Reaching Your Stress MAX!

In this week's episode I discuss my stress max limit and how I told my boss that I didn't want to work there anymore…what is yours? When was the last time you reached your breaking point in life where you could not handle one.more.thing.

For the lesson, it's all about creating a system for recognizing and managing your stress…because, it's going to happen again.

The advice, this week, is from Monika Kristofferson of @efficientorganization. She discusses how to better manage your 5:00 - 9:00 after your 9:00 - 5:00 and the weekends. I also add a few things about how I manage my stress. 

Sponsor I Wish I Had:

Betterup.com

Just The Tip:

Pair down to level up your summer cookouts

Whisper In:

@efficientorganization

Monika Kristofferson

Check out this related video: https://youtu.be/QtyASmEZ2F4?si=w_yRSENYi3L5-Ljw 

Check out the Story. Lesson. Advice. Podcast here: https://www.buzzsprout.com/919333/14216914 

Have a topic suggestion for the show? Email me at saturdayisdadurday@gmail.com 

Music by Purple-planet.com Music by Wondershare Filmora 12 

Connect on IG: @saturdayisdadurdaymedia

Transcript

Well, it happened to me again. At work, I hit my stress Max
everyone, welcome into another episode of The Story lesson advice podcast part of Saturday is Saturday media life advice, podcast, book reviews, product reviews, cooking videos, and more all in due time. Thanks for listening, I am Justin, the host, you can find me at Saturday is Saturday media on Instagram and YouTube and the website is S I D media.net. Thanks for listening, we'll get right into it. So today, the story I have is a fairly recent one dealing with my ability or inability to manage stress workload at work. And I wanted to share this because I wanted to see how many of you feel the same way or have felt the same way or have experienced some version of this. So within the last two months at work, I've had a handful of things added to my
my job description and to my workload. And some of them have been not at my request. And some of them were decisions that were made without involving me. And my initial reaction to that is to be upset about that, because hey, it's my job. And it's me, and what are you doing dumping work on me and all of that sort of stuff. However, I need to remind myself that I'm an employee of the company. And this happens all the time to people everywhere, and it happens much more severe to people everywhere, other than just me. So this is not a sob story. And I'm not looking for any sympathy from anybody on this. But I feel like when I've been in a work situation, that maybe you felt this way, too, when you're humming along at work, and something gets added to your plate, and you're like, Okay, I can take this on one more thing. And then something else gets added on. And you're like, Okay, starting to get full here, like, I'm gonna need some help. And then something else gets added on. And you're like, Okay, this is it, I can't handle any more like I barely have enough time, you know, to eat my lunch and go to the bathroom. And then all of a sudden, on top of that, you throw deadlines. And that's what happened to me recently. And it culminated with me, calling one of my bosses and saying, like, hey, this makes me not even want to work here anymore. And I was pretty hot, pretty upset, and did not have a great attitude about it. I wasn't screaming or yelling at anything. But like, I did not hold back with my frustrations about how the last two months that unfolded. And
I was told, Hey, we appreciate your candor on this. And we appreciate you being honest. And you have to be able to say stuff like this. So I felt good from the standpoint that I was comfortable enough and had built a good enough relationship with my leadership that I can be candid with them and say stuff like that, without them thinking that, you know, I'm going to run off and quit. And at the same time, it was kind of a wake up call for me because I don't think I did as good of a job as I should have managing my emotions through that. And I think there was a valuable lesson that I learned along the way.
All right, and now it's time for this week's sponsor, I wish I had in this week's sponsor I wish I had is a service that I actually have been using for several months, and I have found it to be extremely beneficial. And I want to preface this with there might still be kind of a stigma or something associated with the idea of therapy or talking to someone that is a professional to help you work through things. And I had utilized a service like this years ago when my father passed away. And it's not that I so much felt as I quote needed it at the time, but I felt that it was a good idea to utilize because sometimes when you're in something, it's hard for you to recognize what you might need or, or where your deficiencies are, whatever. So I had an opportunity to utilize this service and the service is called Better up.com Better up and they have a good About Us page that helps identify so I'm going to read this.
They talk about bringing the power of transformation to each and every person. Their mission is to help people everywhere, live their lives with greater clarity, purpose and passion. And they are the first human transformation platform that scales whole person behavioral change, integrating into your flow of work to boost organizational performance and measurability with behavioral science, analytics and evidence based coaching. We bring human transformation to organizations and self actualization to people
worldwide. I know that was a lot. But this is actually a service that work pays for. And it's focused on trying to help an employee grow. And a big part of how they grow. And the person that I have a chance to work with the coach is, hey, let's talk about you outside of work and see where some some deficiencies are and where some opportunities for growth are. So I've spent the last several months working with this coach, and she's just wonderful. Talking about a whole bunch of different things that are personal, professional,
