Introduction to Stress Management

A lot of research has been conducted into stress over the last hundred years. Some of the theories behind it are now settled and accepted; others are still being researched and debated. During this time, there seems to have been something approaching open warfare between competing theories and definitions: Views have been passionately held and aggressively defended.

What complicates this is that intuitively we all feel that we know what stress is, as it is something we have all experienced. A definition should therefore be obvious…except that it is not.

Definitions

Hans Selye was one of the founding fathers of stress research. His view in 1956 was that “stress is not necessarily something bad – it all depends on how you take it. The stress of exhilarating, creative successful work is beneficial, while that of failure, humiliation or infection is detrimental.” Selye believed that the biochemical effects of stress would be experienced irrespective of whether the situation was positive or negative.

Since then, a great deal of further research has been conducted, and ideas have moved on. Stress is now viewed as a "bad thing", with a range of harmful biochemical and long-term effects. These effects have rarely been observed in positive situations.

The most commonly accepted definition of stress (mainly attributed to Richard S Lazarus) is that stress is a condition or feeling experienced when a person perceives that “demands exceed the personal and social resources the individual is able to mobilize.” In short, it's what we feel when we think we've lost control of events.

This is the main definition used by this section of Mind Tools, although we also recognize that there is an intertwined instinctive stress response to unexpected events. The stress response inside us is therefore part instinct and part to do with the way we think.

Fight-or-Flight

Some of the early research on stress (conducted by Walter Cannon in 1932) established the existence of the well-known “fight-or-flight” response. His work showed that when an organism experiences a shock or perceives a threat, it quickly releases hormones that help it to survive.

In humans, as in other animals, these hormones help us to run faster and fight harder. They increase heart rate and blood pressure, delivering more oxygen and blood sugar to power important muscles. They increase sweating in an effort to cool these muscles, and help them stay efficient. They divert blood away from the skin to the core of our bodies, reducing blood loss if we are damaged. As well as this, these hormones focus our attention on the threat, to the exclusion of everything else. All of this significantly improves our ability to survive life-threatening events.

Not only life-threatening events trigger this reaction: We experience it almost any time we come across something unexpected or something that frustrates our goals. When the threat is small, our response is small and we often do not notice it among the many other distractions of a stressful situation.

Unfortunately, this mobilization of the body for survival also has negative consequences. In this state, we are excitable, anxious, jumpy and irritable. This actually reduces our ability to work effectively with other people. With trembling and a pounding heart, we can find it difficult to execute precise, controlled skills. The intensity of our focus on survival interferes with our ability to make fine judgments by drawing information from many sources. We find ourselves more accident-prone and less able to make good decisions.

There are very few situations in modern working life where this response is useful. Most situations benefit from a calm, rational, controlled and socially sensitive approach.

In the short term, we need to keep this fight-or-flight response under control to be effective in our jobs. In the long term we need to keep it under control to avoid problems of poor health and burnout.

Managing Stress

There are very many proven skills that we can use to manage stress. These help us to remain calm and effective in high pressure situations, and help us avoid the problems of long term stress. In the rest of this section of Mind Tools, we look at some important techniques in each of these three groups.

Keeping a Stress Diary or carrying out the Burnout Self-Test will help you to identify your current levels of stress, so you can decide what action, if any, you need to take. Job Analysis and Performance Planning will help you to get on top of your workload. While the emotionally-oriented skills of Imagery, Physical Techniques and Rational Positive Thinking will help you change the way you see apparently stressful situations. Finally, the article on Anger Management will help you to channel your feelings into performance.

This is a much-abridged excerpt from the ‘Understanding Stress and Stress Management’ module of the Mind Tools Stress Management Masterclass. As well as covering this material in more detail, it also discusses:

Long-term stress: The General Adaptation Syndrome and Burnout
The Integrated Stress Response
Stress and Health
Stress and its Affect on the Way We Think
Pressure andPerformance: Flow and the ‘Inverted-U’

These sections give you a deeper understanding of stress, helping you to develop your own stress management strategies for handling unique circumstances. Click here to find out more about the Stress Management Masterclass and here to visit the Stress.MindTools.Com site, which has many more articles on stress management.

The first of these articles shows you how to keep a stress diary - an important technique for understanding the most important sources of stress in your life. To read this, click 'Next article' below. Other relevant destinations are shown in the "Where to go from here" list underneath.

Warning: Stress can cause severe health problems and, in extreme cases, can cause death. While these stress management techniques have been shown to have a positive effect on reducing stress, they are for guidance only, and readers should take the advice of suitably qualified health professionals if they have any concerns over stress-related illnesses or if stress is causing significant or persistent unhappiness. Health professionals should also be consulted before any major change in diet or levels of exercise.

Stress Diary

Identifying the Causes of Short-Term Stress

Stress Diaries are important for understanding the causes of short-term stress in your life. They also give you an important insight into how you react to stress, and help you to identify the level of stress at which you prefer to operate.

The idea behind Stress Diaries is that, on a regular basis, you record information about the stresses you are experiencing, so that you can analyse these stresses and then manage them.

This is important because often these stresses flit in and out of our minds without getting the attention and focus that they deserve.

As well as helping you capture and analyse the most common sources of stress in your life, Stress Diaries help you to understand:

The causes of stress in more detail;
The levels of stress at which you operate most effectively; and
How you react to stress, and whether your reactions are appropriate and useful.

Stress Diaries, therefore, give you the important information that you need to manage stress.

How to Use the Tool

Stress Diaries are useful in that they gather information regularly and routinely, over a period of time. This helps you to separate the common, routine stresses from those that only occur occasionally. They establish a pattern that you can analyse to extract the information that you need.

Download our free Stress Diary template and make regular entries in your Stress Diary (for example, every hour). If you have any difficulty remembering to do this, set an alarm to remind you to make your next diary entry.

Also make an entry in your diary after each incident that is stressful enough for you to feel that it is significant.

Every time you make an entry, record the following information:

The date and time of the entry.
The most recent stressful event you have experienced.
How happy you feel now, using a subjective assessment on a scale of -10 (the most unhappy you have ever been) to +10 (the happiest you have been). As well as this, write down the mood you are feeling.
How effectively you are working now (a subjective assessment, on a scale of 0 to 10). A 0 here would show complete ineffectiveness, while a 10 would show the greatest effectiveness you have ever achieved.
The fundamental cause of the stress (being as honest and objective as possible).

You may also want to note:

How stressed you feel now, again on a subjective scale of 0 to 10. As before, 0 here would be the most relaxed you have ever been, while 10 would show the greatest stress you have ever experienced.
The symptom you felt (e.g. “butterflies in your stomach”, anger, headache, raised pulse rate, sweaty palms, etc.).
How well you handled the event: Did your reaction help solve the problem, or did it inflame it?

You will reap the real benefits of having a stress diary in the first few weeks. After this, the benefit you get will reduce each additional day. If, however, your lifestyle changes, or you begin to suffer from stress again in the future, then it may be worth using the diary approach again. You will probably find that the stresses you face have changed. If this is the case, then keeping a diary again will help you to develop a different approach to deal with them.

Analyze the diary at the end of this period.

Analyzing the Diary

Analyze the diary in the following ways:

First, look at the different stresses you experienced during the time you kept your diary. List the types of stress that you experienced by frequency, with the most frequent stresses at the top of the list.
Next, prepare a second list with the most unpleasant stresses at the top of the list and the least unpleasant at the bottom.
Looking at your lists of stresses, those at the top of each list are the most important for you to learn to control.
Working through the stresses, look at your assessments of their underlying causes, and your appraisal of how well you handled the stressful event. Do these show you areas where you handled stress poorly, and could improve your stress management skills? If so, list these.
Next, look through your diary at the situations that cause you stress. List these.
Finally, look at how you felt when you were under stress. Look at how it affected your happiness and your effectiveness, understand how you behaved, and think about how you felt.

Having analyzed your diary, you should fully understand what the most important and frequent sources of stress are in your life. You should appreciate the levels of stress at which you are happiest. You should also know the sort of situations that cause you stress so that you can prepare for them and manage them well.

As well as this, you should now understand how you react to stress, and the symptoms that you show when you are stressed. When you experience these symptoms in the future, this should be a trigger for you to use appropriate stress management techniques.

Summary

Stress Diaries help you to get a good understanding of the routine, short-term stresses that you experience in your life. They help you to identify the most important, and most frequent, stresses that you experience, so that you can concentrate your efforts on these. They also help you to identify areas where you need to improve your stress management skills, and help you to understand the levels of stress at which you are happiest, and most effective.

To keep a stress diary, make a regular diary entry with the headings above. For example, you may do this every hour. Also make entries after stressful events.

Analyze the diary to identify the most frequent and most serious stresses that you experience. Use it also to identify areas where you can improve your management of stress.

Job Analysis

The First Step in Managing Job Overload

We have all experienced that appalling sense of having far too much work to do and too little time to do it in. We can choose to ignore this, and work unreasonably long hours to stay on top of our workload. The risks here are that we become exhausted, that we have so much to do that we do a poor quality job, and that we neglect other areas of our life. Each of these can lead to intense stress.

The alternative is to work more intelligently, by focusing on the things that are important for job success and reducing the time we spend on low priority tasks. Job Analysis is the first step in doing this.

The first of the action-oriented skills that we look at is Job Analysis. Job Analysis is a key technique for managing job overload – an important source of stress.

To do an excellent job, you need to fully understand what is expected of you. While this may seem obvious, in the hurly-burly of a new, fast-moving, high-pressure role, it is oftentimes something that is easy to overlook.

By understanding the priorities in your job, and what constitutes success within it, you can focus on these activities and minimize work on other tasks as much as possible. This helps you get the greatest return from the work you do, and keep your workload under control.

Job Analysis is a useful technique for getting a firm grip on what really is important in your job so that you are able to perform excellently. It helps you to cut through clutter and distraction to get to the heart of what you need to do.

