Don’t get undone by the tribulations of working life, learn how to overcome it

Most people aged 20 or above spend almost 60 per cent time on a daily basis working professionally as consultants, freelancers, full-time employees or startup founders.

What it demonstrates is that whatever they do or feel during this period has the potential to affect their personal lives significantly. If they’re happy in their jobs, they feel happy at home and keep focusing on creating more beautiful memories with their loved ones. However, if their job is tough and leaves them drained and tired at the end of every day, there are high chances of them taking this negativity back home and letting it consume their personal lives.

At a time when the competition to survive in jobs has reached all new heights, you cannot neglect workspace pressure. It’s as real as anything else in the world.

Regardless of which industry you’re part of, you cannot expect a stress-free environment. What you can do is come up with some hacks at the personal and professional level to minimize its impact on your professional and personal life. Here is how to go about it:

Know what’s too much for you

As a professional, you can use workplace stress to stay focused and meet challenges at your job. So long as it’s limited, work pressure not only pushes you to finish every project before the deadline but also brings the best out of you during the client presentations. All in all, a little bit of workplace stress doesn’t hurt much at a professional level.

However, when faced with longer work hours, shorter deadlines shorter and bigger client expectations — more than what you can bear — the workplace may turn into an emotional roller coaster. It’s when the workplace pressure exceeds your capacity to cope; you start feeling drained, worried and overwhelmed. From this point onwards, workplace stress starts damaging your mental and physical health.

If you don’t take action now, chances are you will lose everything that you’ve gained so far. So, instead of sitting idle and going through all this without any resistance, understand when it’s too much to handle and seek workable solutions. The hacks mentioned below can help you do it easily.

Don’t keep it to yourself

More often than not, working professionals going through a tremendous amount of stress hesitate in sharing their pain with others. They try to fight this battle on their own until it has entirely consumed and destroyed them.

This is not how you deal with work pressure!

Though it’s not a wise move to simply start telling everyone about it, what you can do is create a close circle of friends and loved ones who are trustworthy and can give you positive suggestions. Whether to include your colleagues in this circle or not totally depends on you. There is no hard and fast rule for it. All that matters is how comfortable you are while sharing your professional issues with them and if they can guide you properly.

Whenever you get time, discuss your problems with them and seek professional advice as to how you can cope with the workplace stress. Even if you don’t get a real suggestion, your pain will reduce after sharing it with someone you trust.

Sweat it out

Usually, as the work pressure piles up, working professionals start neglecting their physical health. Over time this negligence results in diseases like obesity, diabetes, etc. Just in case you don’t want to spend your 30s and 40s visiting hospitals every weekend, take appropriate action now. What better idea way to tackle this problem than to hit a gym!

So, stop procrastinating and start working out when you still have time. Remember, this one change in your routine life will ensure that work stress doesn’t get into your mind and body. And by the way, you don’t have to sweat it out for hours on a daily basis. Work out for just 30-40 minutes for five days a week is an excellent way to start. Once you get used this routine, you can increase timings accordingly.

Take care of your mental well being

Too many people underestimate the damage workplace stress and depression can do. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, about 350 million people all over the world suffer from depression. The pace at which the work stress and job dissatisfaction are rising among millennials, we can expect this number to cross 500 million soon.

It’s a worrying sign for all working professionals because depression alone is more dangerous than many diseases put together, and can devastate anyone’s professional and personal life. According to Joanna Yu, Founder & CEO of humm.ly, at present working professionals are experiencing more anxiety and stress in their lives than ever before. Be it an executive or a startup founder; mental health issues are becoming more and more common among professionals these days.

Also Read: How to embrace mental wellness in startup culture

Don’t ignore mental health if you’re looking forward to leading a balanced work life. Do meditate, take proper sleep, listen to relaxing music, indulge yourself in yoga and take whatever other steps needed to ensure mental well being. Things may seem complicated in the beginning, but as you stick with this routine and do more of these activities, you will start getting positive results.

Be clear about your priorities

Unless you know what you want from your job and whether it’s worth putting as many efforts in it, you’ll never be able to create a perfect work-life balance. So, be clear about your priorities and draw a line that cannot be crossed — ever. Try to arrive at the workplace on time, take regular breaks, finish your tasks without waiting for deadlines and don’t forget you have a life outside the office.

It’s all about what you want and how you want to get it. In the end, no matter how terrible it may sound but you can deal with workplace pressure. All you need is self-awareness and knowledge of different ways to keep things under control. The points mentioned here will definitely help you do it.

As a working professional, how do you deal with work stress? Share your feedback with us in the comments section below.
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