If you want to be a successful businesswoman you need to prepare yourself for the inevitable – stressful situations that push you out of your comfort zone. But you can conquer them by learning what successful people do to remain calm.
As a businesswoman, you will find yourself in many stressful situations, regardless of the industry you’re in.
But instead of panicking or letting your stress get the best of you, you should aspire to be a businesswoman who is able to remain calm and continue to make the best decisions.
There are several ways you can do this, and for some people, positive thinking and exercise are the only things needed to do so. For others, sleep and patience are their go-to methods for relieving stress.
However, there are many other methods that can help you remain calm, showing that no matter how stressful the situation may seem, you can always find a way to stay cool, calm and on the path to success.
1. Remain positive
Attitude can change everything. For example, it’s easy for people to expect the worse in stressful situations. As a result, this causes more stress and strengthens the notion that there is no solution to the problem.
Alternatively, if you find yourself in a stressful situation you need to remain as positive as possible. You are more likely to find a solution if you remain positive and work hard, because it is when you give up and begin to think negatively that you truly have no chance at succeeding.
Tips on how to remain positive:
- Surround yourself with positive people.
- Change your negative thoughts into positive ones.
- Read positive quotes to inspire you.
- Meditate.
2. Ignore negative energy
Negative energy can be found everywhere, both in your personal and professional life, but that doesn’t mean you have to listen to it.
While you cannot ignore the problem that is causing you stress, you should definitely ignore any negative energy that is preventing you from solving the issue.
Because even when you remain positive in the most stressful situations, you will still be faced with negative energy from other people and this can be just as bad as being negative yourself.
If you find that certain people are not providing you with positive thoughts and support in a stressful time, it’s okay to disregard their comments, as they will only discourage you from solving the issue.
3. Find the cause of the problem
Sometimes the most stressful situations are the ones where you don’t even know the cause of the problem, because that means you don’t know how to solve it.
Being in a stressful situation doesn’t necessarily mean you know everything you need to in order to resolve the issue.
Sometimes, when you are faced with a problem you may not know the direct cause of it, and as a result you find yourself stressing further.
If you find yourself in this situation, you need to begin searching for the cause of the problem and thus your stress immediately.
Finding the cause of the problem and thus your stress will allow you to determine the best course of action.
This should then help decrease at least some of your stress as you are now aware of what you need to do in order to eliminate your stress completely.
4. Take action against it, and ask for help
Finding the cause of stress is only half the battle, because once you find it you need to immediately start taking the necessary steps to eliminate it.
This can include drawing up a business plan or asking your boss and co-workers for help.
Don’t feel as though you need to tackle this issue on your own, because while it is true that you will need to take action against it as soon as possible, it doesn’t mean you have to face it alone.
5. Sleep
One of the most important things any businesswoman needs is sleep, and lots of it.
It should go without saying that in order to be successful in business you need to find time to sleep and recharge, especially in stressful times.
It’s common for people to not be at their best in stressful situations, making errors they wouldn’t usually make simply because they are trying to resolve things as quickly as possible.
If you combine this with a lack of sleep, you would be diminishing your chances of resolving the issue even more.
This is because sleep deprivation causes people to become less attentive and efficient.
Therefore, even if you feel as though you cannot ‘waste time’ sleeping when in a stressful situation, if you want to solve your problem and succeed in business then you need to make time to sleep.
6. Breathe
While this may sound like a strange tip, considering you have to breathe every minute of every day, it is something you may not be doing right in stressful situations.
If you’re faced with a problem and feel overwhelmed, take a few moments to focus on your breathing.
Isolate yourself from any noise and distractions, close your eyes and breathe in and out slowly.
After a few minutes, you should feel less tense and will find that this will help you focus on the task at hand calmly.
7. Find a way to let out your frustrations
Even though deep breaths will help you in the moment, there will be times where you will take the stress from work home with you.
In these instances, you need to find another way to let out your frustrations and for many people; exercise is the perfect way to do that.
However, whether it is through exercise or simply relaxing around the house for a few hours, you need to find a way to release your frustrations in order to come into work the next day ready for anything.
8. Prepare
If you are serious about being a successful businesswoman, you need to be prepared for absolutely anything.
For instance, if you have a business plan that seems foolproof, you still need to be prepared for the worst and have a backup plan.
Stressful situations in the business world commonly occur simply due to the fact that people don’t have a plan B to fall back on should things go wrong, and so when they do, they have no idea how to fix it.
You can avoid this and save yourself from a lot of stress by simply being prepared for any situation.
9. Be realistic
It’s important to not lose sight of reality when you’re in a stressful situation.
Sometimes, because you are so determined to resolve the issue, you may find yourself creating elaborate plans to fix your situation that are simply not possible in the business world.
This won’t help you in any way; in fact it will only waste your time from finding the real solution to your problem.
10. Be patient
One of the biggest keys to success is patience and once you have found a solution to your problem, and even if you haven’t, that is exactly what you need to have.
The fact is, it will take time for the issue to be resolved, especially if its not only you that is involved.
You can’t expect the issue to be resolved as quickly as it was created, these things take time and you need to understand that just because you want it to be resolved immediately, it doesn’t mean it will be.
11. Understand it may be out of your control
This is something no businesswoman wants to hear, but sometimes you need to hear it: not everything is in your control.
There are going to be times that you have to take a step back and leave things to others to resolve as you simply may not have the power to resolve it.
If you find yourself in a situation like this you shouldn’t feel discouraged but instead accept it and treat it as a new lesson that sometimes in business things are simply out of your control, and there is nothing wrong with that.
Clearly, there are several different steps you can take to keep calm in a stressful situation.
So the next time you find yourself stressing, simply refer back to these tips and find the one that works best for you, and remember that what makes a businesswoman successful is how she handles every situation, especially the stressful ones.
