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time management

2. Find Safe Ways to Express Your Feelings

Present your case to your supervisor, even if you don’t think
doing so will change that supervisor’s decision. You’ll have
acknowledged and validated your feeling by giving it substance.
(And your supervisor might even surprise you.)

Expressing feelings doesn’t always help decrease stress, how-
ever. Rather than venting your anger, screaming at another driver
in a traffic jam will actually increase the anger and your internal
responses to it. You end up more, not less, stressed. In that case,
you’re a lot better off trying the next suggestion.

3. Unplug

You don’t have to blow up every time someone lights your fuse.
You can snuff out the fuse instead. How? Mom had it right; it really
can be as simple as counting to ten. When you feel the anger flare,
don’t tell yourself you’re not really angry (because it isn’t “nice”
to get angry). Don’t rant, either. Take a deep breath and count (or
laugh or spout nonsense or sing or whatever works for you).

But if you do that, you’ll be letting that lousy driver ahead of
you get away unpunished, right? Yeah, you will. But will scream-
ing at him really “punish” him or “teach him a lesson”? You know
it won’t, and that knowledge will only frustrate you more.

Remember, too, that he’s not trying to stress you out. He’s not
paying any attention to you at all; that’s what’s so annoying! He’s
just trying to get someplace in a hurry, just as you are.

And finally, remember that you’re probably being somebody
else’s stressor, too. When I asked a workshop full of folks to list
things other people do that annoy them, one person mentioned
the bozo who crunches the ice in his soft drink at the movies. As
I added the comment to our list, I silently vowed never to crunch
the ice in my soft drink at the movies again.

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