Seeing Through the Stress: What You Might Be Missing
Stress can be an insidious force that blinds us to the struggles and experiences of those around us. As our own worries take center stage, we become so preoccupied with our thoughts that we unintentionally overlook important cues from others. This can lead us to misinterpret their behaviors and jump to assumptions.
I personally experienced this recently, as I allowed my stress to become all-consuming. The impact: I missed important cues from those I love most.
May we become leaders who challenge our assumptions, and thoughtfully look beyond ourselves to show genuine curiosity and concern for the people in our care.
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Well, I'll be honest, the last two months have been a very challenging season for our family. They've taken a lot out of me for a couple of reasons, and I've found myself barely hanging onto any patience by the end of the evening. And last night was no exception.
My husband's been gone, so I was solo parenting, and I was spending some intentional time with my younger daughter on the back patio. We were making bracelets. It was going great.
And my oldest had been at a birthday party at a waterpark all day long. So here in my mind, she was having the best day ever. And she got home pretty late. So by the time she got home, I was ready for them to just quickly get ready for bed, and get in bed because I wanted to go to sleep myself. And so I was pushing for them to go get ready for bed.
And my oldest was just kind of pushing back and being slow, and I was frustrated, right? And so I just kept pushing, and it caused some conflict and frustration on both ends. And I didn't know why she wasn't just complying with what I wanted at that moment.
Well come to find out, when I was tucking her in, just in like our very last minutes of the night, I find out that she had had a couple of difficult experiences, encounters that day. And that's really what was impacting her attitude and her behavior.
And I hadn't even slowed down enough or looked outside my own stress enough to recognize that something was off and that she needed some space to process. Thank goodness we connected on that before she went to sleep.
But here's the deal. At work, this happens often. Either A, an employee or a colleague is showing up and not performing in the way we want or not with the attitude that we want, and we very quickly make assumptions as to why they're behaving in this way.
And so I want to challenge you in those situations to pause and exercise some curiosity and consider what might you not know about their current situation, about their day, about their experience, about what they believe is expected of them? What might you not know?
And then the second thing is when you do have a lot on your plate, when you are stressed and overwhelmed with work, it's really challenging to look outside yourself and think of others in that moment.
And so want to encourage you to slow down and hit pause enough on your own stress to be able to look outside yourself. Gosh, I wish I would've done that earlier last night.
You will never regret exercising more empathy, more curiosity, more connection with your employees and with your colleagues.