It seems like daily there’s a new barrage of bad news, anxiety-producing information, and rapid, immediate pace we work and are expected to work 24/7 today means the stakes are higher and higher at work for our own ability to self-regulate. This anxiety, this pressure, inevitably spills into your personal life — the way you show up in the world for your partners, your teams, and to strangers alike.
I generally dislike the term “self care” because it’s often a catch-all phrase used without a lot of specificity, but that sounds clinical or more specialized than it is — because it’s really just taking better care of yourself, which is something we all need to do. Get more sleep, take time outside, prioritize, eat more healthful foods…listen to music you like….the advice is all over the map, and the lists are long and often vague….when it really just means take care off yourself so you can show up more fully in the world.
I like the term self-regulate a little better. I’ve found there are really just things all good leaders do — more than just caring for themselves, they regulate their reactions and ups and downs beyond just tending to their feelings.
The best leaders care for themselves and care for others, and the best organizational cultures are supportive and inclusive — people care for, and about, others around them.
How can you better manage stress and anxiety you might be holding? How can you self-regulate?
(1) Do something for someone else. Get out of your own way, your own head, by doing something for someone else. That someone could be a team member, a spouse or a stranger. The best leaders are willing to share credit, freely give credit and truly want others to succeed. When you do something for someone else, you feel better. You train your focus and your energy onto something positive. It gives you a sense of control and capability in a world where lots of things are out of our control. And it improves others’ perceptions of you as relatable. Do one thing a day without expectation for reward or acknowledgment, and your mood and your productivity will improve.
(2) Gratitude not attitude. Change your frame from attitude to gratitude. Whenever something bad happens, immediately think of three things that are going well or that you’re thankful for. We become, and we are, what we think. If you’re constantly allowing your mind to chase the stimuli of negativity and anxiety, of judgment and a clouded view of the world, you’re literally going to just become more of a problem yourself. Find something to be thankful for even when things are stressful. If you look around, those things are everywhere. This might seem corny at first, but getting yourself in the habit of focusing your mental and emotional energy on things that are bad, which increases anxiety and crowds out other thoughts in your brain, literally carves new grooves that just create a more positive outlook on life, on work, on any situation. You can control the gut reaction you have in new moments of stress…cut out bad habits and create new ones that service you better… if you practice cutting down the attitude and dialing up the gratitude.
(3) Breathing room: Make it for yourself, give it to others. This means literally breathe. There’s a direct connection between the body’s ability to regulate itself during times of stress if you breathe deeply, evenly, and smoothly. But this also means stepping back and giving people a little breathing room. Get a broader perspective. Step back from social media, step back from the news. Take a break from a contentious conversation and come back to it after some space. And give others the space to be how they are — especially if they are acting in ways that only increase your anxiety. The best leaders are ones who are calm, even-headed, steady and have perspective. If you’re staring at a big boulder of a problem right up in the face of the problem, it’s hard to tell how big the boulder is, or what ways you can get around it. Giving yourself more distance to breathe, and to see it in context means you can better sort out a plan to move forward. More importantly, it gives you perspective — so much of our stress and anxiety comes from a sense of immediacy and reaction to what’s right in front of us. The best leaders help provide more context and perspective — for others and for themselves.