Note that this tool takes two forms - the short-form we discuss here assumes that your organization is already well organized and that its job descriptions, review criteria and incentives are well-aligned and correct. The long-form (discussed within the Stress Management Masterclass), helps you to deal with jobs where this is not the case – here, inconsistent job design can cause enormous stress.

How to Use the Tool:

To conduct a job analysis, go through the following steps:

1. Review formal job documentation:

Look at your job description. Identify the key objectives and priorities within it.
Look at the forms for the periodic performance reviews. These show precisely the behaviors that will be rewarded and, by implication, show those that will be punished.
Find out what training is available for the role. Ensure that you attend appropriate training so that you know as much as possible about what you need to know.
Look at incentive schemes to understand the behaviors that these reward.

2. Understand the organization’s strategy and culture:

Your job exists for a reason – this will ultimately be determined by the strategy of the organizational unit you work for. This strategy is often expressed in a mission statement. In some way, what you do should help the organization achieve its mission (if it does not, you have to ask yourself how secure the job is!). Make sure you understand and perform well the tasks that contribute to the strategy.

Similarly, every organization has its own culture – its own, historically developed values, rights and wrongs, and things that it considers to be important. If you are new to an organization, talk through with established, respected members of staff to understand these values.

Make sure that you understand this culture. Make sure that your actions reinforce the company’s culture, or at least do not go against it. Looked at through the lens of culture, will the company value what you do?

Check that your priorities are consistent with this mission statement and the company culture.

3. Find out who the top achievers are, and understand why they are successful:

Inside or outside the organization, there may be people in a similar role to you who are seen as highly successful. Find out how they work, and what they do to generate this success. Look at what they do, and learn from them. Understand what skills make them successful, and learn those skills.

4. Check that you have the people and resources to do the job:

The next step is to check that you have the staff support, resources and training needed to do an excellent job. If you do not, start work on obtaining them.

5. Confirm priorities with your boss:

By this stage, you should have a thorough understanding of what your job entails, and what your key objectives are. You should also have a good idea of the resources that you need, and any additional training you may need to do the best you can.

This is the time to talk the job through with your boss, and confirm that you share an understanding of what constitutes good performance in the role.

It is also worth talking through serious inconsistencies, and agreeing how these can be managed.

6. Take Action:
You should now know what you have to do to be successful in your job. You should have a good idea of the most important things that you have to do, and also the least important.

Where you can drop the less-important tasks, do so. Where you can de-prioritize them, do so.

Where you need more resource or training to do your job, negotiate for this.

Remember to be a little sensitive in the way you do this: Good teamwork often means helping other people out with jobs that do not benefit you. However, do not let people take advantage of you: Be assertive in explaining that you have your own work to do. If you cannot drop tasks, delegate them or negotiate longer time scales.

Summary:

Job analysis is a five-step technique for:

Understanding and agreeing how to achieve peak performance in your job;
Ensuring that you and your boss agree on the areas you should concentrate on when time gets tight; and the areas that can be de-emphasized during this time; and
Making sure that you have the resources, training and staff needed to do a good job.

By using the Job Analysis technique, you should gain a good understanding of how you can excel at your job. You should also understand your job priorities.

This helps you to manage the stress of job overload by helping to decide which jobs you should drop.

Job Analysis is just one of many practical action-oriented techniques for reducing the stress of job overload. These and other types of technique help you to resolve structural problems within jobs, work more effectively with your boss and powerful people, improve the way your teams function and become more assertive so that other people respect your right not to take on an excessive workload. These are all important techniques for bringing job stress under control, for improving the quality of your working life, and for achieving career success.

Performance Planning

Planning to Manage Performance Stress

We all know the feeling of sickness in our stomach before an important presentation or performance. We have all experienced the sweaty palms, the raised heart rate, and the sense of agitation that we feel as these events approach. We have probably all also experienced how much worse this becomes when things go wrong in the run up to an event.

This article helps you deal with this by helping you to prepare well for future performances.

The Thought Awareness, Rational Thinking and Positive Thinking technique that we look at later may be enough to help you manage the fears, anxieties and negative thoughts that may arise in a small performance.

For larger events, it is worth preparing a Performance Plan. This is a pre-prepared plan that helps you to deal effectively with any problems or distractions that may occur, and perform in a positive and focused frame of mind.

How to Use the Tool:

To prepare your Performance Plan, begin by making a list all of the steps that you need to do from getting prepared for a performance through to its conclusion.

Start far enough in advance to sort out any equipment problems. List all of the physical and mental steps that you need to take to:

Prepare and check your equipment, and repair or replace it where it does not work;
Make travel arrangements;
Pack your equipment and luggage;
Travel to the site of your performance;
Set up equipment;
Wait and prepare for your performance; and
Deliver your performance.

Next, work through each of these steps. Think though:

Everything that could reasonably go wrong at each step with equipment and arrangements; and
Any distractions and negative thinking that could undermine your confidence or stop you having a positive, focused frame of mind at the start of and during your performance.

Work through all of the things that could go wrong. Look at the likelihood of the problem occurring. Many of the things you have listed may be extremely unlikely. Where appropriate, strike these out and ignore them from your planning.

Look at each of the remaining contingencies. These will fall into three categories:

Things you can eliminate by appropriate preparation, including making back-up arrangements and acquiring appropriate additional or spare equipment;
Things you can manage by avoiding unnecessary risk; and
Things you can manage with a pre-prepared action or with an appropriate stress management technique

For example, if you are depending on using a data projector for a presentation, you can arrange for a back up projector to be available, purchase a replacement bulb, and/or print off paper copies of the presentation in case all else fails. You can leave earlier than strictly necessary so that you have time for serious travel delays. You can also think through appropriate alternatives if your travel plans are disrupted. If you are forced to wait before your event in an uncomfortable or unsuitably distracting place, prepare the relaxation techniques you can use to keep a calm, positive frame of mind. Research all of the information you will need to take the appropriate actions quickly, and ensure that you have the appropriate resources available.

Also, prepare the positive thinking you will use to counter fears and negative thoughts both before the event and during it. Use stress anticipation skills to ensure that you are properly prepared to manage stress. Then use thought awareness, rational thinking and positive thinking skills to prepare the positive thoughts that you will use to protect and build your confidence.

Write your plan down on paper in a form that is easy to read and easy to refer to. Keep it with you as you prepare for, and deliver, your performance. Refer to it whenever you need it in the time leading up to the event, and during it.

Summary

Performance Plans help you to prepare for an important performance. They bring together practical contingency planning with mental preparation to help you prepare for situations and eventualities that may realistically occur.

This gives you the confidence that comes from knowing you are as well prepared for an event as is practically possible to be. It also helps you to avoid the unpleasant stresses that come from poor preparation, meaning that you can deliver your performance in a relaxed, positive and focused frame of mind, whatever problems or upsets may have occurred.

This article is an abridged version of just one of the techniques used to manage performance stress explained in “Managing Stress for Career Success”, Mind Tools’ Stress Management Masterclass. The ‘Managing Performance Stress’ module explains how to prepare for the event, how to manage negative thinking leading up to it and how to learn lessons from your experience of stress. As well as this, it shows you how to use a range of useful adrenaline management techniques for controlling the anxiety you will inevitably feel just before your performance.

Mental Stress Management

Sometimes we are not able to change our environment to manage stress – this may be the case where we do not have the power to change a situation, or where we are about to give an important performance. Imagery is a useful skill for relaxing in these situations.

Imagery is a potent method of stress reduction, especially when combined with physical relaxation methods such as deep breathing.

You will be aware of how particular environments can be very relaxing, while others can be intensely stressful. The principle behind the use of imagery in stress reduction is that you can use your imagination to recreate and enjoy a situation that is very relaxing. The more intensely you imagine the situation, the more relaxing the experience will be.

This sounds unlikely. In fact, the effectiveness of imagery can be shown very effectively if you have access to biofeedback equipment. By imagining a pleasant and relaxing scene (which reduces stress) you can objectively see the measured stress in your body reduce. By imagining an unpleasant and stressful situation, you can see the stress in your body increase. This very real effect can be quite alarming when you see it happen the first time!

How to Use the Tool:

Two situations where imagery can be very effective are when you're trying to relax and when you're preparing or rehearsing for a performance.

Imagery in Relaxation

One common use of imagery in relaxation is to imagine a scene, place or event that you remember as safe, peaceful, restful, beautiful and happy. You can bring all your senses into the image with, for example, sounds of running water and birds, the smell of cut grass, the taste of cool white wine, the warmth of the sun, etc. Use the imagined place as a retreat from stress and pressure.

Scenes can involve complex images such as lying on a beach in a deserted cove. You may “see” cliffs, sea and sand around you, “hear” the waves crashing against rocks, “smell” the salt in the air, and “feel” the warmth of the sun and a gentle breeze on your body. Other images might include looking at a mountain view, swimming in a tropical pool, or whatever you want. You will be able to come up with the most effective images for yourself.

Other uses of imagery in relaxation involve creating mental pictures of stress flowing out of your body, or of stress, distractions and everyday concerns being folded away and locked into a padlocked chest.

Imagery in Preparation and Rehearsal

You can also use imagery in rehearsal before a big event, allowing you to run through the event in your mind.

Aside from allowing you to rehearse mentally, imagery also allows you to practice in advance for anything unusual that might occur, so that you are prepared and already practiced in handling it. This is a technique used very commonly by top sports people, who learn good performance habits by repeatedly rehearsing performances in their imagination. When the unusual eventualities they have rehearsed using imagery occur, they have good, pre-prepared, habitual responses to them.

Imagery also allows you to pre-experience achievement of your goals, helping to give you the self-confidence you need to do something well. This is another technique used by successful athletes.

Summary:

With imagery, you substitute actual experience with scenes from your imagination. Your body reacts to these imagined scenes almost as if they were real, calming you down and letting adrenaline disperse.

To relax with imagery, imagine a warm, comfortable, safe and pleasant place, and enjoy it in your imagination.

Imagery can be shown to work by using biofeedback devices that measure body stress. By imagining pleasant and unpleasant scenes, you can actually see or hear the changing levels of stress in your body diminish.

