How to Turn Bad Stress Into Good Stress

For many people, stress is a constant part of their lives. Stress not only increases anxiety, but it wears people down and undermines their ability to be productive. However, while most people view stress as a bad thing, it does not have to be this way. There are many ways to train yourself so that you can turn bad stress into good, productive, stress. After identifying stressors, you can learn to use them as motivators. From there, you can work toward personal growth.

Part 1 - Identifying Your Stressors

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→ Make a list of your stressors. Spend a little time thinking about what’s going on in your life. Use this as an opportunity to identify all of the stressors in your life. Ultimately, without devoting time to identifying stressors, you probably won’t be able to put your finger on exactly what's bothering you.

→ Take some time to think about what’s stressing you out and write them on a piece of paper. Consider the most likely things, such as a coworker annoying you, too much work, or not enough money.

→ Think about less-than-obvious stressors. Such stressors could include a souring relationship, poor health, or general dissatisfaction with your work life.

→ Be sure to include good stressors. This could include getting excited about sports events, public speaking, or a challenging project at work.

→ Write down what each stressor makes you feel. How do you feel the stress in your body, for example? What thoughts do you have? This will help you determine which stressors are good or bad, and give you a template for addressing the feelings.

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→ Talk to someone. Talking to someone about your stress or anxiety might better help you identify what’s going on in your life. This is important, as whoever you talk to will be able to offer you a different perspective on your problems.

→ Ask a friend for advice. Say something like: "I've been really stressed lately, would you mind hearing my concerns? I could really use some advice."

→ Contact a mental health specialist. A therapist, psychologist, or psychiatrist might be able to help you identify your stressors.

→ A possible outcome of your talking to someone might be that you’ll feel better or less stressed about whatever is bothering you. In other words, sometimes it helps just to talk to someone.

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→ Identify your biggest stressor. After you’ve made a list, you need to narrow it down and identify your biggest stressor. This might be challenging, as some stress factors might be similar or might be intertwined with each other. Ultimately, though, in order to turn bad stress into good stress, you need to be sure of what is stressing you the most.

→ Think about which items on your list provide you with the most stress. Rank them accordingly.

→ Try identify small stresses that can easily be resolved. For example, if you have a laptop that constantly freezes up when you’re typing something up for work, this is a small issue that may be fixed with reboot, a reinstallation, or upgrading of equipment.

→ Figure out what stressors are created by no fault or no action of your own. These are the ones you’ll have to cope with the most, as stresses created by your own actions can often more easily be resolved.

Part 2 - Letting Stress Serve as a Motivator

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→ Let stress serve as a warning of problems you need to resolve. Whenever you feel stress or the anxiety associated with it, think of it as a warning of problems you need to solve or tasks you need to accomplish. By conceptualizing stress as a warning sign (rather than as something to panic about), you’ll be able to let your stress serve as a motivator.

→ When you feel anxiety, try to associate it with something you need to accomplish. For example, try to identify the source of work-related stress. You might be really worried about a new project you're about to start on. Your stress is just a sign that your subconscious is preoccupied with this new problem.

→ After you’ve identified the problem you need to resolve, tell yourself that your stressed feeling is simply a reminder.

→ Try to calmly solve the problem. After you've connected your work-related stress to a new project, start work on that project.

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→ Set goals based on stress factors. After you’ve identified your stressors, you should begin to set goals based on them. By setting goals, you’ll both help calm yourself and you’ll motivate yourself. Consider:

→ Making a list of tasks you need to complete. For example, write down daily tasks you need to accomplish like submitting invoices, meeting with coworkers, or finishing a project.

→ Set time-based goals to resolve your stress factors. Give yourself a realistic amount of time to accomplish a given goal. If it usually takes you 30 minutes to complete a task, give yourself 30 minutes, not 20.

→ If you can’t resolve a stress factor, set a goal for an amount of time in which you want to be able to cope with the stressor.

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→ Change your mindset. One great way to turn negative stress into positive stress is to see things that stress you as challenges to overcome. By seeing them as challenges – or even opportunities – you’ll not only calm yourself, but also motivate yourself.

→ Whenever something happens that stresses you out, get to work to resolve the problem.

→ See stress as an opportunity to improve something in your life. For instance, if you get stressed because you failed to qualify in a tournament of some sort, see it as an opportunity to improve your abilities so you can qualify next time.

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→ Take care of yourself. Practice self-care to help balance your stress. First, review your list of stressors. Then, try to create strategies to manage the stress you feel whenever they arise. For instance, you might begin to tense up if you argue with a family member. You might respond to this physical stress by breathing deeply or practicing progressive muscle relaxation.

→ Say that you have self-doubt and negative thoughts when confronted with a challenging project at work. You might decide to deal with these stressors through self-affirmation, or reframing the negative thoughts.

Part 3 - Using Stress to Achieve Individual Growth

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→ Recognize the signs of stress. Try to be mindful and to learn to recognize the indicators of stress. Think back to your list and to your physical, mental, and emotional reactions to each stressor. As you feel new ones, add them to the list.

→ Add these new stressors in the same way you did earlier ones. Note your reaction to the stressors and try to develop ways to manage them.

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→ Use stress to practice mental discipline. While stress might bog you down, throw you off, or otherwise fluster you, you can use it as an opportunity to practice mental discipline. To do this, use stress as an opportunity to focus your mind. When you’re stressed:

→ Breathe deeply. Focus on your breathing, on inhaling and exhaling.

→ Tell yourself that everything is going to be okay. Keep calm and remind yourself that you’ll be fine.

→ Live in the moment, not in the future. By focusing on the moment and overcoming challenges and solving problems in the here-and-now, you’ll help develop your mental discipline.

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→ Use it as an opportunity for self-reflection. A way of turning stress around is to see it as an opportunity to self-reflect and to grow. By reflecting upon yourself, your existence, and your goals in life, you’ll put yourself on a path to personal growth.

→ Think about where you want to go in life and what you want to achieve. Remind yourself that what you’re going through is part of achieving personal growth and your long-term goals.

→ Ask yourself what you can learn from the stress that you’re feeling in the moment.

→ If you’re experiencing a one-time stressor, like the death of a loved one, remind yourself that such incidents are part of life and will equip you with emotional tools and experience for the future.

→ If you're stressed out about work, ask yourself why. It is that you're overworked? Is it because you're not fulfilled in your job? You may need to consider drastic action like finding a new job.

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→ Learn from stress to improve your routine. After self-reflecting, you’ll have learned a lot about yourself and what stresses you out. Use this information to restructure your life and your routine. By improving your routine, you’ll likely reduce stress factors in your future. You’ll also become more efficient and effective in your daily tasks.

→ If you notice that you get stressed out every day because of certain encounters with individuals at work, take steps to improve those encounters. Either engage in discussions with the people who stress you (so that they won’t stress you anymore), or avoid those people altogether.

→ If you get stressed out at work because your organization system is inefficient, take steps to improve your organization system.

→ If you get stressed out because of the traffic on your way to work, find a new way to work.