Purpose
To show participants how to manage, conquer and benefit from workplace pressure.
Objective
By the end of this training, participants will know how to turn workplace pressure from a minus to a plus.
Overview
Work today is about the efficient use of time. Explicitly or implicitly it is about activity and other forms of time management.
The pressure is high but the problems really start when we become engulfed. Deadlines starting to slip. Co-workers being less cooperative than they might. The business making apparently unreasonable demands – about timescales, volumes, complexity or all three.
We might not be able to control the workflow but, fortunately, with the right techniques, we can control the personal pressure and, indeed, turn it to our advantage.
Using the training titles Low Stress, the Healthy Option and From Pressure to Performance (each one giving the subject the subtly different emphases these titles suggest), we approach the problem under a series of detailed headings. The following two general headings, though, précis what we cover.
Self-Monitoring
- Understanding our emotions. Understanding the things that discomfort us: the things we’re likely to get angry about, react badly to, become pessimistic or anxious about, find stressful and so on. Then learning how to use the likes of controlled breathing, event scheduling, relaxation and what we call “Stressbusters” to overcome them.
The Relationship between Thoughts, Feelings and Behaviours
- Understand Thinking Errors – negative thoughts – and we begin to understand how to reframe them into positive behaviours. Thinking Errors are the psychological tricks we play on ourselves when prey to doubts, worries and fears. What they amount to in practice is seeing the problem at hand in the worst light possible, rather than in perspective, i.e. realistically. They’re what we call “Confidence Killers” and after we’ve exposed and examined them, we show how to correct and manage them.
