About two years ago, while attending an endless project meeting, I found myself getting really stressed about yet another delay in contracting someone to train my team. I understood that we had to follow proper procurement procedures. We had to advertise, to get three bids, to get senior level approval for what would be a fairly expensive contract, etc. etc. And yet, why was it taking six months to hire someone for a three-day training event???
During the meeting, I asked several extremely pointed (rude) questions about the delay. I made it very clear to everyone at the meeting that I was ‘not happy’ with the procurement and contracting team.
After the meeting, a wise colleague asked if she could speak with me for a few minutes before we returned to our respective offices. Once alone, she said that she had noticed I was very stressed (who hadn’t notice that?!).
She went on to say “You are stressed because people are not behaving the way that you think they should behave.”
It was true. I was stressed by what other people were doing. They were not behaving the way I wanted them to behave. Their behavior was out of my control. I had responded by getting very angry and stressed.
I then realized that I had a choice in how I could respond. I could:
- Accept the situation.
- Remove myself from the situation.
- Change myself.
These are our only choices when a situation is out of our control.
Now, when I find myself getting stressed, I do a quick internal check: is this something I can control? If not, I make my choice to accept it, to remove myself, or to change myself – and I get to keep that smile on my face and enjoy the sunset…
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