“A diamond is just a piece of charcoal that handled stress exceptionally well.”
Source Unknown
Stress comes in all forms. We tend to think of all stress as “bad stress,” but even great news can produce stress in our lives. The psychologist Richard S. Lazarus defined stress as “a condition or feeling experienced when a person perceives that demands exceed the personal and social resources the individual is able to mobilize.”
What I find interesting in Lazarus’ definition is the word perceives. It is not that we can or can’t handle what comes our way, it’s that in the moment we make snap judgement whether or not we have the resources at hand to deal with a situation.
I think we are often quite wrong about what we can and can’t handle. Every day we hear of people who face enormous sources of stress– family illness, financial ruin, natural disasters– and we think, “I can’t imagine how they handled it. I could never handle that.” But right there in front of us are the survivors, the people who thought the same thing and yet continue to persist, even in the face of great pressures.
Life is more or less the process of managing diverse forms of stress. From taking our first steps to navigating the declining health of a spouse, we are constantly in a state of adaptation, of facing difficult challenges and growing to new levels of tolerance. Still, there are limits to our ability to cope, and stress can have a detrimental effect on our health and well-being.
Real estate agents face a high level of stress on a day-to-day basis. Even though the ins and outs of the sale of a home are familiar to an experienced agent, they typically aren’t for buyers and sellers. Client stress is often transmitted to agents, and agents (in the name of service) have to find ways to help clients manage that stress.
Stress management is an important part of maintaining your business. You need to be able to make sound decisions in the face of stress. There are a variety of ways to build defenses against stress as well asnatural supplements to help your body “remain calm and carry on.” Sometimes “positive attitude” isn’t going to trump the forces that make you anxious, so it’s important to explore a wide range of options.
If you’ve never seriously confronted stress management, I urge you to keep it in mind this week. Take a step in the direction of becoming that piece of coal that turns into a diamond under pressure.