This is an excerpt from "Managing Stress for Career Success", the Mind Tools Stress Management Masterclass. Imagery is just one of the important mental relaxation techniques that you learn with this course. Not only does the course show you how to use these techniques, it also explains the sound practical psychology that lies behind them. our career.

. Physical Relaxation Techniques

Deep Breathing, PMR and the Relaxation Response

Physical relaxation techniques are as effective as mental techniques in reducing stress. In fact, the best relaxation is achieved by using physical and mental techniques together.

These three useful physical relaxation techniques can help you reduce muscle tension and manage the effects of the fight-or-flight response on your body. This is particularly important if you need to think clearly and perform precisely when you are under pressure.

The techniques we will look at are Deep Breathing, Progressive Muscular Relaxation and “The Relaxation Response”.

Deep Breathing

Deep breathing is a simple, but very effective, method of relaxation. It is a core component of everything from the "take ten deep breaths" approach to calming someone down, right through to yoga relaxation and Zen meditation. It works well in conjunction with other relaxation techniques such as Progressive Muscular Relaxation, relaxation imagery and meditation to reduce stress.

To use the technique, take a number of deep breaths and relax your body further with each breath. That's all there is to it!

Progressive Muscular Relaxation

Progressive Muscular Relaxation is useful for relaxing your body when your muscles are tense.

The idea behind PMR is that you tense up a group of muscles so that they are as tightly contracted as possible. Hold them in a state of extreme tension for a few seconds. Then, relax the muscles normally. Then, consciously relax the muscles even further so that you are as relaxed as possible.

By tensing your muscles first, you will find that you are able to relax your muscles more than would be the case if you tried to relax your muscles directly.

Experiment with PMR by forming a fist, and clenching your hand as tight as you can for a few seconds. Relax your hand to its previous tension, and then consciously relax it again so that it is as loose as possible. You should feel deep relaxation in your hand muscles.

The Relaxation Response

‘The Relaxation Response’ is the name of a book published by Dr Herbert Benson of Harvard University in 1968. In a series of experiments into various popular meditation techniques, Dr Benson established that these techniques had a very real effect on reducing stress and controlling the fight-or-flight response. Direct effects included deep relaxation, slowed heartbeat and breathing, reduced oxygen consumption and increased skin resistance.

This is something that you can do for yourself by following these steps:

Sit quietly and comfortably.
Close your eyes.
Start by relaxing the muscles of your feet and work up your body relaxing muscles.
Focus your attention on your breathing.
Breathe in deeply and then let your breath out. Count your breaths, and say the number of the breath as you let it out (this gives you something to do with your mind, helping you to avoid distraction).

Do this for ten or twenty minutes.

An even more potent alternative approach is to follow these steps, but to use relaxation imagery instead of counting breaths in step 5. Again, you can prove to yourself that this works using the biofeedback equipment.

Summary

“Deep Breathing,” “Progressive Muscular Relaxation,” and the steps leading to the “Relaxation Response” are three good techniques that can help you to relax your body and manage the symptoms of the fight-or-flight response.

These are particularly helpful for both handling nerves prior to an important performance, and reducing stress generally.

This is an excerpt from "Managing Stress for Career Success", the Mind Tools Stress Management Masterclass. These physical relaxation techniques are just some of the important skills that we explain. As well as explaining relaxation techniques, the Stress Management Masterclass shows you how to take action to tackle the root causes of job stress - a side-effect of this approach is that you become more effective and successful in yThinking On Your Feet

Staying Cool and Confident Under Pressure

"So, Susan, your report indicates you support forging ahead with the expansion but have you considered the impact this will have on our customers? Surely you remember the fiasco in Dallas last year when they tried the same type of project?"

Yikes! If you're Susan, you're likely feeling under pressure! You have to answer the question and allay the CEO's concerns about the disruption to customers. What do you do? What do you say? How do you say it? What if you can't think of anything to say?

This is not an uncommon situation. Whether you are put on the spot while attending a meeting, presenting a proposal, selling an idea, or answering questions after a presentation, articulating your thoughts in unanticipated situations is a skill. Thinking on your feet is highly coveted skill and when you master it, your clever and astute responses will instill immediate confidence in what you are saying.

When you can translate your thoughts and ideas into coherent speech quickly, you ensure your ideas are heard. You also come across as being confident, persuasive, and trustworthy.

Confidence is key when learning to think on your feet. When you present information, give an opinion or provide suggestions, make sure you know what you are talking about and that you are well informed. This doesn't mean you have to know everything about everything, but if you are reasonably confident in your knowledge of the subject, that confidence will help you to remain calm and collected even if you are put unexpectedly in the hot seat.

The secret of thinking on your feet is to be prepared: learn some skills and tactics, and do some preparation for situations that might put you under pressure. Then when you do find yourself faced with unexpected questions and debate, you'll be ready to draw on these tactics and preparation, and so stay poised while you compose your thoughts and prepare your response. Here are some tips and tactics:

1. Relax
This is often the opposite of how you are feeling when you're under pressure, but in order for your voice to remain calm and for your brain to "think", you have to be as relaxed as possible.

Take deep breaths
Take a second and give yourself a positive and affirming message
Clench invisible muscles (thighs, biceps, feet) for a few seconds and release.

2. Listen
It comes as no surprise that listening is critical to thinking on your feet. Why do you need to listen? To make sure you fully understand the question or request before you reply. If you answer too soon, you risk going into a line of thinking that is unnecessary or inappropriate. To help you with your listening remember to:

Look directly at the questioner
Observe body language as well as what is being spoken
Try to interpret what is being suggested by the question or request. Is this an attack, a legitimate request for more information, or a test? Why is this person asking this and what is the intention?

Tip:
Remember that the person is asking a question because he or she is interested. Some interest is positive - they simply want to know more - and some is negative - they want to see you squirm. Either way they are interested in what you have to say. It's your privilege and pleasure not to disappoint them!

3. Have the Question Repeated
If you're feeling particularly under pressure, ask for the question to be repeated. This gives you a bit more time to think about your response.

At first glance people think this will only make them look unsure. It doesn't. It makes you look concerned that you give an appropriate response. It also gives the questioner an opportunity to rephrase and ask a question that is more on point. Remember, the questioner may well have just "thought on his or her feet" to ask the question, so when you give them a second chance, the question may well be better articulated and clearer to all.

By asking to have the question repeated you also get another opportunity to assess the intentions of the questioner. If it is more specific or better worded, chances are the person really wants to learn more. If the repeated question is more aggressive than the first one, then you know the person is more interested in making you uncomfortable than anything else. When that's the case, the next tip comes in very handy.

4. Use Stall Tactics
Sometimes you need more time to get your thoughts straight and calm yourself down enough to make a clear reply. The last thing you want to do is blurt out the first thing that comes to your mind. Often this is a defensive comment that only makes you look insecure and anxious rather than confident and composed.

Repeat the question yourself. This gives you time to think and you clarify exactly what is being asked. It also allows you to rephrase if necessary and put a positive spin on the request. "How have I considered the impact on customers in order to make sure they have a continued positive experience during the expansion?"
Narrow the focus. Here, you ask a question of your own to not only clarify, but to bring the question down to a manageable scope. "You're interested in hearing how I've considered customer impacts. What impacts are you most interested in: product availability or in-store service? "
Ask for clarification. Again, this will force the questioner to be more specific and hopefully get more to a specific point. "When you say you want to know how I've analyzed customer impacts, do you mean you want a detailed analysis or a list of the tools and methods I used?"
Ask for a definition. Jargon and specific terminology may present a problem for you. Ask to have words and ideas clarified to ensure you are talking about the same thing.

5. Use Silence to your Advantage
We are conditioned to believe that silence is uncomfortable. However, if you use it sparingly, it communicates that you are in control of your thoughts and confident in your ability to answer expertly. When you rush to answer you also typically rush your words. Pausing to collect your thoughts tells your brain to slow everything down.

6. Stick to One Point and One Supporting Piece of Information
There's a high risk that, under pressure, you'll answer a question with either too much or too little information. If you give too short an answer, you risk letting the conversation slip into interrogation mode. (You'll get another question, and the questioner will be firmly in control of how the dialogue unfolds). When your reply is too long, you risk losing people's interest, coming across as boring, or giving away things that are better left unsaid. Remember, you aren't being asked to give a speech on the subject. The questioner wants to know something. Respect that and give them an answer, with just enough supporting information.

This technique gives you focus. Rather than trying to tie together all the ideas that are running through your head, when you pick one main point and one supporting fact, you allow yourself to answer accurately and assuredly.

Tip:
If you don't know the answer, say so. There is no point trying to make something up. You will end up looking foolish and this will lower your confidence when you need to think on your feet in the future. There is (usually) nothing wrong with not knowing something. Simply make sure you follow up as soon as possible afterwards with a researched answer.

7. Prepare some "what ifs"
With a bit of forethought, it's often possible to predict the types of questions you might be asked, so you can prepare and rehearse some answers to questions that might come your way. Let's say you are presenting the monthly sales figures to your management team. The chances are your report will cover most of the obvious questions that the management team might have, but what other questions might you predict? What's different about this month? What new questions might be asked? How would you respond? What additional information might you need to have to hand to support more detailed questions?

In particular, spend some time brainstorming the most difficult questions that people might ask, and preparing and rehearsing good answers to them.

8. Practice Clear Delivery
How you say something is almost as important as what you say. If you mumble or use "umm" or "ah" between every second word, confidence in what you are saying plummets. Whenever you are speaking with people, make a point to practice these key oration skills:

Speak in a strong voice. (Don't confuse strong with loud!)
Use pauses strategically to emphasize a point or slow yourself down
Vary your tone and pay attention to how your message will be perceived given the intonation you use
Use eye contact appropriately
Pay attention to your grammar
Use the level of formality that is appropriate to the situation.

