3 Ways Your “YES” Reduces Stress
The concept of strategy has proven time and time again to be much simpler than you might think. It comes down to this: Begin with the end in mind.
Think of it like reverse engineering. First you determine what you’re building. Then you work backwards to develop the right sequence of steps to get you there. When you do that, you are being strategic. You know what you are going to need and when you are going to need it. You know what you need to do and when you need to do it. Beyond that, you know why.
If the question is this: What should I do today? The answer is this: What do you want to be/have tomorrow? Within the answer to the second question is your answer for the first. And that is where the true magic of your “YES” can serve you.
But being strategic goes beyond being your guide in how you plan. It goes to how you live. Let’s look at three ways we experience stress in our lives and see how leveraging a strategic YES can reduce and even eliminate that stress for us.
#1 – The Art of the No
We all struggle with this, particularly women. We find it stressful to say no because we aren’t comfortable with when and how to say no.
When we begin with the end in mind, we know what will take us there and what will not. We use our “YES” to choose when to say NO. It sounds simple but it’s really a way of vetting your options and reducing the stress of those choices. It creates a choice instead of a “NO”.
#2 – The Actions of the Day
Another place we experience stress is when we fail to live up to our promises to ourselves. Any time we move out of integrity (say one thing – do another) it introduces stress. Who we are vs. what we do is the ultimate generator of stress.
When we start with our vision, our yes, it’s easier to stay focused on what is important, even vital. We all feel better about ourselves when we have the satisfaction of knowing we’ve done what we said we would do.
Personal leadership expert Brian Tracy defines discipline with these six words: Do what you resolve to do. Sounds very close to strategy: Begin with the end in mind. They are in fact the same fundamental principal. One serves the other.
The planning of our days becomes straight forward. The actions of our days become deliberate. As a result, we reduce the stress of continuous choice. The decisions are already made. We are now just living them out.
#3 – The Disruptions of the Day
Here is perhaps the most important place to consider when reviewing the true value of your YES when thinking about stress. Each of us faces disruption in our lives. Sometimes they are significant events such as death, divorce, even disease. Even if not happening directly to us and are happening to someone close to us it will still impact us.
But it goes beyond those larger disruptions to include some that might not seem as significant but still disrupt our path. Your car doesn’t start, the plumbing picks the absolute worst time to stop working, your computer has turned into an alien machine – so many opportunities for stress to burst onto the scene and distract us from our path.
When we operate from the perspective of what we are living toward instead of what we are living through it makes all the difference. Within that framework we are always able to find contingencies and resources will be at the ready. We can see disruptions in a different light. Where is the lesson? Where is the door? In so many cases, what starts out as a disruption is in fact a new opening on the path.
The next time you find yourself facing the stress of saying no, lacking purpose in your day-to-day activities or being derailed by disruptions, remember that you have a different choice. You can choose to live your YES. You can choose to begin right now with the end in mind and leave the stress behind.
