Stress Management: 4-Tips for Endurance

Staying power is needed now more than ever! Yearning to look away or be complacent will no longer work! The Covid19, coronavirus, holding no prejudice against its prey, has plenty of persistence. Working together has never been so important; and also never so difficult. We all must participate together equally, shifting out of stillness into action and recognizing our individual part. Practicing equanimity, small things like washing our hands, not touching our faces, and social distancing, so when bigger, more drastic measures are called for we can do it easier without panic.

Tip 1: Starting small by training weak areas first

Building your endurance for maximum personal performance begins with taking inventory of the areas of your life and rating how strong and how weak you feel they are, then identifying the most vulnerable areas and start with them. Training sensitive areas by setting small goals for change and follow through is essential for long-term endurance.

Tip 2: The give-and-take balance

Giving out energy for the things you are striving for must be in balance with receiving in what nourishes us and helps us rejuvenate after stress. That does not mean stopping; especially now, self-isolation offers the opportunity to indulge in what you love, get caught-up, organized, or Spring Cleaning like never before! It’s that creative thing we do where we get lost and forget what was so stressful at work. Spending time with loved ones or people that matter most (during these hard times that may be on the phone or via Skype) is just as important as healthy eating habits and plenty of rest. Too much time in any single area can quickly throw off life balance, creating exhaustion and making endurance impossible.

Tip 3: Acceptance of “what is” can nurture endurance

Acceptance releases what is no longer necessary and helps us get past resistance to what is underneath our fears of what we seek. When we quit resisting and give up, we are playing the dual game of a winner and loser–nobody wins, rather everyone loses. When we surrender, we choose to accept and honor the part of us that is telling us to let go and rest to find balance. Resting is a place of stillness where we can listen for the next signal to take action. Many times this is mistaken for a message to stop and quit doing, which can indicate defeat and a giving up. If we hold onto until we give up, what we are holding onto is the last role we played before the defeat, some act of survival. Acceptance is breaking the illusion of the fear of what we want, and like in the eye of a storm, just listening in stillness in the middle of ‘the busy’ for what’s next to show its self. It is a little like awakening quickly from a place of meditation after receiving an answer to our next step.

Tip 4: Manage and build endurance with a Coach

Consider hiring a coach online. Coaching can be tremendously helpful when figuring out how to manage and even increase endurance. It can help you identify both strong and weak areas of your life, then help you implement strategies and offer you tools to strengthen your weaker areas as well as detect the tools you already possess but haven’t used enough to build up endurance. A coach helps you hold yourself accountable for what it is that you want to achieve, and when the going gets tough, you’re not alone. Having someone to report back to about each step can be enough sometimes to make you do that one more thing so you can tell your coach of your accomplishment or what you learned.