marriage related, family related, work related all sorts of things. And I cannot advocate enough for being open minded to working with someone as a coach, it's some form of therapy or some form of coaching or whatever. And just like people have no problem utilizing a personal trainer for fitness or nutritionist for nutrition, well, why not? Would you? Why would you not use a coach with someone like better up to help you with with all of the other things, so better up.com Is the website and they have an extensive
service offering. And I highly recommend taking a closer look at this for businesses or for individuals better up.com That is this week's sponsor I wish I had.
Okay, so I gave you a generic story about how I had additional things added on to me at work. And specifically, I had a new role that I have been getting used to, we have some some goals for our individual sales team and company, there was a new person that was hired on that I was responsible also for for training, getting up to speed and helping shape and create that that new position, then I was also responsible for hiring a new person in a certain market. So I had to learn a couple of software platforms to be able to search for resumes and, and do all that and go through all the different interviews and the pre qualification conversations and all of those things. And then in addition to that, the heat is turned up as far as the industry needing better performance and more sales more better all the time, whatever, right. So what everybody deals with. And I kind of hit Like I said, my my stress level max. And I made a note here that I think articulates why I ended up getting frustrated. And I said I say here, ultimately, I realized that I get really upset and frustrated not because of the workload or the stress, but because I tend to focus on the reason why the workload or the stress is there. Ultimately, it doesn't matter why it's there. It's there, and you just have to deal with it. But I get upset when I see that stress is clearly avoidable. And I tried to do a really good job in my life of planning and organizing them, not to the nth degree where I've got every minute of every day planned out. But think through something hard organize that planet, and then you can sit back and just enjoy the rest of the day or the week or whatever. And I tend to get frustrated when things go sideways, not because they go sideways. But because of poor planning, or poor organization on other people's parts or a last minute like I changed my mind, I don't want to go here for dinner, I want to go there. I was like, well, we're already halfway to the first place. So now we're going to turn around and go back the other way for no reason really. So more of that kind of a thing. When that happens, I start to lose control. I noticed that when those things happen at work, for example, and repeatedly where I feel like avoidable stress is being dumped on me and I get frustrated about it, then I start to see things happening outside of work that I'm having negative behavior outside of work, I start to lose control of things I start to lose control of, of my consistency of working out of eating a balanced diet of making time for friends, I noticed that my downtime turns more into just screen time instead of doing things instead of reading books instead of being more present with my wife and daughter. And I noticed those things happen. And
the lesson for me is just like I've talked about in previous episodes about needing a system and a process for managing your workload and managing your day to day and things like block scheduling to be able to help you block out time so you can focus on things and you be proactive with how you want to run your day and run your week. But aside from all that, I realized that the lesson is I also need to have a system and a process to manage my frustrations and emotions. When I get to that feeling of overwhelm when I get there when I feel like the wheels are starting to come off. I need to be able to have
Some form of a system or process to fall back on. And I think that's a valuable lesson for everybody to learn it, I don't mean, you know, a structured calendar or a list of to dues or, or whatever. But
finding that that structure or process however loose or for tight that is for when the wheels start to come off. And when you when you start to feel overwhelmed about things, you can lean on that knowing that, okay, that can be a safety blanket, in a sense of like, alright, I feel myself starting to pull away what's what's the thing I can do to recenter recenter myself. And a good example of that would be like I struggle with, with working out, right? When things get overwhelming, and I'm working longer, I'm up earlier, I'm to bed later I'm traveling, I get frustrated sometimes at the way that the schedule plays out, or I'm just tired. So what's the thing I can do? Well, instead of trying to cram in a full workout, or getting frustrated that I'm not able to do a workout? Can I just walk for 30 minutes, right? So that's something like that can be very simple. Or I get frustrated, I tend to lean on food as a as a stress relief or as a comfort. So can I make sure that you know I've got a backup supply of of, of balanced prepared meals in the freezer or something like that, where, hey, if I know that I'm coming into a rough week, or the next couple of days are unexpectedly going to be kind of crazy. Let me make sure I've got a good supply of food. So that that is on autopilot. That's one less decision that I have to make. And I think what I end up finding is, and you might find this too, is when you get into overwhelm, the small decisions can start to become big decisions, when it's what am I going to have for dinner tonight, you know, when am I going to go pick up this or return this or mail this or whatever, those little things start to pile up and they become big decision. So if I can help remove little decisions, and take that part out of the equation, then that's going to help manage when I get to that overwhelm and help me get over the hump and then back down to where things can kind of level up a little bit more.
