Premise:
Being an entrepreneur is not for the faint hearted. As entrepreneurs, we are constantly trying to juggle things, fighting fires, digging wells, selling ideas and influencing people. IN the midst of doing all of these, there are days when nothing seems to move in the direction that we want them to move in. Worse still, things move in the opposite direction. Every meeting, every phone call, every email leads to a response that is exactly opposite to what we were hoping for. We miss an important deadline and in the midst of all of this, our spouse or the significant other or an employee calls up and we end up taking out our frustrations and anger on that person. This is so uncool.
We all have these days. So, the question is what can we do about these days? How can we deal with the anxiety and the frustrations that these days bring to us?
These are a few things that we can do:
Acknowledge:
The first thing that is critical is that we acknowledge that we are having a rough day. Then tell ourselves that this too shall pass. We need to practice empathy towards ourselves as much as we need to practice it with others. Once we acknowledge this feeling of frustration and anger, we can start work towards managing this stress levels. One thing that has worked for me in the past and is recommended by Benjamin Zanders in his book “The Art of Possibility” is to practice telling ourselves – “How fascinating” and then go on to see what is so fascinating in the scenario. It can help even better if we see the entire thing with a third person view (view as if this is happening to someone else and not us).
Slow down:
Once we have realised and acknowledged that we are having one of those days, we need to stop working, slow down and start breathing. One of the physical aspects of being stressed is that our body starts reacting to the stress physiologically by releasing certain specific harmones. The way we deal with these harmones is to slow down the release of these stress harmones and then release the harmones which will help us in dealing with stress.
We can do that by slowing down and breathing. I dont know if you have noticed this but everytime I am stressed, I start pacing around, the speed at which I talk increases, everything about me seems to be faster. This includes the speed at which I can think of everything else that could go wrong as well.
So, it would be a good idea to find a place where we could sit down comfortably and sit down. Then practice deliberate, slow and deep breathing. We all know that the body and mind are interconnected. The body follows the mind and the mind follows the body. So, the moment, we slow down physically, our mind starts to slow down as well. This by itself is a great step and will work even if you dont do anything else.
Or Speed Up:
Some of my friends find it extremely difficult to slow down in such moments. So, the alternative if we can’t slow down and practice deep breathing, we should find a way to speed up. We could go for a run, hit the gym or go for a session of swimming. The idea here is to get the physical body & the mind to start focusing on something else. This activity also ensures that our body gets a lot of oxygen and has a similar effect on the physiology of our body.
Make a phone call:
One of the next thing you could do is to call someone. Ideally, this is someone whom you have already identified as the person whom you will call in moments such as this. This could be a friend, a partner, your spouce, a therapist or your mentor or a coach. The idea here is to not continue to dwell on the day and take perspective. This is where being part of a mastermind group or a coach can be a big help. You could share your frustration with them and they can at best give you a different perspective and at worst listen to you and tell you that everything is going to be all-right.
The closer we are to a problem the more unlikely we are to solve it. Stepping back gives a better perspective. Taking the mind off the situation helps in coming back to the problem with a more refreshed and active mind. The trick here is to call the right person – it is best if we already have a set of 3 or 4 people identified for such situations ahead of time. It works even better is you have already shared with those people that you will call them in situations like this and if it is ok for them to just give you the 10 – 15 mins of their undivided attention at that time and help gain perspective if possible.
Trigger a habit:
We are all creatures of habit. There are certain habits that can trigger certain thought patterns or a series of actions and behaviours. For example, if I start listening to a specific track of music, it automatically puts me in a mental frame and I relax. I also like to walk to my cafetaria and engage in the process of making tea for myself. That by default slows me down, puts me in a very contemplative mode and takes me to a very different place. Doodling does this to a lot of people. Watching news does something similar to people. Watching a scene of a favorite movie has a similar effect for some. This is also the reason why most people go out for a smoke when stressed. That is not the habit that i would want any of us to invoke.
IF we don’t have one such routines, maybe it is time for each one of us to be intentional about creating some such routines or habits that can help us in managing these situations.
Find Small Wins:
Everything that we have discussed so far is about stopping ourselves getting stressed. That is never enough. If we dont create something that can take its place, it will return the moment we are done with all the above steps. So, it is important for us to find a way to reverse the stressors. This can be done by two ways. The first is for us to find some small wins and celebrate them.
It could be clearing out our inbox or sending a hand-written thank you note to one of our important customers.
It could be crossing something from our task list.
It could be as mundane as taking care of some of our chores that we have been procrastinating about.
The trick here is for us to find some small win that we can celebrate. This celebration is what has the potential to stop the stressors and put us in a positive frame of mind, which can then trigger other smaller wins and so and so forth.
Practice Gratitude:
The other way to reverse the stressors is to find things that we are grateful for. At times, this seems so difficult to do. Having a gratitude journal is something a lot of us find difficult to maintain. However, I have found that developing this habit of writing a gratitude journal can have significant benefits. Every time, we are in a situation where nothing is going right, reading this journal immediately puts things in perspectives. It tells us that there is a lot that is going our way than stuff that is not going our way. Just this realisation that there is a lot for which we are grateful for has the effect of reversing the stressors.
The key here is that we need to cultivate the habit of gratitude journals before we end up in a situation like this. Though, thinking about what we are grateful for, in such situation also has benefits, the real and lasting benefits come from having this practice already in place and doing this with full sincerity. We can fool everyone in the world but ourselves. So, if we are not truthfully grateful for things that we write in our journal, the entire process is counter-productive and will cause more harm than good.
Be a Philosopher Entrepreneur:
The most difficult but the most effective way to handle days like these are by being a philosopher. In Indian mythology, we have a consistent theme, where we are asked to do our work and not expect anything else in return. The implicit and sometime explicit meaning is that what we do is in our control and we do that. What comes out of that action (every action has a reaction) is not in our hands. We just need to accept whatever comes back as is, without judging if it is good for us or not, if it was fair or not. The moment we are able to suspend judgement if the reaction for our action was favourable or unfavourable and always take it as the best that could have happened, we are not allowing ourselves to get stressed at all.
This is somewhat similar to ourselves being in a permanent beta. We evolve with every iteration (everyday) of living our lives. We get better with every iteration (everyday) as long as we learn from the feedback that we got the previous day.
In Conclusion:
As entrepreneurs, we will have always have things that will not go as we want them to. Some days, this will be much more prominent and happen multiple times. Staying relaxed and calm during this time is the key to not doing anything stupid. A calm and composed demeanour will take us in the right direction.
What we need to do is to know that this will happen sooner than later. So, it is better for us to be prepared with a specific routine that we will engage in, when we enter such a situation, This will help us deal with such situations much better and we feel more relaxed knowing that we have a routine for the bad (so called) days already built-in.
