Gauri Chhabra
Rain is unpredictable. It comes and goes whenever it wants. And when it chooses to come, it comes with all its fury- in a heavy downpour. When we are ill prepared, we collapse, the entire system collapses…
As with rains so with life! Just when we feel we are comfortably nestled in our cozy lives, challenges come- not getting the hike, broken relationships, fractured professional equations, fissured travel plans, crowded family events, missed deadlines…and with the festive season approaching, let’s not forget all the gift-buying that we are kicking ourselves for not having finished earlier.
It’s the perfect storm for stress. The clouds loom large and it is the sign of a downpour- the downpour of stress, strain and strife…
Believe it or not, we all have it in our lives. We might appear to be calm at the façade, but there is a storm going on in our minds. Day in and day out we move about in a flurry of activities, gathering stress as we move on- resulting in headaches, backaches and fatigue.
We cannot get rid of the stress in our lives but we can manage, to use the rain metaphor, to wade through it by following a few simple steps:
Change your mind script:
While doing any task or an activity there is a script running in your mind. “Why do I have to do this? It is not in my profile, My boss is a jerk, I am just gonna wait till my next appraisal…. ”
It goes on and on…It so happens that once you start unrolling this mind script you are caught in the vicious cycle- with the result that every activity leaves you mentally drained and washed out.
If you’re facing what seems like a mountain of tasks, try to change the mind script for each activity. Take, for example, washing dishes. You might start with “bore” or “soul-draining,” but as you go on, you might also remember it’s a chance to feel productive, that you enjoy the feel of warm water, or that it’s nice to engage in a mindless activity for a while.
The more you do this, the more you realize that there’s not just one reality but multiple realities at any point, so the key is to pick the most adaptive reality.You could view your work as hectic – and that’s true, it is hectic, but you could also view it as a source of opportunity, and that’s also true. The way we describe that event to our own self and to other people changes the way we think about it. If you are about to have a holiday meal and listing off all the stresses and all the negative parts of that holiday, your family will remember it as a stressful, panicked, unhappy time. But if you focus on meaning, connection, how beautiful things look, then you have a different brain and social script.
By simply changing your mind script, you can achieve greater long-term growth, higher sales, and more productivity, and perhaps even increase your likelihood of living to age ninety-four…
Move to the other side:
Think about the meaning behind the stress you are experiencing.
Do not think of all your tasks just as a rut you have to go through. Think of the task as having significance in the larger frame of things. If you only think about the stress of an activity, and not its larger purpose, you’ll reap only its negative effects. So, if you are stressed about a job interview, refocus on the chances to advance your career, and if you are stressed about a presentation you have to give to an organization, think about how your involvement with that group is making a difference. Similarly, social connection has been proven to help us overcome stress and fend off depression in a variety of settings ranging from work settings to addiction programs. While going through the task of buying gifts for festive occasions, focus on how they will deepen your relationships instead of viewing them merely as items to be checked off.
If certain triggers distract you from the meaning behind your work and take you down a counterproductive mental path of destruction banish these mental hijackers. Remind yourself of the meaning in your work and jumpstart your productivity.
Cut the clutter:
We live in the age of information overload. When your brain is overwhelmed with information, it’s harder to see positives. Cut the clutter, decrease the noise a little bit – for the first five minutes you get into the car, turn off the radio, or mute the commercials during the match you are watching Or, have two to three hours a week that you reserve as no cell phone and computer time – turn your brain into basically like noise-canceling headphones, so you can quiet some of that noise and allow your brain to work better at meaning in your life so you can find the positives to move forward in your life.
Remember, the storm has to be put to an end both within and without…
Map for success:
When it rains, it has to rain. If you keep focusing on the problem, your mind will never think of a solution. Take Japan for instance, it is one of the countries that has not been blessed with a bounty of natural resources, it is prone to natural calamities like earthquakes- yet it is one of the most progressive countries of the world! Re-create this effect at work. When you face a difficult task, do not crib and complain about it. Remind yourself of times when you’ve succeeded. When you think of your competitors, think of as few as possible. While coming up with contingency plans in case of problems, you are setting yourself upfor failure. Instead, think of all the ways you can succeed at your challenge first.
Because – what you map first is more likely to become the reality…so, spend your brain’s valuable resources looking for an escape route only once you have mapped multiple paths to success
Fulfil your basic instincts:
Research has proven that if you memorize sets of positive, neutral and negative words and then sleep for seven to eight hours, you’ll remember about 80% of all the words a day later. But if you miss a night of sleep? You’ll still remember a majority of the negative and neutral words but will remember almost 60% fewer positive words.Your brain perceives your lack of sleep as a threat and starts scanning the world for more threats. There are four barriers to creating a positive reality, named HALT- being hungry, angry, lonely or tired.
Do not deprive yourself of fulfilment of your basic instincts…
Wade through your day:
Start your day not with a list of things you have to do, but with things you have done the previous day. Start your checklist with things you have done before moving on to things to do. The biggest mistake we make is we start at 0%, and we don’t show our brain any of the progress we made. So now when I write down checklists, I write down what I’ve already done this day – I already had breakfast, had a couple phone calls. By perceiving that progress you’ve already made, it speeds your brain to achieving the rest of the goals. For instance, if a store gives someone a buy-ten-get-one-free coffee card, it speeds up that person’s purchasing of coffee, but if a store requires 12 coffees to get the free one but gives you the first two stamps for free, you’ll actually buy coffees even faster. Why? Even though you still have to buy 10 coffees, you perceive that you’re already 1/6 of the way toward your goal.
Clichéd as it may sound, it is all in the mind…
Reign after the rain:
You took all the necessary steps. Still, you find yourself in the midst of challenges. It has down poured. So what? Instead of cribbing, “why me”? say ” Why not me”? You are the chosen one.
Take the rain as an opportunity that will teach you how to survive after the fury of floods. And if you emerge victorious…
You reign after the rain…

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