9. Summarize and Stop
Wrap up your response with a quick summary statement. After that, resist adding more information. There may well be silence after your summary. Don't make the common mistake of filling the silence with more information! This is the time when other people are adsorbing the information you have given. If you persist with more information, you may end up causing confusion and undoing the great work you've already done in delivering your response.

Use words to indicate you are summarizing (i.e. "in conclusion," "finally") or briefly restate the question and your answer. So - what did I do to analyze customer impacts? I reviewed the Dallas case files in detail, and prepared a "What if" analysis for our own situation."

Key points:

No one enjoys being putting on the spot or answering questions that you aren't fully expecting. The uncertainty can be stressful. That stress doesn't need to be unmanageable and you can think on your feet if you remember the strategies we just discussed. Essentially, thinking on your feet means staying in control of the situation. Ask questions, buy time for yourself, and remember to stick to one point and make that one point count. When you are able to zoom in on the key areas of concern, you'll answer like an expert and you impress your audience, and yourself, with your confidence and poise.

Rational Positive Thinking

Positive Thinking, Built on Firm Foundations

Have you ever felt really stressed about something, only to see the stress vanish when you talk the situation through with a friend?



	Overcome negative thinking.

Quite often, our experience of stress comes from our perception of a situation. Often that perception is right, but sometimes it isn't. Sometimes we are unreasonably harsh with ourselves, or jump to wrong conclusions about people’s motives, and this can send us into a downward spiral of negative thinking.

Thought Awareness, Rational Thinking and Positive Thinking are simple tools that help you to change this negative way of thinking. This page teaches you how to use them.

Introduction

The most commonly accepted definition of stress is that it occurs when a person believes that "demands exceed the personal and social resources the individual is able to mobilize". In short, it's when we feel out of control.

When people feel stressed, they have made two main judgments: First, they feel threatened by the situation, and second, they believe that they're not able to meet the threat. How stressed someone feels depends on how much the situation can hurt them, and how closely their resources meet the demands of the situation.

Perception is key to this as (technically!) situations are not stressful in their own right. Rather it is our interpretation of the situation that drives the level of stress that we feel.

Quite obviously, we are sometimes right in what we say to ourselves. Some situations may actually be dangerous, may threaten us physically, socially or in our career. Here, stress and emotion are part of the early warning system that alerts us to a threat.

Very often, however, we are overly harsh and unjust to ourselves in a way that we would never be with friends or co-workers. This, along with other negative thinking, can cause intense stress and unhappiness and can severely undermine our self-confidence.

Using the Tool:
Thought Awareness

You are thinking negatively when you fear the future, put yourself down, criticize yourself for errors, doubt your abilities, or expect failure. Negative thinking damages confidence, harms performance and paralyzes mental skills.

Unfortunately, negative thoughts tend to flit into our consciousness, do their damage and flit back out again, with their significance having barely been noticed. Since we barely realise that they were there, we do not challenge them properly, which means that they can be completely incorrect and wrong.

Thought Awareness is the process by which you observe your thoughts and become aware of what is going through your head.

One approach to it is to observe your "stream of consciousness" as you think about the thing you're trying to achieve which is stressful. Do not suppress any thoughts. Instead, just let them run their course while you watch them, and write them down on our free worksheet as they occur. Then let them go.

Another more general approach to Thought Awareness comes with logging stress in your Stress Diary. When you analyze your diary at the end of the period, you should be able to see the most common and the most damaging thoughts. Tackle these as a priority using the techniques below.

Here are some typical negative thoughts you might experience when preparing to give a major presentation:

Fear about the quality of your performance or of problems that may interfere with it.
Worry about how the audience (especially important people in it like your boss) or the press may react to you.
Dwelling on the negative consequences of a poor performance.
Self-criticism over a less-than-perfect rehearsal.

Thought awareness is the first step in the process of managing negative thoughts, as you cannot manage thoughts that you are unaware of.

Rational Thinking

The next step in dealing with negative thinking is to challenge the negative thoughts that you identified using the Thought Awareness technique. Look at every thought you wrote down and challenge it rationally. Ask yourself whether the thought is reasonable. What evidence is there for and against the thought? Would your colleagues and mentors agree or disagree with it?

Looking at the examples, the following challenges could be made to the negative thoughts we identified earlier:

Feelings of inadequacy: Have you trained yourself as well as you reasonably should have? Do you have the experience and resources you need to make the presentation? Have you planned, prepared and rehearsed enough? If you have done all of these, you've done as much as you can to give a good performance.
Worries about performance during rehearsal: If some of your practice was less than perfect, then remind yourself that the purpose of the practice is to identify areas for improvement, so that these can be sorted out before the performance.
Problems with issues outside your control: Have you identified the risks of these things happening, and have you taken steps to reduce the likelihood of them happening or their impact if they do? What will you do if they occur? And what do you need others to do for you?
Worry about other people's reactions: If you have prepared well, and you do the best you can, then you should be satisfied. If you perform as well as you reasonably can, then fair people are likely to respond well. If people are not fair, the best thing to do is ignore their comments and rise above them.

Tip:
Don't make the mistake of generalizing a single incident. OK, you made a mistake at work, but that doesn't mean you're bad at your job.

Similarly, make sure you take the long view about incidents that you're finding stressful. Just because you're finding these new responsibilities stressful now, doesn't mean that they will ALWAYS be so for you in the future.

Write your rational response to each negative thought in the Rational Thought column on the worksheet.

Tip:
If you find it difficult to look at your negative thoughts objectively, imagine that you are your best friend or a respected coach or mentor. Look at the list of negative thoughts and imagine the negative thoughts were written by someone you were giving objective advice to. Then, think how you would challenge these thoughts.

When you challenge negative thoughts rationally, you should be able to see quickly whether the thoughts are wrong or whether they have some substance to them. Where there is some substance, take appropriate action. However, make sure that your negative thoughts are genuinely important to achieving your goals, and don't just reflect a lack of experience, which everyone has to go through at some stage.

Positive Thinking & Opportunity Seeking

By now, you should already be feeling more positive. The final step is to prepare rational, positive thoughts and affirmations to counter any remaining negativity. It can also be useful to look at the situation and see if there are any useful opportunities that are offered by it.

By basing your affirmations on the clear, rational assessments of facts that you made using Rational Thinking, you can use them to undo the damage that negative thinking may have done to your self-confidence.

Tip:
Your affirmations will be strongest if they are specific, are expressed in the present tense and have strong emotional content.

Continuing the examples above, positive affirmations might be:

Problems during practice: "I have learned from my rehearsals. This has put me in a position where I can deliver a great performance. I am going to perform well and enjoy the event."
Worries about performance: "I have prepared well and rehearsed thoroughly. I am well positioned to give an excellent performance."
Problems issues outside your control: "I have thought through everything that might reasonably happen and have planned how I can handle all likely contingencies. I am very well placed to react flexibly to events."
Worry about other people's reaction: "Fair people will react well to a good performance. I will rise above any unfair criticism in a mature and professional way."

If appropriate, write these affirmations down on your worksheet so that you can use them when you need them.

As well as allowing you to structure useful affirmations, part of Positive Thinking is to look at opportunities that the situation might offer to you. In the examples above, successfully overcoming the situations causing the original negative thinking will open up opportunities. You will acquire new skills, you will be seen as someone who can handle difficult challenges, and you may open up new career opportunities.

Make sure that identifying these opportunities and focusing on them is part of your positive thinking.

Summary:

This set of tools helps you to manage and counter the stress of negative thinking.

Thought Awareness helps you to understand the negative thinking, unpleasant memories and misinterpretation of situations that may interfere with your performance and damage your self-confidence.

Rational Thinking helps you to challenge these negative thoughts, and either learn from them, or refute them as incorrect.

Positive thinking is then used to create positive affirmations that you can use to counter negative thoughts. These affirmations neutralize negative thoughts and help to build your self-confidence. It is also used to find the opportunities that are often present, to some degree, in a difficult situation.

Are You a Positive or Negative Thinker?

Learn About - and Change - How You Think

"A man is but the product of his thoughts.
What he thinks, he becomes."
Mahatma Gandhi

"Positive thinking will let you do everything better
than negative thinking will."

Zig Ziglar - Personal development guru

These are two powerful quotes. Combined, they tell us that if we think positively, we're likely to enjoy positive results. Negative thinking, on the other hand, can lead to outcomes we don't want.

Positive and negative thoughts can become self-fulfilling prophecies: What we expect can often come true.

If you start off thinking that you'll mess up a task, the chances are that you will: You may not try hard enough to succeed, you won't attract support from other people, and you may not perceive any results as good enough.

Positive thinking, on the other hand, is often associated with positive actions and outcomes. You have hope and faith in yourself and others, and you work and invest hard to prove that your optimism is warranted. You'll enthuse others, and they may well "pitch in" to help you. This makes constructive outcomes all the more likely.

When it comes down to it, positive, optimistic people are happier and healthier, and enjoy more success than those who think negatively. The key difference between them is how they think about and interpret the events in their life.

So, how do you think about your successes and failures? Do you have a predictable thinking pattern? Find out below.

Are You a Positive or Negative Thinker?

Take this short quiz to determine what kind of thinker you are. Click the 'Calculate my total' button at the foot of the quiz to get your scores.

Instructions: For each question, click the button in the column that most applies. Click the 'Calculate My Total' button to add up your score and check your result using the scoring table underneath.

Score Interpretation

Score	Comment
14-31	Yikes! It must feel as if there is a rain cloud that hangs overhead all day. You have gotten yourself into the habit of seeing things as your fault and you’ve learned to give up your control in many situations. Taking this quiz is the first step toward turning your pessimism around. Read the rest of this article carefully, and use the exercises daily. Start now!
32-50	You try to be optimistic and positive however some situations get the better of you. Identify your triggers for negative thinking and use rational thinking exercises to become naturally more optimistic. Use the tips later in this article to nail those negative thoughts!
51-70	Great job! You have a generally positive and optimistic outlook on life. You don’t take things personally and you are able to see that setbacks won’t ruin the rest of your life. Even then, if you are experiencing negative thoughts, do some work to iron them out.

