If you want to reduce stress in your life, remember these three words:
Connected without Attachment
Ask yourself the following 3 simple questions. Do you agree or disagree?
- I have more stress in my life than I would like.
- I should be able to figure things out and get it all done. (After all, that’s what I’m getting paid for, and people are counting on me.)
- I know I should just focus on what I can control and not worry about the rest.
During a recent webinar on our Connection Mindset™ program for a client we started with the questions above.
Over 90 % of people agreed with all three statements.
It’s no surprise that we all have more stress in our lives than we would like. The answer to the other two questions explains why.
“I should be able to figure things out and get it all done.”
Life, business, and technology have accelerated dramatically over the last 30 years. It’s likely your career accelerated dramatically over the last 10-20 years. How many times can we expect to get more done with less? To work smarter, not harder.
What makes us think we have endless capacity? Yet our companies and culture expect that from us, and according to this poll, it’s often what we expect from ourselves.
I’m not knocking efficiency and continuous improvement. If you’re a leader, you should be seeking continuous improvement. AND, you will never get it all done.
This is an example of a dialectic – two mutually exclusive or contradictory things that are both true at the same time.
Now, let’s look at the last poll question.
“I know I should just focus on what I can control and not worry about the rest.”
90% of people agreed with this statement, yet the fact that they also believe they should be able to get everything done indicates that while we get it intellectually, we don’t really believe it or have a difficult time doing it.
I actually love that my clients struggle to let go of what they can’t control. It’s an indication of how much they care. Of course, it’s hard to let go. You’re a leader. You take that responsibility seriously. That’s a good thing.
It’s also another dialectic. You should let go of the stuff you can’t control, AND you care enough to try to influence it.
The thing is, our big brains struggle with dialectics. AND our daily lives are full of them.
The tension between these two ideas—that we should be able to get everything done and that we shouldn’t worry about the stuff we can’t control—creates much of the stress we experience daily.
How do you reconcile these dialectics, or don’t they directly impact your stress and effectiveness.
Here’s the good news, there is also tremendous power in dialectics. Our approach to reconciling them – Connected without Attachment.
Try getting fiercely connected to what’s important to you—your values, your purpose, your goals, and the people around you—without being attached to how things are going or how they’re doing at any one time.
Letting go of our attachment to getting it all done or the belief that we should “let go of the rest” allows us to keep striving without the stress that ensues when we get to the end of the day, and our to-do list is longer than we started.
A client of mine recently described this as allowing her to keep her eyes focused on the road without getting distracted by the bugs on the windshield.
