Week 9 – Blog Assignment/Discussion – Team 7

Cody Hovda

As a college student who is just finishing a very difficult year sharing a workload between school and work, stress has been at the forefront of my life for quite a while. The Coping and Stress Management (1) identified that I am thoroughly stressed but I attempt to alleviate my issues myself. The Personality / Irritability Test (2) showed that I have somewhat neutral in action, but can be frustrated and even hot headed internally. These things align with what I’ve been observing in my life lately, and this week’s material has been shedding light on causes and effects of my tense state.

When I began feeling overwhelmed with my workload, I became unable to keep up with each fully, but my schoolwork took the hardest hit. I would work long hours and get everything done some days and then not have any time to take care of myself or enjoy those evenings hardly. On other days I would become burned out and would call it quits at 5 or 6pm and end up missing assignments or forgetting about things at work. I felt like there was no correct solution. What’s fascinating to me was this discovery of mine that as I was ultra stressed for multiple months on end, my entire valuation of needs shifted and I struggled to process it as it happened. I didn’t understand why I was unmotivated at school and became burnt out of work. I couldn’t believe that I was too overworked and that my goals were out of my reach.

Through some long conversations and a lot of learning I came to understand more fully how all factors in life push and pull on each other and when you feel tense that’s often because some of the factors are affecting others more drastically than normal. Work becomes stress and school becomes stress and life becomes stress and there’s no use in differentiating between them in the moment they overwhelm you. The other thing that it exposed me to is how my work had to adapt to my stressed and busy situation to help me thrive. It was in their best interest that I retain attention and motivation as well as feel well compensated for my work. There were times that I was mad that I was working 60+ hours per week between school and work and was barely receiving a livable paycheck, but was money my real concern or was it the stress?

Overall, stress can become the single most impactful factor for an employee as I’ve witnessed firsthand. Maybe I’m unique but when I become stressed and I can’t get something done that’s the most important to me, everything else crumbles around it. I think things are falling in place though and I’m really excited for the next chapters and what decompressing will do for me. In the meantime, take care!

1 – https://psychologytoday.tests.psychtests.com/bin/transfer

2 – https://psychologytoday.tests.psychtests.com/bin/transfer