Stress Test
I am 37. Very far in the past, I would be dead. These days, I am more or less 50% there. And as a decent human being, I am still learning.
Recently, I had a conversation with a friend of roughly the same age. We are both living in our brains a little too much, we both struggle with relationships, we are both kind of successful at work, but we’re not necessarily happy. And we have agreed, that at this stage of life, we are both done finding our limits. We are now trying to find the mythical balance within those limits.
When I was bedridden after the knee surgery, I read a lot of books. Apart from self diagnosing myself with probably every psychological disorder there has ever been found, I was learning a lot about pulling oneself out of shit. It doesn’t sound too difficult - it’s just another problem you can solve step by step with discipline. However, to solve a problem, you need to first know what are you actually solving.
And that is where you go deep, in the uncomfortable truths about yourself that you never wanted to look at again. Who you’ve hurt, when you have been hurt, what you said to someone you love, what you didn’t do when you should have, what scares you to death… And you need to go beyond, you need to go to the why behind all of these.
And you can’t just think about it. That doesn’t work. You need to get it out. Psychotherapy works. Talking to friends works. If you’re alone, you write, but even more surprisingly, you talk to yourself. That shit makes wonders. Just reprocessing the thought coming from the outside of your head changes the game totally. You feel very silly, but it moves the perspective so much.
When I started to do that, I’ve realized that the root cause of all my problems (I wish!) is lack of energy. I am drained a lot. So I fallback to instinctive behaviour, self-defensive behaviour, mean and harsh behaviour. Not because I want to or because I am like that, but because it protects me and whatever is left of my energy (spoiler alert! - there is not much). I don’t like that. So how do you solve this problem?
(a) Increase the overall capacity, add more energy or be more efficient
(b) Manage energy differently so I have more to spend when it actually matters
Is there a (c)? I don’t see it.
For (a), it’s the usual stuff - better sleep, better diet, more exercise, GTD techniques, being the most efficient version of myself. This is what I’ve been doing in the past when I was pushing the limits. I was pushing myself to increase the overall energy and to decrease the amount of energy spent on any given task so more could fit. I never did drugs to do that apart from alcohol and caffeine, if you’re curious.
The older and more ill I get, the less it is physically possible to optimize (a). The times when I slept for 3 hours a day, I was a very successful at a full-time job, I exercised 5 times a week and I spent every night in a pub just won’t come back. And I don’t want them to come back.
So how do you do (b)? The first question to ask is - where does that energy go?
Generally speaking, every human is doing the same activities. Out of those activities, some come naturally and some require more conscious effort, this is where people are different. I’ll take a little bit of a leap here and say that something that requires your conscious effort, might be stressing you.
If you are stressed about something, you think about it upfront, you are on high alert when it’s happening and you need to decompress after it has happened (after hours beers anyone?). That is a lot of energy spent on the thing. Right?
So how do you get out of that loop? Smart people came up with 4A’s (for example here):
Avoid - just don’t do it
Alter - be open, transparent, change the conditions in your favour
Accept - practice, practice, practice. Don’t bash yourself for mistakes
Adapt - reframe, reduce the expectations, flow through it
I am not a massive fan of Adapt because to me it sounds like it’s not really solving anything. You are still there, you are there with the same skillset, it keeps happening. And I am not a fatalist, I refuse to believe that anything is set in stone and we can’t change our surroundings.
Accept is a good one. It’s there, so you better get your hands dirty and learn how to deal with it. And you get better over time, more skilled, less stressed. And along the way, you get the dopamine hit. It’s not easy, and definitely not fast.
Alter is even better fitting for me. I love curveballs, BATNAs, creative solutions and reframing. I believe this approach is bringing out the best of us as it requires open and upfront communication about our inner workings and it brings the other side to the table to come up with a creative approach together. Definitely my favourite. It can easily go to bikeshedding though.
Avoid is a an option that I was not really considering a lot in my life. It always felt like the easy way out and it was against how I was raised: “You can solve anything, you’re a smart kid.” If I avoid something, that’s not a solution… Is it? It turns out it is a perfectly acceptable solution!
I will just avoid some stressful situations a lot more from now on. Avoiding is very energy-efficient so it perfectly solves (b) and as a bonus, it brings me peace. It’s a great tool to be comfortable with.
Go avoid something or someone! It will make you feel great in the long run, I promise.