Alright, and now it's time for this week's just the tip. And right around the corner or right smack dab in the middle right now. It is summertime, and that is time for cookouts, time for grilling out time for cooking out. And to kind of go along with managing your stress and managing your workload. My just the tip is revolving around when you are the host at the Summer grill out, or the summer cookout or you're hosting a birthday party, your friends are coming over and you're in charge of the food. My advice to you is pare the menu down. So one thing you can do is pick instead of five things, pick two. So nobody is going to remember that you had 11 different offerings on on the counter. Or that you had steak and hamburgers and hot dogs and chicken and ribs and brisket and all that. So my advice is, hey, if you're doing if you're grilling out, grill one to two things. That's it. If you're looking at side dishes, have one too soon to side dishes. And that's it. If you're looking at a signature cocktail or something like that, have one have it be something that you can make ahead of time holding the fridge. And then all you have to do is serve it. And the second part of this just the tip is if you do want to expand the menu which I understand you can't just have just hamburger and you know corn as the only two things and you've got 10 people at your house. Get use use the chips in the salsa and use the dips in use pre made or storebought stuff or things you can do ahead of time, let those things be the accessories that kind of fill in the gaps of your menu. So you're planning a you know, summer cookout on July 4, cookout, right? Do burgers and hotdogs on the grill that's easy to manage throw one vegetable on the grill, light corn. If you're going to have another side do like a pasta salad or potato salad, you can make that 123 days ahead of time, keep it in the fridge gets better as the days go on. So you're good there and then fill in the rest of the gaps with chips and storebought salsa or Glock or a seven layer dip or something that you can buy at the store. Or you know or let dessert be something that you purchase. You pick up some cookies or some cupcakes or something like that. So that's an easy way to manage where you can still enjoy the party that you're hosting instead of just running around because let's face it, you're not aligned Cook, you're not a chef and there's no expectation to have that you should be able to manage you know 15 different things that are cooking and some inside some outside. That's not fair. All you're going to do is stress yourself out and nothing is going to come out the way
If you want, so pare down the menu, you store about things to fill in the gaps, crack a beer, and enjoy your summer cookout. That is this week's just the tip.
All right, and this week's advice is actually a little unique because
it was wonderful enough that someone was able to provide me with a little advice in the form of a voice recording. So I'm going to play that now. The woman's name is Monica Kristofferson. And I reached out to her and asked if she'd be willing to share any advice on how to better manage our five to nine, right, so after our work day, and then also on the weekends, what are one or two very simple things we can do at home, low effort, low energy things, no cost solutions, what are one or two little things that we can put into practice, to help make better use of our time to be better organized, and to feel better
about what we're doing, so it's less of an issue. For us to manage that time, I just share my recommendation for something that you can do to better manage your time, from the time you leave, work, or leave your office, if you're working from home, and the time you go to bed. So think it's really important to be clear about what's important to you that you want to accomplish for the day, and how much time you have available to do that for the remainder of the day. With a clear End Time for bed. When you haven't gotten clear on what you want to accomplish, it's really easy to get pulled in different directions, or maybe start saying yes to the wrong things. And those things maybe aren't in alignment with what you want, or what you need. That can be frustrating. Sometimes it means we run out of time during the day and then feel like well, it didn't accomplish what I wanted. Or people will just start staying up into the middle of the night and try to burn the candle on both ends, which really is not good for productivity in the big picture. So be clear on what's important to you, and how much time you have available.
And then when it comes to weekends, something that you can do to be more productive during the weekend, but still have plenty of time for relaxation and recharging yourself. Knowing how quickly the weekend goes by is to have clear boundaries on what you're willing to do that's not relaxation related. So what will you want to accomplish, create a list. And then what's really important is to add the amount of time that you think that that task or multiple tasks are going to take because a lot of times, we underestimate how long something's going to take. And then we get frustrated because we didn't check things off of our list. Or again, we let it bleed into something else, like our relaxation and recharging time. And those weekends are really valuable. So you don't want to do that. So just get really clear on your boundaries, what you want to accomplish. And really make sure you try to be as realistic as you can about how long each one of those tasks is going to take. So that was the advice from Monica, I won't add anything to it other than to say that I think that's a very good and practical and realistic advice. So thank you so much to Monica, for being willing to contribute to that. And I really appreciate that. And hopefully, everybody listening can take something away from that as well. A note that I had on in addition to that on kind of managing your max workload when you hit that that stage of overwhelm, and you're like I cannot have one more thing added on is to focus on what you can control. And an example of this personally for me is I used to work at this really nice Italian restaurant. And I started working there right after my dad passed away. And it was the right job the wrong time in my life is the way that I've described it before. Couldn't have asked for a better restaurant couldn't have asked for a better chef, better sous chef better line cooks better serving staff that are Psalm, all of that was just top notch. And I was so fortunate to be able to work there. I just I had just a real difficult time and a mental struggle getting just getting through the day. And I was not my best version of that. But I was able to work there for about a year and really enjoyed it. And when I used to get really overwhelmed, I mean everyday was overwhelmed here because it's such a good restaurant, but when I used to get really kind of in the shed, as they call it.
