You

Leadership involves pressure. It involves a higher level of stress simply because of the responsibility involved. This fact is part of the package and no leader will argue that. So…

How do you de-stress?

We know a laundry list of nasty physical, emotional and mental effects stress brings to the human body. How are you mitigating that? You know you’re a leader. You know leaders have a high level of stress. You know stress is killing us slowly if we don’t have good and consistent strategies to alleviate it. So what are you doing about that? Part of being a leader is taking care of yourself so you can lead others. It’s also the part we most frequently overlook. It’s not a badge of honor to repeatedly ignore your own needs in favor of “taking care of others”. We obviously put others first as a general rule but this has to happen in balance or we will be of no use to anyone.

I release that stress valve through yoga, walking, scheduled times of connection with good and positive relationships, setting clear boundaries around my sleep, and making sure that my work stays in the work hours I set for myself. We must get good at identifying what we need and then finding ways to make that happen. Whether it means finding a babysitter, asking for several hours alone from your spouse or significant other, or just simply being intentional about eating things that will fuel us instead of empty us.

This may seem like a simplistic post but I think an honest review of our input/output ratio will leave most of us looking at a deficit in our mental, emotional and physical resources. It takes a lot of courage to look at yourself and be real about what you can and can’t do. It takes even more courage to draw boundaries around your time and energy so you can be the most effective as possible over the long term. I want to be around, be encouraging, and be a resource for others for a very long time. In order to do that, I must prioritize taking care of myself by reducing my stress level overall in addition to effectively managing the inevitable stress life brings.

Lean Forward,

Bekka