Disclaimer: This is not another self-help pitch.
Given Amazon returns over 31,000 books on stress, and WebMD has a “Stress Management Center,” there are plenty of other more qualified places you could go to for “tips and tricks.”
This is about stress and work, more specifically, your life at work.
This manifesto is a statement of the principles by which I intend to live. If you believe the same, I’d invite you to sign it by adding a comment below.
And if you’re inclined to share, feel free to copy a part or the whole thing. Post it on your blog. Print it out and give it to your boss. Write it on your bathroom stall.
If you want to offer additions or corrections, please also do so in the comments.
The Stressless Manifesto
We believe life is too short to let our careers ruin our lives with stress.
The elevated heart rate, the inability to concentrate, the fear that eats away at our insides, the feeling that any moment might spark a freak out—it’s not worth it.
THEREFORE:
Our careers will be about why, not how or what
As Simon Sinek draws the golden circle for organizations, so too our careers will be about why first, how second, and what third.
It’s easy to say what we do when someone asks: “I’m an accountant.” “I’m a marketer.” “I’m an executive.”
And because it’s easy, our behavior often starts and ends there. We fulfill the roles of our job descriptions, and if we’re lucky, we take the time to think critically about how we’re fulfilling those tasks.
But too often, the realm of why is left to the mundane and transient: for a paycheck, for health insurance, to climb the corporate ladder, to make a million dollars.
With such thinly constructed reasons for why we do what we do, there’s little meaning in what we do, making it easy to stress—you begin to feel “If I don’t jump when my boss says jump, I’ll get fired and won’t have a paycheck” or “If I don’t get this account I’ll never be able to make my fortune….”
We will seek meaning first
We will take the time every day to remind ourselves why we do what we do by filling in the blank:
“I do what I do because ___________________.”
What we place in that blank will be more than money, position, status, or fame.
It will be something stress can’t take away.
The meaning will be about others
If the reason we do what we do is all about ourselves, we will ultimately fail. We may not get the promotion. We may not make a million dollars. We may not be the next Lady Gaga.
To craft meaning that stress cannot take away, we will focus on how our careers impact the lives of others in our communities and our society.
We will judge our actions not only by those stress-inducing profit and loss sheets, but by value we add to others’ lives.
We believe what Umair Haque says to be true:
Production and consumption are meaningful when they actually yield durable, tangible benefits to people, communities, and society. When meaningful work — not just meaningless (yet disciplined) drudgery — is hardwired into a company’s culture, it becomes nearly unstoppable.
When what causes stress, we will cling to why
It would be naive to think that the stress of what we have to do will never bother us.
There will always be another sales goal to hit, another board report to write.
But we will never forget why we act in order to give purpose to the sales goal, the board report, and to view them as means to a greater end.
We will flee from situations that stifle our sense of meaning
If ever a job or client contradicts our sense of purpose or drowns us in meaningless drudgery, we will find something different to do.
Life’s too short not to.
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