1383: Get to the Root of Work Stress by Leo Babauta of Zen Habits on Work-Life Balance

[00:00:00] This is Optimal Work Daily, episode 1383. Get to the Root of Work Stress by Leo Babauta of Zen Habits.net. And I'm Dan, I'm your host here and welcome back to another edition of Optimal Work Daily on this

[00:00:13] Sunday. And we're gonna hear from one of our regular authors today, Leo Babauta. He's always got a real interesting take on things. And he's gonna talk about something that we all have to experience. Whether we're self-employed, whether we work from home or at an office, whether we

[00:00:26] have a credit boss or really a good boss as well, you're always gonna deal with some level of work stress. So let's hear what Leo has to say about it now and optimize your life. Get to the Root of

[00:00:40] Work Stress by Leo Babauta of Zen Habits.net. There isn't a working person among us who doesn't deal with stress. Whether you're an entrepreneur or a freelancer working for a struggling startup or clocking in working for a company, work stress is inevitable. But where does this

[00:00:58] stress originate and how do we deal with it? Most guides to stress will give you some actions to take, exercise, sleep well, eat right, meditate and do some yoga at your desk. And these are all

[00:01:09] amazing and you should do them. However, I'm more interested in getting at the root of stress. Dig down, ferret out the cause and work with that directly rather than treating the symptoms. Only once you deal with the cause of stress can you truly be a master of it.

[00:01:24] Cause of Stress Let's look at some things you might be stressed about at work. Hard deadlines, difficult coworkers or boss, uncertainty about your job, uncertainty about whether you can succeed at this project, competition, office politics, interpersonal

[00:01:40] conflicts, not having enough time for family or personal life and being overwhelmed by too much to do. There are many more possibilities but these are a good sampling. In all these examples, the cause is really the same thing. We are attached to how we want things to be.

[00:01:56] We have an ideal about how each of these situations should be and our clinging to this ideal is causing the stress. Let's take the uncertainty about the job. Of course that's not ideal, we'd rather have a stable job that we don't have to worry about. So reality

[00:02:11] is not matching our ideal, a stable job. And that causes us stress. We don't like the present situation and this not wanting uncertainty is causing us to stress out. The same is true of each of the aforementioned examples. When a coworker is not meeting our ideal,

[00:02:27] when we have an ideal that we won't have too much to do, when our ideal of having easy to meet deadlines isn't being met, we get stressed. Unfortunately, this happens all day long every

[00:02:38] day. Our ideals about reality are constantly not being met and so we stress out. It builds up, it becomes a health problem. So what's the way to deal with this? Let's take a look.

[00:02:50] Dealing with the cause of stress. If our attachment to an ideal is the cause of our stress then can we just not have ideals? Well that would be ideal perhaps but no, I found it impossible to not have ideals. The ideals come up unbidden in our active and

[00:03:06] ever hopeful minds. The way to deal with the cause of stress is to 1. Notice that you're feeling stress or frustration 2. Mindfully notice your attachment to an ideal and 3. Loosen the attachment, finding love for the actual reality of the present moment.

[00:03:22] Let's look at these in turn. First you have to notice the stress. Learn to see your frustration or worry about something as a signpost, a flag that tells you what's going on. In this way,

[00:03:32] stress becomes a positive thing because it's letting you know that something is going on. It's like a notification system on your phone. Instead of ignoring the notifications as we usually do because we don't like to think about stress, we can mindfully drop into ourselves and deal with it.

[00:03:48] Next you have to mindfully notice your attachment to the ideal. That means dropping in and saying, hey things aren't meeting my ideal and it's stressing me out. What's my ideal? For example, if you're overwhelmed by too much work, your ideal is probably that you have a

[00:04:03] very controlled and comfortable amount of work and that you're on top of it all. That would feel much more secure, stable, comfortable to you. Unfortunately, comfort and control and security aren't what life provides us. It mostly provides us the very opposite, something chaotic,

[00:04:18] unpredictable, uncomfortable, unstable. And we can be upset by this or we can embrace it. We can hate all of this about life or we can love it. This is a choice. Finally,

[00:04:30] we can loosen our attachment to the expectation or ideal. We can say, this ideal is not helping me, clinging to wanting things this way is actually harming me. I hereby open my heart to many more

[00:04:42] possibilities. That means we can be open to a less than ideal coworker who isn't perfect and is struggling with his issues. We can be open to loving having too much work, more than we

[00:04:52] can possibly do, and having to prioritize and just focus on the important stuff for now. We can be open to the possibility that we'll do poorly or lose our jobs, because even then we'll figure something out and life will be just fine.

[00:05:05] Loosening our attachments is about realizing that life doesn't have to be one way, our way. That we can be open to life's way. It's about learning to love everything and all. It's about being curious about life, about others, instead of judging life and other people

[00:05:21] as bad. And then, it's about working from this place of peace and love. Have too much to do? Pick one task and do your best with it. Have an annoying coworker? Find compassion for her struggles

[00:05:33] and be curious about what she's going through and talk to her compassionately and empathetically about your conflict with her. Worried about losing your job? Focus on doing your best while preparing yourself for the possibility that you might need to find another job.

[00:05:48] Many people won't like this solution because it means that they don't get the ideals they want. Most of us want to control life to be the way we want, and that's fine if it works for you. What I'm suggesting is being open to the many other possibilities,

[00:06:02] opening your heart to what life offers instead of what you want it to offer, being curious about what's really in front of you rather than judgmental, and learning to love everything as it is. You just listen to the post titled,

[00:06:19] Get to the root of work stress by Leo Babauda of Zenhabits.net. This show is sponsored by Better Help. Do you ever find yourself getting caught up in comparison, seeing the successes of others and

[00:06:31] wishing your life looked the same? If so, then you know how difficult it can be to manage these feelings. Therapy can help you focus on what you want instead of what others have, so you can start living your best life. And therapy is for everyone. Even if you

[00:06:46] haven't experienced major trauma, it's a great place to learn positive coping skills, boundary setting, and personal empowerment, which can have an amazing impact on both your personal and professional life. If you're thinking of starting therapy, give Better Help a try.

[00:07:00] It's entirely online, designed to be convenient, flexible, and suited to your schedule. Just fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist and switch therapists any time for no additional charge. Stop comparing and start focusing

[00:07:14] with Better Help. Visit betterhelp.com slash workdaily today to get 10% off your first month. That's Better Help, H-E-L-P dot com slash workdaily. And thank you so much to Leo and his site. Zenhabits is about finding simplicity and

[00:07:31] mindfulness in the daily chaos of our lives. It's about clearing the clutter so we can focus on what's important, create something amazing, and find happiness. The site has over a million readers and was named one of the top 25 blogs by Time Magazine. And if you enjoy Leo's work,

[00:07:46] you should definitely check out our other shows where we also narrate his content, since he does write on so many different subjects. And you can find all of our shows by searching for optimal living daily wherever you get your audio, then make sure to hit

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[00:08:12] But that's going to do it for today. Again, I thank you so much for following and subscribing, and I will see you right back here tomorrow where your optimal life awaits.