Developing a Stress Management Plan

Developing a stress management plan is not necessarily going to require a lot of time and energy. Many times, you just need to make a commitment to reduce the level of stress in your life by taking a few small, but meaningful steps. Not necessarily hard, those few steps in the right direction will lead to an improvement in your overall health and well-being.

To start your stress management plan, you’ll need to identify five activities that you really enjoying doing. These can be anything from a long walk on the beach, curling up to the fire with a good book or spending time playing board games with your family.

If you have hobbies that you enjoy spending time on, be sure to include them in your list as well. Other things you might consider including are things you’ve always wanted to do, but never got around to, or things that you used to enjoy but haven’t had time for lately.

There is one rule though. These activities you choose must not be related to work or any other source of stress in your life. That also means, you shouldn’t include negative friends or family in the plans.

Now that you have your list of five things, you are going to make another list of at least two things that you almost always do, that you either shouldn’t be doing or can live without doing. This list can be things like bringing work home from the office, cooking huge meals after a long day at work, doing your teenagers laundry or skipping the gym to accommodate someone else.

This is a very important part of your list. Although it will be hard at first, the sweet reward of less stress and more time will be well worth it.

Next, you need to make a list of at least two thing you know you should have done by now, but haven’t. These can be anything you have put off or problems you have not been dealing with directly when you should have.

If you’ve been meaning to call your cell phone provider for the past few weeks, but haven’t, or if you’ve been thinking about dusting the cob-webs in the front entry for the past month, but haven’t, write those things down.

At this point, your three lists will now become a goal sheet. Your stress management plan should look like this:

This week I will

• Spend at least 15 minutes every day doing one of the things I enjoy. (Choose from the list of five things you wrote earlier, for this section.)
   

• Eliminate two needless tasks from my list of things to do. (Choose from the list of things you don’t want to or shouldn’t be doing anymore.)
   

• Tackle two things I have been putting off for a while. (Choose from the two things that you wrote earlier under this section.)

 

Now that you have your stress management plan, be sure to update it on a weekly or monthly basis, whichever works best for you!

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"Gary Gzik is a Corporate Trainer and CEO of the business consulting company BizXcel Inc. which owns and operates Getting to Someday, a place where people go to achieve their goals and dreams.

Gary also wrote "The Orange Popsicle - Six Influential Lessons that will Inspire You to Change Your Life" and "The Power of RE - Recreate Your Life from the Inside-Out".

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