Remember that stress doesn't come from what's going on in your life. It comes from your thoughts about what's going on in your life.
We all enjoy pushing ourselves to accomplish our objectives. But we don't need stress to get there.
If you're successful and stressed out, you're succeeding in spite of your stress, not because of it.
We need to distinguish between stress and stimulation. Having deadlines, setting goals, and pushing yourself to perform at capacity are stimulating. Stress is when you're anxious, upset, or frustrated, which dramatically reduce your ability to perform.
The truth is that stress doesn't come from your boss, your kids, your spouse, traffic jams, health challenges, or other circumstances. It comes from your thoughts about these circumstances.
Look closer at the stress in your own life and you can identify that negative emotions are always built on counterfactual statements.
People often say that stress is a motivator. What we're referring to when we say this is really better described as stimulation and engagement.
Stress is the negative whirlwind of emotions that gets imposed on top of our stimulation and engagement.
Some people are so used to experiencing stress that they don't remember what life was like without it.
Stress is not the spice of life any more than arsenic is. And without it, you won't feel bored.
The less you think counterfactually, the less you experience stress. Stress, in this light, isn't a bad thing. It's simply a warning system telling you that your mind has lost touch with what's real.
The elusive truth is that there is nothing stress-producing in the physical world. Things simply are. Molecules move. Light and sound appear.
Stress is never a given. There are people who get divorced amicably. There are people who pack up and move with no emotional toll. There is no stressor 'out there' in the world. We experience stress - or we don't - depending on what we believe.
People around the world now complain about stressors everyday, and the word shows up throughout professional and lay literature. But in reality there is no such thing as a stressor. Why not? Because nothing has the inherent power to provoke stress.
Stress is a byproduct of subconscious beliefs you have about the world. You can't choose not to believe something. You believe it because you think it's true. To eliminate stress, you must learn to challenge these beliefs so that you see them differently.
It's time we learned the truth about stress. It's time we identified the thoughts that actually create our stress and learned to dismantle them one by one.
The reason humans experience so much more stress than other species isn't just because we think more, but also because we think differently.
You can't tell yourself that your stress is produced in your head and feel better. You still need to learn how to create a change.
The number of stressors has multiplied exponentially: traffic, money, success, work/life balance, the economy, the environment, parenting, family conflict, relationships, disease. As the nature of human life has become far more complicated, our ancient stress response hasn't been able to keep up.