Turn Negatives into Positives

The first step in changing negative thinking is to become aware of it. For many of us, negative thinking is a bad habit - and we may not even know we're doing it!

Consider this example: The guy on the subway who just made a face is surely directing his behavior at you. When the receptionist doesn't greet you in the morning, you must have done something to anger her. again! You go straight to the coffee machine, because it's Monday morning and you just know you'll be solving problems until lunchtime. When you finally get to your desk, your assistant is waiting for you. "Oh no," you think. "What has he done now? The first problem of the day. yippee!"

If you're feeling bad after reading this, imagine how it would feel to surround yourself with that much negativity. Then ask yourself if this is the way you tend to think in your own life?

Dr Martin Seligman, who has been described as America's most influential psychologist, has done extensive research on thought patterns. In particular, he looks at the impact of an optimistic versus pessimistic outlook on life and success.

Seligman says we explain events using three basic dimensions of Permanence, Pervasiveness and Personalization, with optimistic people on one end of the scale and pessimistic people on the other. We look at these below.

Permanence (Questions 3, 4, 9, 11)

Your score shows how far you believe that something you are experiencing is either permanent or temporary. A low score implies that you think bad times will carry on forever. A high score shows confidence that you'll be able to get things back on course quickly.

Pessimist: I lost my job and I'll never find one as good again. No point even looking!

Optimist: I lost my job. Thank goodness there are other opportunities I can explore!

Pervasiveness (Questions 2, 5, 6, 7 and 13)

Your score shows how far you believe that situational factors cause an effect, as opposed to the view that the effect is evidence of more universal factors at work. A low score shows that you tend to think that if you've experienced a problem in one place, you'll experience that problem wherever you go.

Pessimist: I lost my job. Companies are all the same; all they care about is money. I don't know why I bother putting in any effort at all.

Optimist: I lost my job. It's too bad our company has to reinvent itself to stay competitive. Thankfully I learned some great transferable skills!

Personalization (Questions 1, 8, 10, 12 and 14)

Your score shows how far you believe that something about you influenced the outcome, as opposed to the view that something external to you caused it. A low score indicates that you tend to blame yourself for bad things, rather than attributing the cause to more general factors.

Pessimist: I lost my job. If I had been a decent employee they would have found a new job for me.

Optimist: I lost my job. I gave it my all, however they just can't use my skill set right now.

Re-shape Your Thinking

Your answers to the questions in this quiz can show whether you have a positive or negative pattern of thinking. They're also great starting points to become more aware of your thoughts - and the effect they have on your life.

When you're aware of the way you think, you can take action to use positive situations to your advantage, and re-shape the negative ones. The goal is to think positively, regardless of the situation, and make a conscious effort to see opportunities instead of obstacles.

So, in our example, if you immediately think the receptionist is mad at you because she didn't say hello, how rational is that? Could she have been busy or distracted when you walked by? Did you say hello to her? Maybe she wasn't feeling well, or she was in a negative mood herself. These are all more rational reasons for her behavior than simply assuming that you did something wrong.

To help you start thinking positively, see our comprehensive article on Rational Positive Thinking. This is a "must read" for everyone, even very positive thinkers, because it shows why positive thinking is so important, and it discusses how to turn negative thought patterns into positive ones.

Persistent negative thinking can cause mental health problems, including depression. While these positive thinking techniques have been shown to have a positive effect, they are for guidance only, and readers should take the advice of suitably qualified health professionals if they are experiencing persistent unhappiness.

Anger Management

Channeling Anger into Performance

Anger can be normal and healthy emotion that helps us instinctively detect and respond to a threatening situation. More than this, when it is properly channeled, it can be a powerful motivating force – we all know how hard we can work to remedy an obvious injustice.

However it can also be an emotion that gets out of control, leading to stress, distress, unhealthiness and unhappiness. Uncontrolled anger can seriously harm your personal and professional life, because it can become incredibly destructive – to yourself and the people around you.

And in a modern workplace that often demands trust and collaboration, it can cause great damage to working relationships.

This article teaches an effective 12-step approach that helps you direct your anger constructively rather than destructively. The 12-step approach is based on the ideas of Duke University’s Redford Williams, MD, who with his wife, authored the best-selling book Anger Kills. (In this book, Williams discusses 17 steps for controlling anger – these are often abridged to the 12 steps described here.)

Understanding the Theory

Anger is a well-developed coping mechanism that we turn to when our goals are frustrated, or when we feel threat to ourselves or to people, things and ideas we care about. It helps us react quickly and decisively in situations where there is no time for a careful, reasoned analysis of the situation. And it can motivate us to solve problems, achieve our goals, and remove threats.

Acting in anger can serve, therefore, to protect yourself or others. A positive response and constructive outcome can improve your self-esteem and self-confidence.

The Danger of Anger – Foolishness...

On the other hand, a negative response can damage relationships and lead to a loss of respect and self-respect. This is particularly the case when we react instantly and angrily to what we perceive to be a threat, but where that perception is wrong. This can leave us looking very foolish.

So we need to learn to use anger positively, and manage it so that it is constructive and not destructive. Where situations are not immediately life-threatening, we need to calm down and evaluate the accuracy of our perceptions before, if necessary, channeling anger in a powerful but controlled way.

Anger management, then, is the process of learning how to “calm down” and diffuse the negative emotion of anger before it gets to a destructive level.

A Subjective Experience

People experience anger in many different ways and for many different reasons. What makes you angry may only mildly irritate one of your colleagues, and have little to no effect on another. This subjectivity can make anger difficult to understand and deal with; it also highlights that the response is down to you. So anger management focuses on managing your response (rather than specific external factors). By learning to manage your anger, you can develop techniques to deal with and expel the negative response and emotions before it causes you serious stress, anxiety and discomfort.

Despite our differences in the level of anger we feel toward something, there are some universal causes of anger that include:

Frustration of our goals
Hurt
Harassment
Personal attack (mental or physical) on ourselves
Threat to people, things or ideas that we hold dear.

We commonly experience these potential anger triggers in our daily lives. An appropriate level of anger that is expressed correctly helps us take the right action, solve the problem that is presenting itself, or deal with the situation in a positive manner. If we can learn to manage our anger, we will learn to express it appropriately and act constructively.

Using the Tool:

So when you’re angry, use Redford Williams’ 12 steps to calm down:

Step 1: Maintain a “Hostility Log”
Download our free Hostility Log worksheet and use it to monitor what triggers your anger and the frequency of your anger responses. When you know what makes you angry, you will be in a much better position to develop strategies to contain it or channel it effectively.

Step 2: If you do, acknowledge that you have a problem managing anger
It is an observed truth that you cannot change what you don’t acknowledge. So it is important to identify and accept that anger is a roadblock to your success.

Step 3: Use your support network
If anger is a problem, let the important people in your life know about the changes you are trying to make. They can be a source of motivation and their support will help you when you lapse into old behavior patterns.

Step 4: Use Anger Management techniques to interrupt the anger cycle

Pause
Take deep breaths
Tell your self you can handle the situation
Stop the negative thoughts

Step 5: Use empathy
If another person is the source of your anger, try to see the situation from his or her perspective. Remind yourself to be objective and realize that everyone makes mistakes and it is through mistakes that people learn how to improve.

Step 6: Laugh at yourself
Humor is often the best medicine. Learn to laugh at yourself and not take everything so seriously.

The next time you feel tempted to kick the photocopier, think about how silly you would look and see the humor in your inappropriate expressions of anger.

Step 7: Relax
Angry people are often the ones who let the little things bother them. If you learn to calm down you will realize that there is no need to get uptight and you will have fewer angry episodes.

Step 8: Build Trust
Angry people can be cynical people. They believe that others are going to do something on purpose to annoy or frustrate them even before it happens. If you can build trust in people you will be less likely to become angry with them when something does go wrong and more likely to attribute the problem to something other than a malicious intent.

Step 9: Listen
Miscommunication contributes to frustrating and mistrusting situations. The better you listen to what a person is saying, the better able you will be to find a resolution that does not involve an anger response.

Step 10: Be Assertive
Remember, the word is assertive NOT aggressive. When you are angry it is often difficult to express yourself properly. You are too caught up in the negative emotion and your physiological symptoms (beating heart, red face) to put together solid arguments or appropriate responses. If you learn to assert yourself and let other people know your expectations, boundaries, issues, and so on, you will have much more interpersonal success.

Step 11: Live each day as if it is your last
This saying may be overused, but it holds a fundamental truth. Life is short and it is much better spent positively than negatively. Realize that if you spend all your time getting angry, you will miss out on the many joys and surprises that life has to offer.

Step 12: Forgive
To ensure that the changes you are making go much deeper than the surface, you need to forgive the people in your life that have angered you. It is not easy letting go of past hurts and resentments but the only way to move past your anger is to let go of these feelings and start fresh. (Depending on what, or who, is at the root of your anger, you may have to solicit the help of a professional to achieve this fully.)

These 12 steps form a comprehensive plan to get control of inappropriate and unproductive anger. And the quicker you begin the better. Anger and stress are highly correlated and the effects of stress on the body are well documented. Visit the MindTools stress management section to learn even more about the effects of stress and how to deal with it. You will find that many of the techniques presented here are used in stress management as well because both are negative, emotional-based influences in our lives, and the approach for dealing with them is therefore quite similar.

Even if you are not at the point where you feel your anger is a problem, it is a wise idea to familiarize yourself with the processes listed. If you do not have the tools to deal with anger correctly, it has a way of building-up over time. Before you know it, you can be in a position where anger is controlling you and becoming a negative influence in your life. Being proactive with anger management will help to ensure it remains a healthy emotion that protects you from unnecessary hurt or threat.

Key Points

Anger is a powerful force, both for good and bad. Used irresponsibly, it can jeopardize your relationships, your work and your health.

Redford Williams’ 12-step approach for dealing with unconstructive anger is a well-balanced system that emphasizes knowing yourself and your triggers and then using that awareness to replace negative angry behavior with more positive actions and thoughts. While you don’t want to quell your anger completely, you do need to manage it if you’re to use it creatively.

