Modern life is full of hassles, deadlines, frustrations, and demands. For many people, stress is so commonplace that it has become a way of life. Stress isn’t always bad. In small doses, it can help you perform under pressure and motivate you to do your best. But when you’re constantly running in emergency mode, your mind and body pay the price.
Stress is a normal physical response to events that make you feel threatened or that upset your balance in some way (whether you know it or not). In the workplace, for many people, any amount of change at all can trigger stress, especially if it’s perceived to be unwanted change. When you sense danger—whether it’s real or imagined—your body’s defenses kick into high gear in a rapid, automatic process known as the “fight-or-flight-or-freeze” reaction, or the ‘stress response.’
In today’s fast paced and ever changing business climate, the most dangerous thing about stress is how easily it can creep up on you. You get used to it. It starts to feel familiar, even normal. You don’t notice how much it’s affecting you, even as it takes a heavy toll.
The signs and symptoms of stress overload can be almost anything. Stress affects the mind, body, and behavior in many ways, and everyone experiences stress differently. Not only can overwhelming stress lead to serious mental and physical health problems, it can also take a toll on your relationships at home and at work.
So how do you protect yourself from stress? Well first, you have to be aware that it’s happening — so self-awareness is critical. Being aware that you’re stressed isn’t always easy. It does require a huge amount of self-awareness, and self-awareness is very difficult for most people. Self-awareness is in fact a learned skill. It takes time to create the necessary thought-habits that will lead to your personal awareness.
Learning the skill of Positive Presence provides you with the tools, exercises and techniques to create those thought-habits that will lead to self-awareness. At the heart of the skill of Positive Presence is your innate ability to adjust for and create a positive and energized mindset through conscience thought processes – you are in essence ‘re-wiring’ your brain to protect yourself from the ill-affects of stress.
Catherine is the President and CEO of CORPORATE HARMONY, providing virtual solutions for leadership development and organizational culture change. Her leadership and coaching experience as a Project Manager in an ever-changing, fast moving technological organization with unrelenting demands drove her to the realization that a positive mindset and strength-building behaviors are essential for today’s complex and chaotic organizational systems. CORPORATE HARMONY’s virtual platform of programs, coaching and performance measurement, is an innovative online technology of tested proprietary content. The world-class content of CORPORATE HARMONY’s Positive Presence Program develops the skill of ‘Positive Presence’ and the necessary ‘Positive Presence Behaviour Competencies’ for maintaining a positive and energized mindset and increased performance in today’s complex work environment, and leading to a culture of collaboration and connection. Catherine’s vision for Corporate Harmony is to bring the skill of “Positive Presence” to the corporate world as it becomes more complex, ambiguous and chaotic. Catherine is uniquely positioned to impact organizations’ productivity and long term success, with her powerful vision of eliminating bad stress from every workplace around the globe, bringing purpose into the people equation to promote healthy, productive and meaningful work cultures and turn the tide on the neglect of mental health on a global scale. Catherine is author of the book: “CORPORATE HARMONY – The Performance Link for Today’s Modern Organization” Catherine can be reached at: Catherine.Osborne@corporateharmony.ca or go to ‘contact us’ on our website www.corporateharmony.ca. Catherine is available for consultation, and can be reached by 519-695-3407.