Most entrepreneurs are fairly used to life outside their comfort zone. There is a sense of aliveness in pushing boundaries, in creating and adapting, and of committing to something that has potential. Being an entrepreneur requires the skill of balancing having the inspiration for creative ideas and grounding them into tangible reality.
There lies the challenge.
If we think of stress as a gap between where we are and where we want to be, an entrepreneur first has an idea of something to which there can be a gap from and then goes about closing that gap until the idea becomes a reality. Like all heroes’ journeys, it’s rarely plain sailing. The definition of life outside a comfort zone can be stretched to the limits. Having the skills to navigate such a stretch enables the entrepreneur to not only stay the course, but also to stay grounded, focused and creative throughout.
Try these simple stress hacks to keep life outside of the comfort zone comfortable:
#1 Get fully present.
Getting fully present helps to bring clarity and perspective. Nonjudgemental awareness leads to less stress and more inspired thinking. Every thought, word, choice and action causes an effect and is in alignment with something. Awareness is everything.
#2 Pace yourself.
Even the most overwhelming challenge and busiest of days happen one moment at a time. Use what I call ‘the single breath practice,’ which is simply to take one deep conscious breath to help pace yourself throughout each day. Use it to bring your focus into the simplicity of being where you are, doing what you are doing. Use it to transition from one focus to the next. It’s possible to be incredibly busy without feeling hurried, in the same way it’s possible to feel hurried when you’re not busy at all. Feeling hurried is a state of mind. Taking a deep breath helps us to take life one moment at a time, one day at a time.
#3 Breathe.
Try this breath practice any time you feel stressed:
Inhale through the nose for a count of 4.
Exhale through the mouth for a count of 6.
Repeat for 5 to 10 breaths.
There shouldn’t be strain in your breath, so if this count feels too long, adjust it to suit your breath length. Keeping the exhalation slightly longer than the inhalation helps to trigger the relaxation response, calming an over-reactive nervous system and enabling you to face challenges from a considered perspective rather than from fear-based limited thinking.
#4 Sleep well.
We know that a good night’s sleep helps us to function optimally on all levels, so it’s worth taking the steps to try to get 7 to 9 hours a night. Cutting down on caffeine and alcohol and avoiding a heavy meal in the evening all help, as does having a regular bedtime routine and keeping screens out of the bedroom. If you do have trouble getting to sleep, try practicing the breath practice from tip #3 for 10 minutes before you go to bed, and again if you wake up in the night.
#5 Look after yourself.
Treat yourself with love and care. You deserve a diet that gives you the chance to thrive, and enough exercise to be fit enough to handle whatever comes your way. All choices in the right direction are worth taking, however small. It can be easy to slip into unhealthy lifestyle choices, but if you really want to succeed in life, you will look after yourself. You are worth looking after, especially when things are tough.
The most important thing to do to look after yourself is to learn your mind. A proper understanding of your mind will ensure that you are at your best. Furthermore, stress is a mental issue and looking after your mental health will go a long way in ensuring that you are stress-free. You should consider getting a mind coach who will help you train your mind. Moreover, you will be better placed to learn how your mind works and be able to deal with stress. Be willing to take care of your mental well-being.
#6 Own your diary.
Get ruthless about what you spend your time and energy on. What you’re spending your time and energy on is in alignment with something; the question is, with what? Does it serve a purpose?
Look out for people-pleasing tendencies too. If you agree to do something you’d rather not, you need to own the fact that you decided to do it. Either do these things or learn to say ‘no,’ but in either case, own your choice and be at peace with it.
#7 Use your golden hours.
When do you feel most alert and productive? I’m super-charged and alert first thing in the morning, so I use these golden hours to get on with the most demanding task I have to do each day. If I attempted to do some projects at the end of the day, I know the quality would drop, and it would take me a lot longer to get them done. Using your golden hours well will help you produce better quality output with less effort.
#8 Accept what is.
When things aren’t going to plan, try to accept the reality of what is. Being in resistance to what is only adds to our suffering and gets in the way of us finding our way forward. To accept something doesn’t mean we have to agree with it or like it; it just means that we are not in denial of the reality we face. Once we accept the reality, it frees us up to deal with it more proactively.
#9 Address the cause and symptoms of stress.
Identifying what’s in your control and what isn’t will help you to focus your effort on what you can affect. For anything that’s beyond our control, we can focus on looking after our internal state so that we are equipped to handle things as best we can given the circumstances.
Check if you are addressing both the root cause of stress as well as the symptoms of it.
Addressing the cause of stress seems like an obvious thing to do, but it isn’t always that simple. For example, if someone is drinking too much alcohol then it’s good to address that, but the reason they are drinking too much also needs addressing.
#10 Become your own-best-friend-self.
Learning to be more supportive of yourself will serve you well no matter what life brings. So often, we are our own worst enemy by being too self-critical and judgmental. Life is a lot less stressful when we decide to be on our side like a best friend would.
A good friend is supportive, encouraging, honest and caring. They never judge us when we make a mistake while at the same time, hold us accountable to being the best person we can be. Is it time you became your own-best-friend-self?
Life is tough sometimes, and stress can turn us into people we don’t want to be. Learning to manage stress is about the small day-to-day choices we make. It’s not about being stress-free; it’s about equipping ourselves to meet whatever life brings to us. Most of all, it’s about recognizing that looking after our wellbeing is an essential part of succeeding in life — not just a luxury that we get to when we’ve dealt with everything else.
