About the connection between the awareness of our needs, stress prevention, and excellent performance, you can read here:
1. Exuberant Joy, but Also Tasks, Stress, and Our Needs in Advent
In Advent, many of us feel joyful anticipation and, luckily, positive connotations spring to mind first. On the other hand, most of us play active roles in creating this special atmosphere. The list of tasks is long and includes various items from decorating, organising Christmas parties to cooking, baking, and shopping for Christmas presents.
As our jobs and all other daily chores won´t let us have any extra time, stress might creep into our happiness. What type of stress will it mostly be? What are our best options to counteract it? In this article, we will briefly look at the most common types of stress in Advent from a CRM perspective. We will apply important CRM principles in order to streamline our tasks.
In the main part of this article, we will explore why it is so important to look after our own needs if we want to prevent stress. When we don´t feel stressed, we have much more energy to deliver the excellent work that others or we ourselves expect from us. This is the intriguing connection between taking the time to meet our needs in the way that suits us best and being able to perform superbly.
2. Eustress and Hyperstress in Advent
Even though I hope that eustress is the most common one in the pre-Christmas period, hyperstress may occur. Hyperstress should be recognised when it is in its early stage and before it has any chance to turn into chronic stress. Hypostress (too little to do) might be less common. Some of our fellow human beings will be in disstress, perhaps due to a drastic event in their lives. It goes without saying that we should try our best to offer them support and comfort. Below, we will look at eustress and hyperstress briefly.
2.1. Eustress
We feel eustress when we have a demanding job to do, whilst we know at the same time that we have the necessary resources and that we will handle it. In Advent, such a demanding job might be the preparation of the Christmas party at work, or caring for the vistors we may receive over the holidays. Eustress helps us to concentrate on the relevant tasks during our preparations and the actual event.
2.2. Hyperstress
When all our duties start to mount up or if there are too many of them in too short a period of time, we feel hyperstress. Imagine that you have already done some of the Christmas baking and that you are on schedule with your presents and your Christmas cards.
One evening you learn all of a sudden that your mother-in-law is planning to turn up at Christmas and stay for a few days. Now, you might first of all need a moment before you are able to think clearly again and work out where you find the necessary resources and even help with your additional responsibilities.
Of course, we cannot prevent every single stressful moment completely, but we can improve our situation substantially. Below, we will elucidate step by step what we should do to achieve this.
3. A Few Words About Dealing With Hyperstress CRM-Style
What Are the Stressors?
When we realise that we are in hyperstress, we should take a few moments to reflect on what the stressors are. We might even want to write them down. When we see them outlined in front of us, we can start to contemplate why we experience them, or their sum, as stressors.
Is Everything That We Are Planning Really Relevant?
As soon as we have identified the stressors, we can decide what we want to do about them. Are there any tasks that are not important and can be deleted form the list? For instance, if you plan to bake several types of Christmas bisquits, do you really need to mix all the necessary doughs from scratch? Or are some of the ones you can buy ready-made good enough to meet your quality standards?
How to Reduce and Distribute the Workload
When we have narrowed down all the tasks and defined the ones we absolutely want to carry out, we should ask ourselves what degree of perfection is truly necessary. We should keep our balance between working on a cosy pre-Christmas atmosphere and enjoying it together with family and friends. Therefore, we have to distribute the workload. Who in the family is willing to help and will take on what jobs? Who is best at organising and creating timelines and even loves sticking to the latter?
4. We Meet Our Needs to Recharge Our Energy
Now, let go of all the tasks for a moment and don´t even think about the next items on your personal to do lists. Everyone of us prefers different activities to relax, please the senses, or have lots of fun according to personality traits. We should understand that this array of needs is absolutely normal, even though we might not share other people´s idea of fun one hundred percent.
Identifying what suits us best and how to meet our needs helps us to ease the stress. This, in turn, will recharge our batteries for our next successful performance. In order to find out more, we will accompany Jenny, a middle-aged lady, who has just finished work for the day.
4.1. Together With a Close Friend at the Christmas Market
Jenny heads for the local Christmas market where her close friend Rose greets her warmly and pays her a compliment for her fabulous looks. Rose feels instinctively that Jenny is worried about something and tells her friend that she can unburden her heart to her. Finally, Jenny can talk about her husband´s newly diagnosed cardiac dysrhythmia, because she feels unconditionally accepted in this moment of perceived vulnerability. Later, the ladies stroll about the market and enjoy the beautiful sight of the many lights, the sound of the Christmas carols, and the smell of gingerbread and mulled wine.
4.2. Arriving at the Christmas Party
After a warm-hearted farewell, Jenny travels to the venue at which her company hosts the annual Christmas party for all its employees. As she enters the location, she glances at the buffet. Something formidable has already been arranged there, phew! Only two days earlier, the caterer had cancelled the order due to a lack of personnel. There had been a few seconds of dismayed silcence as this was announced during the usual late-afternoon meeting, before a young coworker said enthusiastically: "Let me do it! I´ll organise this!" She radiated confidence and clearly seemed to welcome the challenge in this very moment.
Before Jenny has managed to approach her familiar group of coworkers, a young man touches her shoulder lightly and utters: "Great jacket, I really adore it!" Almost immediately he is off to the next small group, makes contact and, apparently, he and his jokes are welcomed. Jenny shakes her head slightly and smiles. This is not like her own behaviour at all, but the young colleague seems to have lots of fun.
Late in the evening, Jenny walks home alone in the beautiful snow that has just fallen. She appreciates the silence and the opportunity to reflect calmly on the many events of the day.
5. What Type of Praise Matches Our Needs?
Praise for a process, which we have used during the completion of a task, helps us to understand why we have been successful. In addition to this type of praise, receiving recognition for hard work, values and opinions, but also for being who we are, is crucial. This belongs to our needs. As we are all different, we feel these needs more or less intensively. Let´s look at praise and recognition in more detail.
Some people know when they have delivered a solid piece of work. They usually know how to gather all the necessary facts and how to structure their work including their timeline. Although they might feel uncomfortable when they receive the recognition for their hard work in front of others, they still need this very recognition from colleagues, friends, and family members.
Some of us possess a strong need to discuss their opinions and make their contributions in accordance with their system of perceived values. These people know when they can be satisfied with their work, as well, but they appreciate the recognition of their hard work and the approval of their opinions nonetheless.
Recognition doesn´t always have to be tied to performance. Some of us can well judge the quality of their work, but what they absolutely need is the recognition as the unique persons that they are. They don´t feel special by any means, but they thrive when they feel warmly and unconditionally welcomed.
What about praising the hard work, the commitment, but also the warmheartedness of our fellow human beings during the Christmas preparations?
6. The Next Blog Article Will Be Published for You in the New Year
First of all, I wish you a Happy Christmas and a Happy New Year. Once we are sufficiently relaxed after our time off during the holidays, we will continue to uncover vital CRM topics in this series of blog articles. The first article in Januray will be about air traffic control. We will elaborate how CRM is used there and what we can learn from the demanding work of an air traffic controller.
With this article, the series will launch into its fourth year. It is almost unbelievable how fast the time has gone by. I would like to seize this opportunity to thank you for your companionship.
Author: Eva-Maria Schottdorf
Date: December 8th, 2023
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