Become Aware Of Your Stressors And Reactions
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Before you can reduce the negative effects of stress, you have to find out what causes your stress and how you cope. One tool that can help is mindfulness, which is a practice of becoming more aware of whats going onin your body, mind, and the environment around you. Rather than running back to a habitual pattern of avoiding or obsessing, mindfulness allows you to simply be present and notice whats happening right now, giving you the space to choose the best way to respond.
My Personal Experience In Stressful Scenarios
I’ve had the privilege of being an officer in the Marines and serving with some amazingly well-trained people.
Myself and the men I served with were actually deployed it’s not like we just did our training and stayed at the base.
We worked with Navy Seals and I have a number of friends who are Army Rangers and I can assure you that these gentlemen have done things that are pretty amazing.
What Not To Say
Dont mention an issue you created. Avoid mentioning a time when you put yourself in a needlessly stressful situation. You don’t want to come across as someone who causes workplace stress.
Dont say that you were really stressed. You shouldnt focus too much on how stressed out you felt. While you should certainly admit that stress happens, try to emphasize how you dealt with the stress rather than how much it bothered you.
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Calming Down In The Moment
Replace A Poor Attitude With Gratitude
The attitude that we have towards stressful situations has a definitive effect positive or negative. A negative attitude is often the automatic, default mechanism that can have an adverse effect on our mental, physical and even spiritual wellbeing.
Instead, consciously attempt to replace this negative, default reaction with gratitude. For example, when you find yourself backed up in traffic, change your perspective. Think about things to be appreciative of. You might find family, friends, work, health, faith, or something else.
Look around for things in nature to admire and appreciate trees, sunshine, or a pleasant view. When you make a conscious attempt to place gratitude ahead of negativity, youll find your attitude changing.
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What Are Stressful Situations
Stressful situations will look different for each person. What one person may be able to handle with little or no stress, someone else may experience a lot of stress over. And, you may experience stress over big life-changing events in your life or over small everyday problems.
Large situations that could cause stress in your life could include things like:
- The death of a loved one
- Moving to a new area
- Switching jobs
- Getting divorced
Many people understand that large situations like that often come with stress. However, these same people may struggle to identify the source of stress in their own life. If you feel like you shouldnt have stress because youre not living through a large situation like one listed above, its important to give yourself a break.
Many things can cause stress in life. And, even small stresses can turn into chronic stress if not addressed. Some of the smaller causes of stress in life include things like:
- Living paycheck to paycheck
- Working long hours
- Fighting with a spouse or significant other
Many things can arise daily that can lead to stress. This is why it can be helpful to learn tips on how to handle stressful situations even if you dont feel like you need it at the moment. You never know when life is going to change, and youre going to face something unexpected.
Tips On How To Handle Stressful Situations
Stress When Something Goes Wrong
There will always be something unexpected happening in our work. When it is a big thing, it can create stress, so you might have an example from your past like the ones below that you could use when youre asked this in an interview.
Example 13: Information gathering and knowing all the facts that I can is how I handle stress in an uncertain situation. In my last job, we didnt know if we might be affected by the global economic crisis, so I spent some time researching our industry and it gave me more peace to know a little more about what was happening.
Example 14: When our software system crashed at my last role, that was stressful for everyone, so I personally handled that by finding a similar software program as soon as the crash happened. I brought this to management to see if we could use that so that we didnt get overwhelmed. Problem-solving is one of my strengths.
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Example 15: I am thankfully a very adaptable person, so when we had a difficult day in the office with the power going out, I felt calm in knowing that we just needed to do what we could do, and thats it for that day. Being flexible and accepting what is out of my control was what made me stay fully calm in that situation.
For more tips, check out my post on some weaknesses you can include when being interviewed.
References
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Finding Out What To Do In High
I’m going to share with you 5 tips I learned from the US Military on how to handle high-stress situations.
These tips were compiled by going through research conducted by the US Air Force and from my personal training and experiences from serving in the Marine Corps.
I also reviewed information and training used by various special forces and specifically Navy Seal training.
This information is publicly available but the important thing is that this information can help anyone in any crises situation.
Deadlines Creating The Stress
When it comes to time constraints and deadlines, these examples can be used when answering describe a stressful situation and how you handled it.
Example 1: What helps me when there is a looming deadline is to set out a clear daily schedule of how I can not only devote time to this task but also what I need to focus on most in the whole project.
In my last job, I was getting close to handing in some work, and I still had a lot to complete, so I sat down and broke up all the parts that I needed to do and ordered them by the one that was the highest priority down to the one that could be done last. Then I made a schedule for what I could tackle each day. Taking it day by day and doing it segmented like that helps me reach deadlines.
Example 2: Something that really helps me stay motivated and inspired to reach a deadline is to actually focus on the end result that I want to create, and the impact that this will have on the greater work that is being done in the company.
That gives me the energy I need to do what I have to do in time because I know that it is serving a greater purpose. An example of this in my last job was when I knew that I had to finish off a proposal for my team to then start working on it. So I reminded myself that they would get so much value from the work that Im doing now to help them create the next steps, and that kept me on task.
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Try Not To Get Overwhelmed
You have a report due by the end of the day, two memos that need to be written, and an email inbox thats overflowing. But where do you start? First, make a list. This helps you see whats on your plate so you can prioritize what needs attention now and what can wait. Number the items in order of importance and complete them one at a time.
