Taking the Life Stress Questionnaire I scored a 215 which would put me in the one third of all people will experience an illness or accident and higher than normal. Through the How Stressed Are You survey I scored a 74/100 which equated to a very stressed characteristic and above average. Lastly, the Type A survey showed that I am Type A and received a score of 85/100 which is nearing the edge of Very Type A.
Based on these results, I’m not very surprised. I feel as though I know I live a very high stress, intense, and ambitious lifestyle. I have two kids, work full-time, finishing my bachelors degree because I want to, not because I need to, while still pursuing business in my real estate profession on the side. Balancing my daily life takes a lot of problem solving, facing new challenges, and leaving little room for procrastination. I find myself always looking for the next thing I can be working towards, and can tend to be impatient or wishing I was further along.
One of the largest things I noticed in these results is something that I’m aware of already but serves as a good reminder is that I need to find ways to be less “high strung”. Through these questions I was reminded that I am typically not calm. I am typically stressed, high strung, easily irritable or annoyed, and can lose my patience because I’m always working through multiple problems in my head or feel I have a large amount of responsibility to uphold. Through this survey I’ve found that taking time to myself, working out, taking deep breaths, positive self talk and walking are all easy things I can do to try and better my situation of being stressed out.
In my career my type A tendencies serve me well as I can be valued as a problem solver and someone who doesn’t procrastinate. However, my tendency to become impatient and feel as though I can do something better than others can get in the way of my working relationships. Moving forward I found that I can “sign a contract with myself” in order to address the things that I want to work on and ensure I am taking the steps to do so.
Many organizations are offering trainings to employees on ways to navigate stress and anxiety. Through my own organization I’ve taken several classes that discuss the consequences of not dealing with stress in a healthy way, and ways that you can mitigate stress when it comes around. These have been very essential for the health of the organization, and provide a great benefit to employees.