And remember that anger can be creative. People act when they get angry. And providing th How Good is Your Anger Management?

Controlling your anger before it controls you

We all get angry. It’s a normal emotion. However, some of us handle our anger better than others.

While one person might be a bit unhappy when someone cuts him off in traffic, another is so angry that he shouts and swears, and starts driving aggressively himself.

How can the same event cause such different reactions? And how can you make sure that your reaction is the calm one, instead of the wild one? their actions are constructive, this actually helps drive change and get things done.

How Good is Your Anger Management?

So how well do you manage your anger? Use the online test below to find out how well you do.

© Mind Tools Ltd, 2008.

Instructions: For each question, click the button in the column that most applies. Click the 'Calculate My Total' button to add up your score and check your result using the scoring table underneath.

Interpreting Your Score

Score	Comment
18-41	You seem to let your anger control you, which probably causes you all sorts of problems. In turn, this may make you more angry. Fortunately, you can learn how to break this cycle. Read the rest of the article for some great strategies for managing your anger.
42-66	You’re able to manage your anger in some situations and not others. You have a few strategies that work for you, however, you’ll benefit from a better understanding of what causes your anger, and what actions you can take to better manage your emotions.
67-90	Well done! You have a very good understanding of what makes you angry, and you know what to do when you start to feel signs of trouble. You’ve developed a wide range of anger management strategies, and you can be proud of these.

Manage Your Anger Constructively

The goal of anger management is not to eliminate anger completely: that isn’t possible, since it’s a natural human emotion. Rather, the objective is to control and direct your anger – so that it doesn’t control you, or damage an important relationship or situation.

In Anger Management: Channelling Anger into Performance, we discuss Redford Williams’s steps for controlling anger. There are three key elements to these:

1. Understanding what causes your anger.

2. Reducing your angry reactions.

3. Controlling your anger when you experience it.

Understand What Causes Your Anger (Questions 1, 8 and 13)

One of the most effective approaches for managing anger is to identify the sources of the anger you experience. Once you know what makes you angry, you can develop strategies for dealing with it. When you’re in the middle of a bad situation, it’s hard to think logically and rationally, so understanding what causes your anger can help you plan how to deal with it.

Use a diary or “anger log” to write down the times, people, and situations that make you angry.
Look for trends, or things that make you angry often.
Ask yourself why these things make you angry. Do you connect certain memories to these sources of anger? Do you feel that goals are being frustrated, or that something important to you is being threatened?

Reduce Your Angry Reactions

While you probably won’t eliminate anger completely, you can certainly reduce the frequency and scope of your anger. The less angry you are in general, the more control you’ll have over your emotions. Since much of our anger can come from frustration and stress, if you work on ways to ease and reduce these causes of frustration and stress, you’ll reduce the amount of anger in your life.

Use Problem Solving Skills (Questions 3, 5, and 14)

A great way to reduce stress is to improve your problem solving skills. We sometimes feel that everything we do needs to be correct and turn out well, and this can be frustrating when things don't turn out as they should. Instead of expecting yourself always to be right, commit to doing your best. That way you can be proud of your effort even if the end result isn’t what you want.

Also, accept that when something doesn’t work out, the world usually won’t end. Sometimes you just need to relax and not let things bother you. We may think that we should have an answer for everything – but the truth is, we don’t!

Use Communication Skills (Questions 7, 12, 15, and 18)

You can also reduce anger by improving your communication skills. When you relate well to other people, express your needs, and talk about issues that bother you, you deal with potential anger proactively.

Build empathy – When you understand another person's perspective, it helps you analyze the situation objectively and understand your role in the conflict. Accept that you may not always know best!
Learn to trust others – Assume the best in people, and don’t take their actions personally.
Listen – Use active listening to consider what the other person has to say, and then think before you speak. In many situations, the best way to deal with anger is to accept it, and then find ways to move forward. This can protect your relationships with people, and it allows you to acknowledge your feelings.
Be assertive, not aggressive – By improving your assertiveness skills, you can reduce the frustration that you feel when your needs aren't being met. When you know how to ask for what you want, you’ll generally feel more in control, and less likely to say things that you’ll later regret.

Tip:
Don’t try to communicate when you’re still upset. See the next section on controlling your anger for ideas on how to do this.

Release Your Anger (Questions 2, 8, 11, and 16)

You can reduce the likelihood of losing control by releasing the anger that you’ve built up. When you get rid of angry feelings on a regular basis, you'll feel calmer and more even-tempered, and you'll be more able to deal with the ups and downs of daily life. You can do a variety of things to release your anger, including the following:

Take 10 deep breaths. It really does work!
Do some physical activity – walk, run, swim, play golf, or do some other sport. This can be great for releasing the stress and frustration you’ve built up!
Use a punching bag or a pillow to physically express your anger (in a way that’s not harmful).
Do yoga, or another relaxing form of exercise.
Participate in a fun activity or hobby.
Use a journal and/or art to express your feelings.
Forgive. At some point, it helps to let go and move on with a fresh attitude.

Some people believe that they have to hold their anger in to control it. This is not is an effective anger management strategy. Even if you don’t show anger to others, that emotion has to go somewhere: it can be stubborn, and it usually doesn’t go away on its own.

Control Your Anger When You Experience It (Questions 4, 6, 10, and 17)

When you start to feel angry, what do you do? Controlling yourself in a bad situation can be difficult, and your actions will have consequences.

External reactions – like kicking and screaming – don’t help. You may feel good for a little while, but later, you'll surely feel foolish and sorry. Also, you may do permanent damage to relationships and your reputation.

When you feel that you can’t hold your anger in any longer, here are some great strategies to try:

Change Your Environment

Take a break and physically remove yourself from the conflict. Go to another room, go for a walk, or count to 10. This may give you time to gain perspective and simply calm down.
Learn to avoid situations that you know will cause your anger. If you don’t like your teammate’s messy desk, don’t go into her office.
If you regularly do something that makes you angry, try to find something else to do in its place. For example, if the crowded elevator upsets you every morning, take the stairs.

Use Humor

Think of something funny to say (but don’t be rude or sarcastic).
Try to see the funny side of the situation.
Imagine the other person in a silly situation.
Learn to laugh at yourself.
Smile. It’s hard to be angry with a smile on your face.

Calm Yourself Physically

Use physical relaxation techniques. Take slow, deep breaths and concentrate on your breathing.
Tighten and release small muscle groups. Focus on your hands, legs, back, and toes.
Repeat a word or phrase that reminds you to stay in control and remain confident. For example, say, “You’ll get through this. Relax! You’re doing a great job!”
Practice imagery techniques. Use your imagination or memory to visualize a calming place or situation.

If your anger is truly out of control, you may want to seek professional support. The effects of uncontrolled anger can be very harmful – to yourself and to those around you. Don’t let it get to that point.

Key points:

It is natural to feel, express, and release anger. However, there are appropriate ways to do so – and that’s what anger management is all about.

You can get a strong insight into your anger issues by understanding what makes you angry. From there, you can create a plan to minimize frustration and anger in your life.

When you do get angry, there are many approaches you can try to calm down – including changing your environment, using humor, and practicing relaxation techniques. It’s also important to release your anger on a regular basis.

Don’t let your anger control you. Instead, face it – and take back control of anger – and of your life!

Burnout Self-Test

Checking Yourself for Burnout

Burnout occurs when passionate, committed people become deeply disillusioned with a job or career from which they have previously derived much of their identity and meaning. It comes as the things that inspire passion and enthusiasm are stripped away, and tedious or unpleasant things crowd in. This tool can help you check yourself for burnout.

Introduction:

This tool can help you check yourself for burnout. It helps you look at the way you feel about your job and your experiences at work, so that you can get a feel for whether you are at risk of burnout.

Using the Tool:

There are three easy ways of using the test. Either:

Use the online test below, and click the 'Calculate my total' button at the foot of the test,
Work through the table on paper and calculate values manually, or
Download the template and fill in values appropriately on the Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. This will automatically calculate scores for you and interpret these scores, showing the score and interpretation in row 30.

If you choose to use the manual method, then calculate the total of the scores as described in the instructions (note that this uses a slightly different scoring method from the spreadsheet). Apply the score to the scoring table underneath to get the interpretation.

Checking Yourself for Burnout

Instructions: For each question, click the button in the column that most applies. Click the 'Calculate My Total' button to add up your score and check your result using the scoring table underneath.

Score Interpretation

Score	Comment
15 – 18	No sign of burnout here.
19 – 32	Little sign of burnout here, unless some factors are particularly severe.
33 – 49	Be careful - you may be at risk of burnout, particularly if several scores are high.
50 – 59	You are at severe risk of burnout - do something about this urgently.
60 - 75	You are at very severe risk of burnout - do something about this urgently.

See our article on Avoiding Burnout if you think you might be at risk of it. See our article on Recovering From Burnout if you think it might already have occurred.

Note:
This tool uses an informal approach to assessing burnout, and it has not been validated through controlled scientific tests. Please, therefore, interpret the results with common sense. Also, make allowances for any recent events that may have a disproportionate influence on your mood at the time you take the test!

If you prefer scientifically validated tests, then the Maslach Burnout Inventory may be useful. Copies can be purchased at the following site: https://www.cpp.com/en/detailprod.aspx?pc=35.

Summary:

This tool helps you to assess your likelihood of burnout. To use the tool, fill in the table above and score appropriately, or download the template and fill it in.

If the tool shows that you are at risk of burnout (or if your common sense indicates that you could be at risk of burnout), then see the next two tools (“How to Avoid Burnout” and “Coping With Burnout”) to see how to manage the situation.

It may also be worth talking to one of our career coaches - they specialize in helping people rebalance their lives and regain job fulfillment.

Building Self-Confidence

Believe in Yourself, and Find Success!!

From the quietly confident doctor whose advice we rely on, to the charismatic confidence of an inspiring speaker, self-confident people have qualities that everyone admires.