How Do You Handle Difficult Situations Interview Question
How to respond to Tell me how you handled a difficult situation
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Respond Vs React: How To Keep Your Cool In Times Of Stress
Respond vs. React: While these words may be similar in semantics, the difference between responding and reacting in stressful situations can be profound.
The difference between the two lies in a deep breath, a pause, or a brief moment of mindful presence. That moment can mean the difference between sending the entire situation or relationship soaring to greater heights, or falling down a slippery slope.
Lets take a closer look at what the phrase respond vs. react represents, and learn some tools to help you respond to lifes circumstances even when youre triggered by stress in a way that serves your well-being and everyone around you.
Identifying The Source Of Stress
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Unhealthy Ways To Express Anger
Here are some common yet unhealthy ways to express anger that you should avoid:
Being Passive-Aggressive
This is a term many of us are familiar with. Passive-aggressive behavior happens when someone is angry but uses indirect communication to express their anger.
Some of the more common passive-aggressive behaviors include the silent treatment, making comments about someone behind their back, being grumpy, moody, or pouting, or simply not doing tasks or assignments that they should.
This is a passive-aggressive persons way of showing their anger. Its not very productive but extremely common.
Poorly-Timed
Some people get overwhelmed and express anger in a situation where it cant really do any good.
An example would be getting angry at one person in front of a crowd of people. All that does is make people uncomfortable and shuts them down. Its not a healthy way to express anger or disagreement with someone.
Ongoing Anger
Being angry all the time is most often a symptom of something else. Its healthy and normal to express anger when you disagree with someone. However, if someone is angry most of the time and always seems to be expressing their anger to everyone around them, this wont serve them well.
Over time, people will start to avoid this person and have as little contact as possible. The reason being is no one likes being around someone who is angry all the time its a no-win situation.
Be Careful That You Dont Engage In Stonewalling Or Outright Avoidance When Dealing With Your Stress
Some may find stonewalling, escaping, outright avoidance or passive-aggression the most protective method in dealing with stressors or pressing matters. Perhaps stress can be so overwhelming that it feels safer to pretend like there is no problem or ignore your own feelings. It may seem appealing to do so, at times, because you think out of sight, out of mind, but in reality, you are only injuring your connection with others, yourself and delaying resolve, not for time to reflect but simply with the hope that everything will just go away. You wont find any change in the way you deal with stress by these actions.
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Accept Help From Family And Friends Or A Trusted Source For Counseling Or Therapy
You are not the only person to ever falter in your goals, and you wont be the last. In our failure, we sometimes learn more about ourselves than when everything is going along swimmingly. Stressful times are not easy to carry alone, and its okay to ask for help.
If you need another person to have a look at your project, or get a second opinion, or if you need to brainstorm a new plan of action, do so. You can seek out friends or family members that you get along with or find a therapist that can offer you a discreet, safe place to air your grievances or reflect on your choices, attitudes, or beliefs and in turn can provide you with professional feedback, clarity and encouragement. Taking the time to build your personal support system, outside of your work life or educational pursuits, is very important in changing the way you deal with stress.
We all lose our temper from time to time, and expressing anger is actually a healthy thing to do in our relationships with others. Expressing our differences in opinion allows us to have healthy conflict and many times come to an agreement or understanding that works for everyone. However, there are times when anger can become overwhelming or damaging, and during these times, its important to learn how to deal with anger.
Lets take a deeper look at how to deal with anger.
Handling Stress In The Moment
Small amounts of stress can help you accomplish difficult tasks. However, too much acute stress, or sustained chronic stress, can be harmful. Stress management techniques help reduce your overall level of stress. Tools to manage stress often include things like meditation, relaxation techniques, and talking to a medical professional these are effective ways to reduce stress levels, but they dont necessarily help you while youre in the middle of a stressful experience. So what can you do to manage stress in the moment?
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The Importance Of Learning How To Handle Stress
Living with stress doesnt feel good. Stress can weigh heavily on your mental health and negatively impact your physical health as well. While it might present itself in slightly different ways, some of the signs of stress in your life could include:
- Irritability and lack of patience
- Muscle tension
- Digestive issues
- Feeling overwhelmed
If youre experiencing these common signs of stress, it can be a good indication that it would be helpful to learn stress management strategies to use in your life.
How Do You Handle Stressful Situations Interview Question And Answer
Questions & Answers on-How Do You Handle Stress?. Stress interview questions and answers on-How Do You Handle Stress? Learn the correct way to address stress interview questions.
Its not uncommon for interviewers to try and throw you off by exhibiting unexpected behaviors. For example, the interviewer may ask the same question again and again, pretending not to fully understand your prior answer. This tactic is used to see how patient your are or if you quickly become exasperated and impatient with the interviewer.
Video advice: How Do You Handle Stress Interview questions
A common type of stress interview tactic is to employ painful or aggressive questioning. For example, an interviewer may ask an interviewee a direct, and often unexpected question, such as why were you fired from your last job? Or, Was the stress of your last job too much for you to handle? This tactic, and line of questioning, is designed to test your interviewing skills and assess your ability to calming address issues that are uncomfortable or somewhat painful to talk about.
How to Answer the How do you handle stress? Interview Question Have you ever been in an interview and asked by the interviewer, How do you handle stress?. If you have, how did you answer it? Did you stumble? Were you happy with your answer? If not, not to worry! Today well be talking about the best way to answer the How do you handle stress?
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