Releasing the Pressure

Yesterday was my first day back after Tornado Tuesday’s week long power outage in Connecticut.

My plan was to get in touch with all my agents and schedule meetings with at least 4 clients.

Ready to go, I sat at my desk to log onto my work website. I couldn’t get in. The saved password had disappeared. Damn. I didn’t know what it was. It took a while to figure it out.

That would have been fine, but all of my passwords had disappeared from my computer and phone. I couldn’t get into my email, wordpress, or any of the other web sites that I use.

It took hours to figure all of them out.

My mind started going. “I’m not getting anything done. This is a waste of time. Why is this happening? and on and on and on……..I should be calling clients. Something is really wrong here…….How am I ever going to make money if I have to waste time like this?……………”

The pressure started building in my body and head.

What better opportunity to put the quote “Are YOU putting pressure on YOURSELF?” to use.

Here are my tips and what I did to relieve the pressure in action:

• Identify when you are feeling pressure: NOW
• Look at the body sensations you are feeling: Tightness in chest, fast heart beat, difficulty breathing
• Experience the sensations – I allowed the tightness in my chest, and took 3 deep breaths which slowed down my racing heart
• What was I telling myself: “I’m never going to get this done, something is wrong, I should be doing other things, why did this happen? Why am I wasting my time on passwords? This is ridiculous. I’m an idiot for thinking I would be productive today
• Ask if it is true: No, I had to reset the passwords in order to get into my emails, my systems, and to find my client information. There was nothing else I could do. This was necessary.
• Create something new to say/think: I am doing what I need to do. This is part of working. I AM WORKING. AND, this is the way it looks today. Something must have happened during the power outage or when I upgraded my phone and computer. I am exactly where I am supposed to be. Successful people invest time so they can save time later. That’s what I am doing.

And with that, I calmed down. I started focusing on the task at hand. I got more effective and efficient at what I was doing and finished the job. I organized my office for the first time in a long time, and started a training course that I had been putting off.

I was productive, even though it didn’t look like the way I thought it would when I got to my office in the morning. I am in touch with my accomplishments instead of feeling physically pressured, stupid and not present.

I hope this is valuable for you. These tips will also be posted on instagram to support the quote of the week: “Are you putting pressure on yourself?”

I hope you relieve some pressure. I certainly did.

Thanks for listening.