Stress tolerance: algorithm
How to Develop Four Skills of Crisis Adaptation
A typical problem consists of two parts. First, the changes that disrupt your plans. For example, sudden relocation or the need to submit a work project earlier than the scheduled deadline. Second, the stress you experience trying to adapt to changes. If there are not too many of them and they don’t happen too often, you can manage without special preparation. But when the volume and pace of change increases, effectiveness begins to depend directly on stress resistance.
Jason Shen, an entrepreneur and stress resilience expert, defines it as the ability to flexibly scale one’s level of stress in response to workload. On the Every productivity resource, he offers an algorithm for developing this ability, based on his experience as a professional athlete, startup founder, and digital nomad. His key principle: stress resilience is not a character trait or innate property, but rather a skill, like professional qualifications. More precisely, it is a set of four skills that require targeted practice to develop.
1. A reasonable reaction
Face reality. Often, when faced with an unexpected problem, we direct all our mental energy to an internal protest against the new reality, which only increases stress and takes away strength. Much more effective — immediately take the problem as a given and release all resources not on its denial, but on the search for a solution.
Assess your situation objectively. First, calmly analyze all incoming factors that help and hinder the solution to the problem. This will help you not to underestimate and not to overestimate the difficulties that you will have to overcome.
Focus on what you can control. Imagine you have to sail a yacht through a stormy patch of sea. You can control the sails, the wheel and the navigational instruments, but you can’t control the sea or the wind. Determine which tools you have under your control and only rely on those.
2. Compensation
Calculate your vulnerabilities. To compensate for the losses incurred and prepare for recovery, analyze your status. How did the changes affect you? What exactly broke your inner balance? What needs can you not meet now?
Reach out for support. The main source of renewable psychological resources is communication. Therefore, in difficult times it is vital to maintain communication with people. Do not be afraid to ask for help and advice. Resilience is not a thing in itself, but interaction with those who are ready to help you close your vulnerabilities.
3. Recovery
Set new goals. Unwanted changes often deprive us not only of support in the present, but also of belief in the future. Don’t let them do this — free yourself from the burden of collapsed hopes. Jason recalls how, after a knee injury, he had to accept that he would no longer be able to compete internationally. Awareness of this fact helped him “reinvent” himself and become an entrepreneur.
Celebrate small achievements. When starting a new project after facing difficulties with a previous one, focus on your progress, however small it may be. This will trigger a cascade of restoration in productivity. Jason quotes from a book by Harvard Business School psychologist Teresa Amabile The Progress Principle: “The more positive your mood today, the more creative energy you’ll have in the coming days.”
4. Comprehension
Find meaning in difficulties. Changes often test our system of values. But without this, it is impossible to maintain it in an actual state. Take the time to realize which elements of your beliefs, knowledge, principles and approaches have not withstood the collision with reality. And try to adjust them taking into account the new experience.
Integrate your failures into your experience. Don’t try to forget about them — let them become part of your story. In life, you will encounter situations that will remind you of your past mistakes and failures. Learn to speak about them openly not only to yourself but also to others. The ability to value your negative experience — that’s the secret ingredient in the formula for resilience.