9 Stress Reducing Tips for Busy Professionals | Jack Canfield

Hi there, I'm Jack Canfield. Today I want to help out busy people with busy lifestyles by sharing some of my stress reducing tips. Running a business with events, speaking engagements and meetings one right after the other on top of working with my team, I know firsthand how stressful and exhausting having a busy lifestyle can be. But I also know firsthand how to make sure you don't burn out or find yourself helpless, irritable and unhappy. I'll share my top stress reducing tips here with you today. So tip 1 Eat healthy and Exercise it's easy to want to jump out of bed and get right to work. Skipping meals, grabbing fast food, neglecting exercise when you live a busy lifestyle. But starting every day off right with healthy food, water and exercise is essential to success. If you were going on a long trip in your high performance car, would you fill it with the wrong kind of gas? Of course not. It would be hard on the engine. Remember, your body is your engine. It's your car and it must come first. Now consider this. Notice the times when you feel stressed or depressed. Were you binging on unhealthy processed food, eating too much sugar, drinking too much alcohol, not drinking enough water and avoiding daily exercise? Pay attention to your body and avoid rewarding yourself for working hard by eating badly. Now I understand the temptation, but it's important not to give into it. You'll experience the feelings of joy and pleasure, not to mention greater mental clarity much more often when you abide by this first rule Tip Number two Meditation. This is something I practice my entire adult life and is a key factor to keeping my stress levels down and my mind clear. Ideally, 30 minutes to an hour of meditation would have a major impact in all areas of your life. But most of us don't have that much time. So start by just taking a few minutes a couple times a day to pay attention to your breathing. Taking deep breaths, breathing in through your nose and out through your mouth. Letting go of any negative thoughts or feelings. Just noticing them and letting them go. And by just this simple act you will notice your body begin to relax and de stress in the moment. You can feel your shoulders relax, your face relax. Now you can also take a mindful walk outside and simply breathe in your surroundings. Or you could stop and listen to some soothing music or let yourself go in a guided visualization. It is these little things that create a huge difference in enjoying your success. The third tip is this simply called self care. This is another thing that busy people tend to forget. Making time for yourself Getting the Sleep, you need to keep your body and mind at rest. For example, remember you work hard, so it's important to remember to reward yourself every now and then and celebrate how far you've come. Take time to take a mental health day or a spa day. Go on a weekend trip, catch a show. Whatever you need to do to indulge in alone time and do it often. You know making this change in your routine will do wonders to your well being, but it needs to be scheduled just like you would schedule a meeting or a business trip. Otherwise it'll probably never happen. Tip number four is this. Clean up your messes and your incompletes. So I want you to take time to make a list of all the things that are undone in your life. The things that wake you up at night or you catch yourself thinking about in the middle of the day that are distracting you. Maybe it's a conversation you need to have or an important to do on your list that's hanging over your head. Your office door that's squeaky, the lighting in your office that needs replacing, or a port you promised to send. Whatever it is, write it down. Now I literally go through my entire house and office quarterly and make a list, room by room, of anything that needs to be handled that might be undone. I like to say these are the invisible monkeys on our backs that over time create a level of stress that we unconsciously start to tolerate. Now then I take that same list and I make it with the people in the relationships that are incomplete or need attention in my life as well. Now, once I have everything down on paper and out of my head, I I can prioritize my list and in what order I'm going to handle these stressors. And the goal is to have an environment both mentally and physically that's clean, calm and has the space to support you. This is something that's easy to put off, but so important to handle, you'll feel the benefits of it immediately. I promise. Tip number five Remember to delegate. You are not in this alone, you know. I would not be able to do as much as I do without my team. And every high achiever has a powerful team of key staff members, consultants, vendors, helpers who help manage projects and handle everyday tasks. There's nothing wrong with reaching out for help or letting someone else who's an expert at something take care of the work for you. It'll be the best use of your time and it will enable you to do more of the work that you enjoy and it produces the bottom line results that you want and and it's not only relieving to have these tasks taken away from you, it's also rewarding to see a team care about you and care about your goals. Tip number six is this have clearly defined goals. When you have clear goals, you have a clear direction on where you're heading in life. And for the busy professional, having clear goals means being productive with your precious time. One of the best methods of goal setting is. You've heard about it before. It's called setting smart goals. Smart, specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time bound. If your goals are smart, then they're going to be specific. They're going to help you get to where you want to go. You're going to know when you want to get there by. So the more specific, the more likely you are to achieve them and the easier it is to chunk them down. And with that level of clarity, it's easy to break down goals and ask what would actually be required for me to achieve this goal? How many hours would it take? Once you've identified the things that are most important to accomplish first, schedule those activities into your calendar and set aside the rest for later. Clear goals also make it easy to say no. When you're ambitious, it's hard to say no to opportunities. But in order to keep from feeling overwhelmed and to be successful in achieving your goals, you will have to get good at saying no to those activities, those requests, and the other time stealers that don't have a high payoff. Remember the 8020 rule? It says that 80% of our productivity comes from 20% of our efforts. The key to being more efficient is to figure out what that 20% is and focus on those 20% of the things that get you closer to your goals and say no to the rest. Now again, clear goals make saying no less stressful. One response that I found helpful in saying no to people is it's not against you. It's for me. I'm not saying no because I don't care about you. I'm saying no because I have to focus on these things that are important in my life. I'm making that choice right now. So you're saying no to the good so you can say yes to the great. That's going to take you where you want to go. Now Tip number seven is use affirmations. Affirmations are simple, positive statements describing specific goals that you've set in their completed states. An example would be I am so happy and grateful that I'm now completing a successful training event. Now Although they sound rather basic, these empowering mantras have profound effects on the conscious and the unconscious mind. Now, some of your stress may come also from limiting beliefs, and positive affirmations will help replace your I can'ts with I cans and and your fears and doubts with confidence and certainty. When there's nothing in your mind to stop you, there's nothing to stress about. Now Tip number eight is this focus on the positive in every situation. This is not easy at first, but it can become so over time. Learning to look at your losses, or what I like to refer to as lessons as opportunities for growth, allows you to keep your vibration high. And when you have a growth and learning mindset, you're less stressed, which allows for more energy to focus on what you've learned and what you can do with this new information leading to even more opportunities. Tip number nine is Be grateful. Look for the good in every situation, even those you would normally view as negative. It's easy to be disappointed and get upset at others when things don't go our way, but by being mindful that we're all on this journey together and and that none of us is perfect allows us to appreciate our differences, accept things for what they are, and being grateful for every piece of feedback, every amount of effort put in, every opportunity given, and even every opportunity missed. Having a more positive outlook on life's big and small events will tremendously reduce your stress. Now here's your homework that I want you to do after watching this video, pick one to three tips that I talked about today that you want to start doing to reduce your stress and then notice how you felt after doing them. Tell me what you plan to do and then share your experience in the comments. Thank you for watching. And remember, nothing will change for the better until you do. Now, if you found this video helpful, make sure you like it, share it with a friend who may need it, and subscribe to my channel. For more videos like this one, and for some additional resources on how to live a more balanced life, visit my website@jackcampfield.com.