	Build your self-confidence with James Manktelow & Amy Carlson.

Self-confidence is extremely important in almost every aspect of our lives, yet so many people struggle to find it. Sadly, this can be a vicious circle: People who lack self-confidence can find it difficult to become successful.

After all, most people are reluctant to back a project that's being pitched by someone who was nervous, fumbling and overly apologetic.

On the other hand, you might be persuaded by someone who speaks clearly, who holds his or her head high, who answers questions assuredly, and who readily admits when he or she does not know something.

Self-confident people inspire confidence in others: their audience, their peers, their bosses, their customers, and their friends. And gaining the confidence of others is one of the key ways in which a self-confident person finds success.

The good news is that self-confidence really can be learned and built on. And, whether you’re working on your own self-confidence or building the confidence of people around you, it’s well-worth the effort!

So how confident do you seem to others?

Your level of self-confidence can show in many ways: your behavior, your body language, how you speak, what you say, and so on. Look at the following comparisons of common confident behavior with behavior associated with low self-confidence. Which thoughts or actions do you recognize in yourself and people around you?

Self-Confident	Low Self-Confidence
Doing what you believe to be right, even if others mock or criticize you for it.	Governing your behavior based on what other people think.
Being willing to take risks and go the extra mile to achieve better things.	Staying in your comfort zone, fearing failure and so avoid taking risks.
Admitting your mistakes, and learning from them.	Working hard to cover up mistakes and hoping that you can fix the problem before anyone notices.
Waiting for others to congratulate you on your accomplishments.	Extolling your own virtues as often as possible to as many people as possible.
Accepting compliments graciously. “Thanks, I really worked hard on that prospectus. I’m pleased you recognize my efforts.”	Dismissing compliments offhandedly. “Oh that prospectus was nothing really, anyone could have done it.”

As you can see from these examples, low self-confidence can be self-destructive, and it often manifests itself as negativity. Self-confident people are generally more positive – they believe in themselves and their abilities, and they also believe in living life to the full.

What is Self-Confidence?
Two main things contribute to self-confidence: self-efficacy and self-esteem.
We gain a sense of self-efficacy when we see ourselves (and others similar to ourselves) mastering skills and achieving goals that matter in those skill areas. This is the confidence that, if we learn and work hard in a particular area, we'll succeed; and it's this type of confidence that leads people to accept difficult challenges, and persist in the face of setbacks.
This overlaps with the idea of self-esteem, which is a more general sense that we can cope with what's going on in our lives, and that we have a right to be happy. Partly, this comes from a feeling that the people around us approve of us, which we may or may not be able to control. However, it also comes from the sense that we are behaving virtuously, that we're competent at what we do, and that we can compete successfully when we put our minds to it.

Some people believe that self-confidence can be built with affirmations and positive thinking. At Mind Tools, we believe that there's some truth in this, but that it's just as important to build self-confidence by setting and achieving goals – thereby building competence. Without this underlying competence, you don't have self-confidence: you have shallow over-confidence, with all of the issues, upset and failure that this brings.

Building Self-Confidence

So how do you build this sense of balanced self-confidence, founded on a firm appreciation of reality?

The bad news is that there’s no quick fix, or 5-minute solution.

The good news is that building self-confidence is readily achievable, just as long as you have the focus and determination to carry things through. And what’s even better is that the things you’ll do to build self-confidence will also build success – after all, your confidence will come from real, solid achievement. No-one can take this away from you!

So here are our three steps to self-confidence, for which we’ll use the metaphor of a journey: preparing for your journey; setting out; and accelerating towards success.

Step 1: Preparing for Your Journey

The first step involves getting yourself ready for your journey to self-confidence. You need to take stock of where you are, think about where you want to go, get yourself in the right mindset for your journey, and commit yourself to starting it and staying with it.

In preparing for your journey, do these five things:

Look at what you've already achieved:

Think about your life so far, and list the ten best things you've achieved in an "Achievement Log." Perhaps you came top in an important test or exam, played a key role in an important team, produced the best sales figures in a period, did something that made a key difference in someone else’s life, or delivered a project that meant a lot for your business.

Put these into a smartly formatted document, which you can look at often. And then spend a few minutes each week enjoying the success you’ve already had!

Think about your strengths:

Next, use a technique like SWOT Analysis (explore personal SWOT Analysis here) to take a look at who and where you are. Looking at your Achievement Log, and reflecting on your recent life, think about what your friends would consider to be your strengths and weaknesses. From these, think about the opportunities and threats you face.

Make sure that you enjoy a few minutes reflecting on your strengths!

Think about what's important to you, and where you want to go:

Next, think about the things that are really important to you, and what you want to achieve with your life.

Setting and achieving goals is a key part of this, and real self-confidence comes from this. Goal setting is the process you use to set yourself targets, and measure your successful hitting of those targets. See our article on goal setting to find out how to use this important technique, or use our Life Plan Workbook to think through your own goals in detail (see "Tip" below).

Tip:
A good way of getting going with this is to use the Mind Tools Life Plan Workbook. Supported by worksheets and advice, this guides you through a simple 5-step process for setting your life goals, and for organizing yourself for success.

Inform your goal setting with your SWOT Analysis. Set goals that exploit your strengths, minimize your weaknesses, realize your opportunities, and control the threats you face.

And having set the major goals in your life, identify the first step in each. A tip: Make sure it’s a very small step, perhaps taking no more than an hour to complete!

Start managing your mind:

At this stage, you need to start managing your mind. Learn to pick up and defeat the negative self-talk which can destroy your confidence. See our article on rational positive thinking to find out how to do this.

Further useful reading includes our article on imagery – this teaches you how to use and create strong mental images of what you’ll feel and experience as you achieve your major goals – there’s something about doing this that makes even major goals seem achievable!

And then commit yourself to success!

The final part of preparing for the journey is to make a clear and unequivocal promise to yourself that you are absolutely committed to your journey, and that you will do all in your power to achieve it.

If as you’re doing it, you find doubts starting to surface, write them down and challenge them calmly and rationally. If they dissolve under scrutiny, that’s great. However if they are based on genuine risks, make sure you set additional goals to manage these appropriately. For help with evaluating and managing the risks you face, read our Risk Analysis and Management article.

Either way, make that promise!

Tip: Balanced Self-Confidence
Self-confidence is about balance. At one extreme, we have people with low self-confidence. At the other end, we have people who may be over-confident.
If you are under-confident, you’ll avoid taking risks and stretching yourself; and you might not try at all. And if you’re over-confident, you may take on too much risk, stretch yourself beyond your capabilities, and crash badly. You may also find that you’re so optimistic that you don’t try hard enough to truly succeed.
Getting this right is a matter of having the right amount of confidence, founded in reality and on your true ability. With the right amount of self-confidence, you will take informed risks, stretch yourself (but not beyond your abilities) and try hard.

So How Self Confident Are You? Take our short quiz to find out how self-confident you are already, and start looking at specific strategies to improve your confidence level.

Step 2: Setting Out

This is where you start, ever so slowly, moving towards your goal. By doing the right things, and starting with small, easy wins, you’ll put yourself on the path to success – and start building the self-confidence that comes with this.

Build the knowledge you need to succeed:

Looking at your goals, identify the skills you’ll need to achieve them. And then look at how you can acquire these skills confidently and well. Don’t just accept a sketchy, just-good-enough solution – look for a solution, a program or a course that fully equips you to achieve what you want to achieve and, ideally, gives you a certificate or qualification you can be proud of.

Focus on the basics:

When you’re starting, don’t try to do anything clever or elaborate. And don’t reach for perfection – just enjoy doing simple things successfully and well.

Set small goals, and achieve them:

Starting with the very small goals you identified in step 1, get in the habit of setting them, achieving them, and celebrating that achievement. Don’t make goals particularly challenging at this stage, just get into the habit of achieving them and celebrating them. And, little by little, start piling up the successes!

Keep managing your mind:

Stay on top of that positive thinking, keep celebrating and enjoying success, and keep those mental images strong. You can also use a technique like Treasure Mapping to make your visualizations even stronger!

And on the other side, learn to handle failure. Accept that mistakes happen when you’re trying something new. In fact, if you get into the habit of treating mistakes as learning experiences, you can (almost) start to see them in a positive light. After all, there’s a lot to be said for the saying “if it doesn’t kill you, it makes you stronger!”

Step 3: Accelerating Towards Success

By this stage, you’ll feel your self-confidence building. You’ll have completed some of the courses you started in step 2, and you’ll have plenty of success to celebrate!

This is the time to start stretching yourself. Make the goals a bit bigger, and the challenges a bit tougher. Increase the size of your commitment. And extend the skills you’ve proven into new, but closely related arenas.

Tip 1:
Keep yourself grounded – this is where people tend to get over-confident and over-stretch themselves. And make sure you don’t start enjoying cleverness for its own sake…

Tip 2:
If you haven't already looked at it, use our How Self Confident Are You? quiz to find out how self-confident you are, and to identify specific strategies for building self-confidence.

As long as you keep on stretching yourself enough, but not too much, you'll find your self-confidence building apace. What's more, you'll have earned your self-confidence – because you’ll have put in the hard graft necessary to be successful!

Locus of Control

Finding Out Who's in Charge of Your Destiny

As the environment around you changes, you can either attribute success and failure to things you have control over, or to forces outside your influence. Which orientation you choose has a bearing on your long-term success.

This orientation is known as your "locus of control". Its study dates back to the 1960s, with Julian Rotter's investigation into how people's behaviors and attitudes affected the outcomes of their lives.

Locus of control describes the degree to which individuals perceive that outcomes result from their own behaviors, or from forces that are external to themselves. This produces a continuum with external control at one end and internal control at the other:

People who develop an internal locus of control believe that they are responsible for their own success. Those with an external locus of control believe that external forces, like luck, determine their outcomes.

