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3 Keys to Managing Holiday Stress at the Office
Stress. You feel it. Your employees feel it. Your customers and vendors feel it. It’s everywhere this time of year.
Yet here are 3 simple, yet powerful ways to better manage your holiday stress.
#1: Stress Avoidance
When stress hits you, it’s too late to avoid it. The pressures and worries are already pounding on your mind, heart, and spirit.
The BEST way to manage holiday stress is to avoid it completely. Impossible? Not really. We encourage you to:
- Make a list of the top 5 things that cause you and your team holiday stress.
- Brainstorm with your team how to avoid, minimize, even eliminate that stressor.
- Alert everyone involved how you plan to avoid that stressor.
- Hold everyone around accountable to living up to your plan.
#2: Be Slow to Anger
If a stressor cannot be avoided, one of the worst things we can do with our team (or our family) is lose our cool or to blow up in a fit of anger. It’s so easy under holiday stress to allow your feelings and emotions to override your common sense.
Here is a great step-by-step process to be slow to anger:
- Pause before you react.
- Think before you speak.
- Smile before you act.
#3: Get Some Rest
With so much to do and so little time to do it, one of the first things we give up during the holidays is a good sleep and rest pattern. Fix one more side dish. Wrap one more present. Address one more card.
Although this “Get Some Rest” best practice is just as true outside the holiday season, it is even more true within it. So to encourage you to get some rest, do these:
- Set a specific time that you MUST get to bed (and do not negotiate it).
- Schedule three 15-minute breaks everyday (and do not skip them).
- Demand your employees and team do exactly the same (and hold them accountable).
The last you thing you want for yourself and your team this holiday is to allow stress to overtake them, anger to control, and sleep and rest deprivation to drain them.
Integrate these stress management best practices into your daily routine and enjoy your happiest and healthiest holiday ever!