Don’t Sweat the Wrong Stuff – 7 Steps to Eliminate Unnecessary Stress

Someone cut you off in traffic. The pot on the stove boiled over. The wifi went out and you couldn’t live stream the game. The dog chewed your shoes … again. Your boyfriend didn’t give you the gift you expected at Valentine’s Day and your coworker won’t stop talking loudly in his cubicle next door! These experiences may not be life threatening but it can make you feel nibbled to death by negativity. Instead of focusing on the positives in life and remembering how lucky we truly are – we often sweat the wrong stuff.

Setting the Right Expectations

Our expectations get us into trouble. We are guilty of expecting too much from ourselves and too much from others. For the first years of my marriage I was constantly frustrated that my husband didn’t have the same expectations as I did around organization. It took time (and wasted emotional energy) for me to finally figure out that it wasn’t that he didn’t care, it simply because I assumed he would have the same ideas as myself. After all, it seems so obvious to ME I didn’t bother to communicate the specifics of what I thought ‘organized’ was. I assumed he would ‘get it’.

We expect for others to realize they just cut us off in traffic.

We expect that our partners know how we need to feel loved.

We expect that our friends will understand how we will feel about their actions.

I hear often: “Well, if I have to tell them what I expect then that means they just don’t care. They should know!” Sadly it just means that we aren’t born mind readers. We are born to communicate: why are we so BAD at it?!

Clear Communication

We aren’t mind readers and we evolved speech for a reason. It’s a good idea to use your vocal chords to communicate your expectations to others instead of expecting them to just ‘get it’. For a host of reasons: other people do not have the same life perspective we do. Besides, if we were all the same, life would be boring! Common sense isn’t so common. What may appear as obvious to you may be a big mystery to someone else. Communicate! The number one breakdown in relationships of any kind is typically sourced in poor communication from the wrong perspective.

The Problem with Perspective

The problem with perspective is that we always assume we’re right based on the information we have. Fact is: we rarely have all of the information. Our perspective is the lens by which we interpret everything we experience in the world around us. It’s like wearing glasses, we may not realize that we’ve got the wrong prescription until we step back objectively or open ourselves up to a different viewpoint. It’s so easy to let our galloping emotions take over and carry us from assumption to forgone conclusion instantly without the facts!

“I just know I’m going to be fired!” said a friend to me one day.  I was alarmed, but (being a bit more objective) I started asking questions. It turns out that a simple misunderstanding of context in an email had sent her into a tailspin of distress. In actuality, her boss appreciates her and gave her a promotion not a month later.

Check your perspective before you take the leap.

Stop Yelling at Traffic

How many times have you sat behind the wheel of your vehicle and yelled out loud to the person in front of you? I know I have. We assume that they meant to act like an idiot driver and we take it personally. Later on, when the emotion has left the situation, we may find ourselves thinking “I got upset again over something I can’t control”. We have choices in life and healthy choices begin with a genuine understanding of what we can impact and what we can’t. We can either pound the steering wheel in frustration and be managed by something we outside of our influence or we can accept the situation and focus on what we CAN control: ourselves.

Stop sweating the wrong stuff!

Prioritize Your Energy Outputs

We seem to put a lot of energy into things we cannot change. We allow our emotions to get the best of us and it skews our focus – which can become fixed if we do not become AWARE.

“Contentment in life doesn’t come from the absence of conflict; it comes from not giving away our emotional control …” – Mike Bechtle

Like that lens that determines our perspective in life, it is also critical for our emotional well-being to check our energy outputs. Are we focusing on things we can impact or are we allowing others actions to dictate our reactions? Understand that those closer to us have more pull on our emotions than those further away from our ‘inner circle’. Instead of wasting energy on traffic and politics, perhaps we could focus more on forming healthy relationships with those close to us.

About Control

When you realize that you cannot control the traffic, other people, the weather, or politics: you start to understand that the only thing you can control is YOU. We can control our choices and attitudes. When we take responsibility for our choices can we can begin to hope to influence others. Be become response-able instead of reactive. We can start to become self-aware and live intentionally.

An old man once said: “When I was young I wanted to change the world. In my 30’s I realized that the world was too big and I focused on changing my country. As time passed I understood that my country wasn’t influenced by me so I hoped to impact my community. As an older man I realized the community did follow me and I tried to influence my family. Now: as a very old man … I focus on changing myself because only then can I influence my family. My family can impact the community and the community can change the country which will then change the world.”

All true change starts with you.

 

The Perspective of Contentment

Life is not about smooth sailing. It’s unrealistic to think that we will reach a time in our lives where there are no challenges to overcome. However, it is possible to have serenity. The more we choose the lens of truth and learn to focus on the right stuff instead of choosing to sweat the wrong stuff: the healthier our emotional well-being will become. It doesn’t happen automatically. Becoming self-aware so we can be intentional about our responses and where to focus is a process that takes time and attention. It takes time to understand how not to sweat the wrong stuff and focus on the right stuff.