Some Honesty from the Vitalize Initiatives Facebook Group about Work Stress
The questions I asked:
1. What creates the largest amount of stress for you at work?
2. How do you deal with that stress?
Three great responses:
“My four biggest stressors at work are:
-I find tension between co-workers. It affects everyone in the office and makes it uncomfortable being there.
-Any time the word Budget gets mentioned
-Working too many hours
-Managing a team that is not always reliable”
“The biggest stressor at work is our current boss and his lack of respect for his people; from his Leaders on down to the people that work for us. He is one of the most militant folks that I have ever met and that is echoed by many of the other people that work here.
How do I cope… well sometimes fine but on other days not so well. I have had a really bad year where I have had at least one, if not more, major negative impacts each month. I try to cope by volunteering with Search and Rescue and other community organizations that add meaning to my life.”
“I’d have to say that the majority of my stress at work is time management / trying to meet deadlines. A lot of times I’ll have jobs piled up and they are scheduled to be completed for a certain date, but then other jobs come up that interfere, or things take longer than anticipated (due to customer delays or changes, not enough information, etc…).
Often times my solution has been to just put in more hours and try and get things wrapped up, but it’s not always a great solution if you are busy as there will always be work piling up. It starts to create a circle of working more and more, and trying harder to get things done, but it ends up being somewhat futile. Not exactly a healthy strategy in the end either.
If you have others that end up in the same boat, I’d definitely be interested in hearing about what they are doing to handle it.”
It seems to me like most people have a much easier time identifying stressors… but are struggling in finding solutions. I guess that if people have found solutions that work completely for them they would not be telling me these things stress them out. Stress at work can be very tough to deal with. It can affect all aspects of your life and steal your balance and wellbeing. This makes finding solutions worth the time and energy it requires.
As identified by these responses, as well as others, the major areas of challenge in terms of work stress include:
-Conflicts with co-workers
-Lack of/or negative leadership
-Hard decision making situations
-Time management
-Leading a team that you don’t always have complete comfort with
-Having stress in your personal life that you can’t seem to stop from affecting you in your work
- Financial
-Job security
-Not feeling appreciated and/or respected
The list goes on…
I believe the first step in dealing with work stress, and any stress for that matter, is to become aware of what is stressing you out. What is REALLY stressing you out? You might think it is that lady you work with that always steals your stapler and interrupts when you work …. But it likely goes deeper than that. Maybe you are letting things bother you because you don’t feel appreciated. Please think about that. It is very hard to solve a problem before you know what it is.
I would like to pass this over to you for ideas…
What suggestions do you have in how to deal with work stress? Why does it work?
Stay tuned for more on this topic.
Over and Out
April