Last Wednesday I felt pressured. I had 4 coaching calls to make, a flight to catch and a hotel to get to, in a place I hadn’t been before. The problem was, I needed to get nearer to Southampton as my last call finished at 5pm and my flight was at 6:30pm and I was in Bournemouth. My plan was to do the first 2 calls and then I had an hour lunch break to get to a hotel near Southampton, set up the wifi and log in to the call.
I had been to the hotel, many times before and it was normally quiet and spacious, so ideal to hide away in a distant corner. When I arrived the hotel was full to the brim with people just sitting about chatting. I found an empty table but it was close to the bar where the coffee machine was making ‘coffee machine noises’ so that wasn’t going to help. I logged in and checked the connection and everything was working, but the noise was deafening – not good.
I went to the reception to see if there were any quiet rooms available and was told that the place would be empty soon as these people were on a speed awareness course and would soon be heading into their workshops. I had about 5 minutes to spare when they all disappeared and I found the quiet corner I was looking for – just in time!
The calls went to plan and I even had time to get something to eat, so all looking good. The second part of my journey was from Southampton to Amsterdam then on to Nijmegen to find the hotel. Trains to get, tickets to buy, changes to make, but eventually I arrived in Nijmegen and on to the last leg of finding the hotel.
My ‘map app’ had already been set up with the hotel address and after a 15 minute walk, I arrived. It was 11pm so time to get my kit sorted, run through the material for the next day, plan my route to the venue in the morning, and, get some sleep.
I didn’t realise it, but I was slightly stressed out.
One of my ‘obsessions’ is time keeping. I like to be early and really do not like to feel like I might be late or miss something so, normally, I give myself bigger margins to work in. The space between the drive to the hotel was close, the drive to the airport was at peak time so took longer and I hadn’t checked in on-line as Flybe were changing their system and it was not available. Travelling to a destination, I hadn’t been to, and finding a new hotel, late at night, also took its toll.
Fortunately, it was a short term feeling, and I was soon ready for the next day, due to being back in control of my timings and feeling calmer – the beer also helped! If I had to go through that every day, I think it would start to creep up on me and it would impact me in loads of ways. I know I would get agitated, impatient and possibly angry.
There are clues, to be aware of, if you find yourself in a hectic, pressured lifestyle for a long period of time. Things such as restless sleeps, heart palpitations, regular illnesses, emotional outbursts, high blood pressure and maybe the inability to concentrate, are just a few. The skill is to recognise what stresses are building up and have a coping mechanism to deal with them.
Normally mine is exercise but, as with my example, I didn’t have time or space to go to the gym or the beautiful spa, because I arrived late and was up early. If that was a long term situation, I would definitely have to make changes with my career or lifestyle.
What little things stress you out a bit?
What ‘obsession’ causes you to get agitated?
What do you do to rebalance things or decompress?
Have a look at this short clip, it’s worth the 10 minutes – click here