Use the interactive quiz below to determine your current locus of control:

Understanding Your Own Locus of Control

Instructions: For each pair of statements, choose the one that you believe to be the most accurate, not the one you wish was most true. Remember, there are no right or wrong answers. Click the 'Calculate My Total' button to add up your score and check your result using the scoring table underneath. For each pair of statements, select the statement that most applies. Even if neither statement is a perfect match for your views, choose the statement that is the best match.

Score Interpretation

Score	Comment
22 - 25	Internal Locus of Control (strong)
26 – 33	Internal Locus of Control (moderate)
34 - 44	External Locus of Control

Note:
This assessment has not been validated and is intended for illustrative purposes only. It is patterned after the Locus of Control Scale developed and presented in Rotter, JB (1966), "Generalized expectancies for internal versus external control of reinforcement", Psychological Monographs, 80 (Whole No. 609).

Benefits of an Internal Locus of Control

In general, people with an internal locus of control:

· Engage in activities that will improve their situation.

· Emphasize striving for achievement.

· Work hard to develop their knowledge, skills and abilities.

· Are inquisitive, and try to figure out why things turned out the way they did.

· Take note of information that they can use to create positive outcomes in the future.

· Have a more participative management style.

Managing the Drawbacks of a Strong Internal Locus of Control

People with an internal locus of control are generally more successful, for very good reasons.

However there can be times when having an external locus of control can be an advantage, particularly in situations where people need to be considerate and more easy-going. People with a strong internal locus of control tend to be very achievement-oriented, and this can leave people around them feeling "trampled" or "bruised." And with a very strong internal locus of control, there is also a tendency to want to control everything, and this can lead to difficulties in taking direction.

If you have a strong internal locus of control, make sure you pay attention to the feelings of people around you - otherwise you'll seem arrogant, and people may not want to work with you.

Also, make sure that you manage risks properly. Random events do occur for all sorts of reasons. While you can manage many of these with enough determination and hard work, some you can't.

Note:
As people grow older they tend towards a more internal locus of control. This comes from the increased ability to influence things going on in their lives and the realization that much of what happens to them is a result of what they do.

Tips for Developing an Internal Locus of Control

Recognize the basic fact that you always have a choice. Making no choice is actually a choice in and of itself, and it's your choice to allow other people or events decide for you.

Set goals for yourself and note how, by working towards these and achieving these, you are controlling what happens in your life. As you do this, you'll find that your self-confidence quickly builds. (This is something we deal with in great detail within our Life Plan Workbook goal-setting and life-design program.)

Develop your decision making and problem solving skills so that you can feel more confident, and in control of what happens. With these tools, you'll find that you can understand and navigate through situations that would otherwise damage you.

Pay attention to your self-talk. When you hear yourself saying things like, "I have no choice" or "There's nothing I can do", step back and remind yourself that you do, in fact, have some degree of control. It's your choice whether you exercise it or not.

Key points:

You locus of control says a lot about how you view the world and your role in determining the course of your life.

When you believe you have the power to control your own destiny and determine your own direction, you have a strong internal locus of control. In most cases, this is an important attitude to have if you want to be successful.

People with an internal locus of control tend to work harder and persevere longer in order to get what they want. This is not to say that having an external locus of control is always bad: There are some situations where this approach can work well. The key for your own personal development is to understanding your natural tendency and then adapting it to the situations you are faced with.

The Wheel of Life

(Also called the "Life Wheel")
Finding balance in your life

When life is busy, or all your energy is focused on a special project, it's all too easy to find yourself "off balance", not paying enough attention to important areas of your life. While you need to have drive and focus if you're going to get things done, taking this too far can lead to frustration and intense stress.

That's when it's time to take a "helicopter view" of your life, so that you can bring things back into balance.

This is where the Wheel of Life (or Life Wheel) can help. Commonly used by professional life coaches, it helps you consider each area of your life in turn and assess what's off balance. And so, it helps you identify areas that need more attention.

Figure 1 below shows an example wheel of life with example "dimensions" (we'll explain how to choose the right areas of life or dimensions for yourself below).

The Wheel of Life is powerful because it gives you a vivid visual representation of the way your life is currently, compared with the way you'd ideally like it to be. It is called the "Wheel of Life" because each area of your life is mapped on a circle, like the spoke of a wheel.

Using the Tool

There are two ways you can use this tool. One is to use our interactive

Alternatively, use the following steps to create your Wheel of Life and assess your balance. (This allows you to define your own dimensions.)

Start by downloading our free Wheel of Life worksheet which contains a blank Wheel of Life diagram as shown in figure 2, below.

1. Start by brainstorming the 6 to 8 dimensions of your life that are important for you. Different approaches to this are:

The roles you play in life for example: husband/wife, father/mother, manager, colleague, team member, sports player, community leader, or friend;
Areas of life that are important to you for example: artistic expression, positive attitude, career, education, family, friends, financial freedom, physical challenge, pleasure, or public service; or
Your own combination of these (or different) things, reflecting the things that are your priorities in life.

Write down these dimensions down on the Wheel of Life diagram, one on each spoke of the life wheel.
This approach assumes that you will be happy and fulfilled if you can find the right balance of attention for each of these dimensions. And different areas of your life will need different levels of attention at different times. So the next step is to assess the amount of attention you're currently devoting to each area.

Consider each dimension in turn, and on a scale of 0 (low) to 5 (high), write down the amount of attention you're devoting to that area of your life. Mark each score on the appropriate spoke of you Life Wheel.
Now join up the marks around the circle. Does you life wheel looked and feel balanced?
Next it's time to consider your ideal level in each area of your life. A balanced life does not mean getting 5 in each life area: some areas need more attention and focus than others at any time. And inevitably you will need to make choices and compromises, as your time and energy are not in unlimited supply!

So the question is, what would the ideal level of attention be for you each life area?

Plot the "ideal" scores around your life wheel too.
Now you have a visual representation of your current life balance and your ideal life balance. What are the gaps? These are the areas of your life that need attention.

And remember that gaps can go both ways. There are almost certainly areas that are not getting as much attention as you'd like. However there may also be areas where you're putting in more effort than you'd ideally like. These areas are sapping energy and enthusiasm that may better be directed elsewhere.
Once you have identified the areas that need attention, it's time to plan the actions needed to work on regaining balance. Starting with the neglected areas, what things do you need to start doing to regain balance? In the areas that currently sap your energy and time, what can you STOP doing or reprioritize or delegate to someone else? Make a commitment to these actions by writing them on your worksheet.

Tip:
You can use the Wheel of Life as preparation for coaching or goal setting. It helps identify the area you want to work on and is a great way of visualizing your current and desired life. Once you are working on improving your life balance, it's also a useful tool for monitoring how it changes over time.

The Wheel of Life is a great tool to help you improve your life balance. It helps you quickly and graphically identify the areas in your life to which you want to devote more energy, and helps you understand where you might want to cut back.

The challenge now is to transform this knowledge and desire for a more balanced life into a positive program of action.

Moving on

Life and career coaching can be an incredibly powerful way of doing this. With the support of your own, personal coach, you'll find it much easier to think through and maintain a positive program of change. Click here to find out more about Mind Tools Career and Life Coaching.

The following resources and services can help you increase your self-confidence more effectively:

· Life Plan Workbook: Mind Tools life design and goal setting system. Click here to find out more.

· Make Time for Success: This Mind Tools course contains more than 140 pages of tips, techniques and skills that can help you work better and get the most that life has to offer, increasing your self-confidence every step of the way. Click here to learn more.

· Building Self-Confidence with Mind Tools Career Coaches: Our coaches specialize in helping you think about what you want to achieve, set clear and appropriate goals, and then help you make success and the achievement of these goals, a habit. This will help you build your self- confidence on sure foundations

Wednesday 29 January 2014

Stress Management and Stress Interview

Stress Diary

Identifying the Causes of Short-Term Stress

How to Use the Tool

Analyzing the Diary

Summary

Job Analysis

The First Step in Managing Job Overload

How to Use the Tool:

Summary:

Performance Planning

Planning to Manage Performance Stress

How to Use the Tool:

Summary

Mental Stress Management

How to Use the Tool:

Imagery in Relaxation

Imagery in Preparation and Rehearsal

Summary:

. Physical Relaxation Techniques

Deep Breathing, PMR and the Relaxation Response

Deep Breathing

Progressive Muscular Relaxation

The Relaxation Response

Summary

Staying Cool and Confident Under Pressure

Key points:

Rational Positive Thinking

Positive Thinking, Built on Firm Foundations

Introduction

Using the Tool: Thought Awareness

Rational Thinking

Positive Thinking & Opportunity Seeking

Summary:

Are You a Positive or Negative Thinker?

Learn About - and Change - How You Think

Are You a Positive or Negative Thinker?

Score Interpretation

Turn Negatives into Positives

Permanence (Questions 3, 4, 9, 11)

Pervasiveness (Questions 2, 5, 6, 7 and 13)

Personalization (Questions 1, 8, 10, 12 and 14)

Re-shape Your Thinking

Anger Management

Channeling Anger into Performance

Understanding the Theory

The Danger of Anger – Foolishness...

A Subjective Experience

Using the Tool:

Key Points

And remember that anger can be creative. People act when they get angry. And providing th How Good is Your Anger Management?

Controlling your anger before it controls you

How Good is Your Anger Management?

Manage Your Anger Constructively

Key points:

Burnout Self-Test

Checking Yourself for Burnout

Introduction:

Using the Tool:

Checking Yourself for Burnout

Summary:

Building Self-Confidence

Believe in Yourself, and Find Success!!

So how confident do you seem to others?

Building Self-Confidence

Step 1: Preparing for Your Journey

Step 2: Setting Out

Step 3: Accelerating Towards Success

Locus of Control

Finding Out Who's in Charge of Your Destiny

Understanding Your Own Locus of Control

Score Interpretation

Benefits of an Internal Locus of Control

Managing the Drawbacks of a Strong Internal Locus of Control

Tips for Developing an Internal Locus of Control

Key points:

The Wheel of Life

(Also called the "Life Wheel") Finding balance in your life

Using the Tool

Using the Tool:
Thought Awareness

(Also called the "Life Wheel")
Finding balance in your life