When I was in over my head, I what I did was I tried to focus on the next task. That's it. And one of my old episodes from season one is titled How do you eat an elephant one bite at a time. And that's basically it. It's a joke between me and some friends. But I just tried to focus on I tried to focus on Can I just complete the next task on my prep list? That's it because if I looked at my prep list, it was a mile long, you know, look like one of those scrolls that you see in a Lord of the Rings movie. And that would just overwhelm me and I would just kind of like almost go into paralysis.
type of thing. But what I tried to focus on was, can I just do the next thing, and I was distracted, you know, because my father just passed away and I was not 100% I just remember to keep telling myself just do the next thing. That's it, don't look at the prep list, just focus on the next thing. And when I was able to do that, in those days in between running into the bathroom, and just crying, because I was sad about my dad, but when I was able to do that, and focus on that, I was able to get through the day, and the day just flowed a little bit easier, because I was just looking at the next thing.
Okay, and this week's whispering
is the person that I just mentioned.
Her name is Monica Kristofferson. And her Instagram account is at efficient organization.
And she is a professional organizer, and productivity coach,
she was kind enough to contribute the advice that you just heard.
And her Instagram account is full of helpful tips and information on how to be better organized, and more efficient
than for coaching. She provides virtual or in person, depending on where you live. She can help you with business productivity, focus management, office organization, organization, life balance, and goals. And I saw a recent post that you did that was talking about organizing your garage. And I think that's great, because the garage is the houses junk drawer. Like you might think it's the junk drawer in the kitchen. It's not your junk drawer is actually the garage.
So my recommendation is to check out Monica at efficient organization on Instagram, and start following her and start reading through some of her posts and her reels, I think you will find them very helpful. And again, a big thank you to Monica for being willing to contribute to this week's episode.
All right, so as we wrap things up, on another episode of The Story lesson advice podcast, the story that I gave you, me hitting my overwhelm, moment at work or on my plate was beyond full. And being frustrated about the lesson that I learned from that, ultimately, is that I need to develop a system and or a process for when I hit that overwhelm, because it's going to happen again, that I will be able to manage my way through that just kind of weather the storm, get through it, and then get back on the other side of it. And if I can do that, and my my period of overwhelm is get smaller and smaller each time, that's going to help me with the ebbs and flows of my life. And I'll be able to better manage myself through that and not let myself fall off on workouts or fall off on eating a balanced diet or fall off on too much screen time or spending time with the family and all of them. The advice was kind enough from Monica Kristofferson,
which you heard and talking about things you can do from your five to nine, and things you can do on your weekend. And the main takeaway from that I thought was about was really being specific and intentional about what you want to get accomplished and being realistic with what you think you can accomplish. And as a bonus little thought one of the biggest frustrations about doing all of this, the multiple podcasts the multiple video series, is all of this takes so much longer than you think it just right now as I'm recording for some reason, the voice recording just stopped. So I had to go and delete a whole bunch of old recordings before I could continue with the end of this, this podcast, but every single thing that you do takes longer than you think even on a road trip or whatever. So giving yourself enough time, being very specific and very intentional with what you're doing. And that is a great way to also manage expectations.
The sponsor I wish I had is better up better up.com They offer personal and business coaching for people, individuals and businesses. And I'm using it through our business and it has been a wonderful experience to help become a better well a more well rounded person talking about all sorts of things personal professional marriage, family work related all of it so I would highly recommend checking that out better up.com And I think it can be absolutely transformative. Even if you don't think there's a need for it. You'd be surprised. The just the tip segment was all about summer cookouts. Again, pare down your menu and
make it manageable so that you can be part of the party, not just the host. That's a trap. I've fallen into so many times, wanting to flex my culinary muscles. I got just a pile of shit in the kitchen everywhere. The food is mediocre because I'm not able to give anything the attention it deserves. So pare down your menu, focus on just a couple of things. use store bought stuff to fill in the gaps and enjoy your summer cookout.
The Whispering was our friend of the show here Monica Kristofferson of efficient organization the handle on Instagram professional, coach,
professional organizer, and someone that you absolutely should utilize. So her Instagram handle again is at efficient organization on Instagram. Thank you for listening to another episode of The Story lesson advice podcast. Please consider subscribing and sharing if you haven't already. This is part of Saturday is Saturday medium, the Lifestyle Podcast which is this a book review podcast called I hate reading and unbox and review video series. And a culinary series is on the way along with books and blogs All in due time. So thank you so much for supporting all of this. We will see you next time on the story lesson advice podcast. Have a great day.