Good Stress

In the name of running away from stress, many of us have built a character of indiscipline, laziness and never going the extra mile. In today's blog post, I'll give you a fresh perspective on why stress can be a good thing for you.

A lot of us easily run away from things because they appear stressful. They look too tedious and so we can't just handle it. We will prefer to take on things that are much more easier to handle.

Maybe you got a chance to take on a wonderful opportunity that will require you to wake up say an hour earlier than you normally do. This opportunity will open doors for you in the long run. But because you feel inconvenienced and won't like to wake up earlier than your normal time, you call it stressful.

Maybe you have to hit the gym and exercise your body for at least 30 mins so that you can make progress with your fitness goals. But 30 mins is too long. You do say 5mins and you go home because working out for 30 mins looks very stressful.

Or maybe you're working on a very important project or preparing for an important test and it needs more time from you personally. It needs you to stay late nights for a couple of days, so you can adequately prepare, engage and achieve the desired results. But then you choose to abandon the project or underrate the test because it's too stressful and demanding.

There are just many instances I can give, but the point is that: our excuses using stress is often based on our unwillingness or lack of motivation to do a particular task. This is an unconsciously learned behavior.

It's not that we cannot do those things. We can choose to wake up earlier than usual. We can put in more time when we are working on a project or preparing for tests. We can push ourselves to meet our fitness goals. There are a lot of things we can actually do. But the idea of being stressed limits us from achieving what we can actually achieve.

Good stress helps us to build discipline and see the plethora of things which we never knew we were capable of. Without good stress, we will be lazy and reluctant to make those sacrifices necessary to achieve what we want to achieve and we won't even know how powerful or enduring that we can be.

Yes, there is bad stress. Recognizing that stress can be good doesn't mean that you should do everything and overly stress yourself. There are indeed things that aren't worth much fuss. And if you try to overdo everything, you'll break down, which is bad for you because your body and mind must be in top condition for you to excel. Knowing when and how to relax is important as well.

So, you must be able to differentiate between good stress and bad stress. Good stress should be related to those uncomfortable sacrifices and necessary pains you must pass through in order to achieve a desired objective in future. Bad stress is just wasting your energy for nothing.

Good stress will help you achieve your goals and save you time for relaxation. Contrary to what you may think, it is the continuous avoidance of good stress that actually steals away your time in future.

In whatever thing you do today, try and see the future consequences of doing it. Because at every moment we keep moving into the future and to be better positioned for the present, you must set yourself up for a very juicy future by passing through the good stress you need to pass through in order to achieve it.

Remember that sticking around your comfort zone is not usually beneficial to your progress. So learn those push yourself a little bit further and go the extra mile in the pursuit of your dreams. Your dreams must never die because the process looks stressful. The process only looks stressful because you aren't used to it.

No matter how stressful the requirements it looks, remember that someone was able to pass through it and become successful. So why do you think you cannot do the same or even better?

Take advantage of good stress without wearing yourself out with bad stress and just keep winning!

Until next time,

Nigel.