahead to check as to what you are fighting for will really give you all the happiness

· Do not overload your mind
Because then even a slightest addition of worry will make you react rather than respond to the situation.

· Do not converse if the other person is not keen to converse (Check body language and signs)
When over the telephone ask him whether it is a good time to speak.

· Do not be surprised when you find conflict on the contrary expect some conflict to come

· Do not complain. Even roses come with thorns.

· Do not worry about unemployment or no parking spaces, remember you only need one

· Have the word Calm written around your place of work and home to remind you to stay calm
Centered, Attentive, Light hearted & Magical

· Do not over schedule your day.
Bite only what you can chew. Remember, many a times controlling your schedule is the solution that you need.
As going to a vacation will only lead to a temporary relief for a few days.

· Do not allow things to keep on bottling up
If a person continuously mispronounces your name, go and tell him that

· Do not make a commitment to the family, boss, and customer unless you are absolutely certain that you will be able to make it happen.
E.g. A Vacation.

· Do not attempt to do everything yourself
Ask yourself the following questions after having a good look on your list of activities that you do in a day
1) What things on the list I want to do myself?
2) What things on this list I can afford to delegate?
3) When I delegate something, what do I want to do with the time I save?

· Accept life as it is rather than all the time complaining and expecting it to be different
Be it the weather, certain circumstances as your non acceptance will cause you some amount of stress and definitely not bring out any change in the external circumstances or weather.

· Do not procrastinate, act now
Many a times you are aware that you are beginning to add weight and you really now need to exercise. You should then start with it rather than procrastinating it any further.

· Stop! Stop! Stop! Wait for 2 Hours before reacting to a situation
It is more than likely that if you follow this advice you will be able to respond to the situation, rather than react and cause stress for all by blowing your cool.

· Give yourself plenty of time, drive carefully and steadily

· Keep a photocopy of the important documents or keep a spare set of keys

· Identify your stress signals
Identify what is causing stress to you and take immediate corrective action. Sending of report.

· Practice preventive maintenance
Act before the problem becomes big, procrastinating the trip to a dentist, car mechanic, personal finance check, no tab on the credit card expenditure

· Use the word “Urgent” judiciously
Remember that not everything in the world is urgent.

· Be firm and do not compromise on certain things
Keep defined timings for lunch / quiet break and ensure you stick to it and do not let others change it.

· Do not over identify with your role
Because if that goes, everything else also goes

· When faced with a stressful situation, buy time to think

· See if you can change your opinion about something, so that it does not cause you stress anymore

· Share what has gone right today, rather than focusing on what went wrong

· Under react
Instead of overreacting to a situation or reacting, you chose to under react. This helps you from avoiding unnecessary stress and spreading stress around you.

· Do things when they are important only and do not wait for something to become both urgent and important

· Do not over commit

· Let go of the past
We are not upset about the past. Instead we are more upset because of the attention we are giving to those past events – here in the present.

· Remember that no one can cause you any discomfort without your consent

· Anticipate defensiveness
Having the wisdom to anticipate defensive reactions allows you to avoid a great deal of conflict in the first place by not pushing certain buttons in people and by not engaging in certain communication and behavior that are likely to set someone off.

The payoff to you is that each conflict you prevent is one less hassle and source of stress you have to deal with. This saves you time, energy, aggravation and stress.

· Learn from your mistake and take immediate action so that it does not cause you any stress in the future
e.g. Insure yourself adequately after a minor accident (look at the brighter side, that it was God’s way of sending you a gentle reminder)

· Request your friends and close colleagues to tell you your blind spots and then act on them
Our friends are able to see things in us that we may not be able to see in ourselves. E.g. You are taking this matter too personally, you need to move out of this business etc.

· Look at things from a third party look
Sometimes, it will help you look at things from an entirely different perspective and solve the problem and minimize the stress associated with it.

· Give compliments freely
It acts as a stress reducing tool. As long as your compliments are genuine they help with the following:
It reinforces in the person receiving the compliment that you are a thoughtful person and cares about them and acknowledges them.
It gives them a fine reputation to live up to. (Pygmalion effect). The interesting thing about giving compliments is that it makes both the receiver and the giver feel good.

· Remember perfect practice makes perfect (Vince Lombardi)
It is not the amount you spent but the amount of quality time you spend in practicing which will give you the results you desire.

· Celebrate whole heartedly in others successes, encourage others and be generous with money, sharing knowledge, ideas
This is one of the key ways of keeping stress at bay.

· Know when to fight back and when not to make fuss of it
A seat in the aircraft may not be worth fighting for. (Even if you are right)

· Be less judgmental and making peace with imperfection, searching for the grain of truth in the opinion of others

· Do not broadcast your unhappy thoughts, if there is not going to help you in any way.

· Give the person benefit of doubt
Put the burden of doubt while communicating on yourself and say. Maybe I am not clear, let me explain again

· Exercise
A healthy mind stays in a healthy body. Parents need to instill the same in their children from the very beginning.