particular stress forever. Unfortunately, not all strategies for coping with stress are as simple, straightforward and immediately effective, but it does illustrate the power and effectiveness of tackling the things that cause you stress head-on.
Situations that cause stress are typically associated with two factors that are too often common in any performance environment – lack of control and uncertainty. Nobody likes to feel out of control and unsure of what is expected of them. More specific factors that are particularly pertinent in both sport and business include role conflict, role uncertainty, interper- sonal conflict, unrealistic performance targets, poor communication, demand overload, change, lack of time, poor management/leadership/ coaching, and skills not being employed appropriately. This section deals with some strategies for dealing with situations like these.
Challenging assumptions
A key reason why situation-focused strategies are often ignored by people, who instead focus on dealing with their symptoms and appraisals, is that they often assume that they have no control or influ- ence over the offending situation and so do not waste valuable time and effort in challenging ‘the system’. The starting point is actually to chal- lenge your assumptions before you are in a position to challenge the system. For example, do not assume that your manager will respond badly to feedback about how disempowered s/he makes you feel – s/he may respond very positively and be thankful that s/he has a means of forming a better relationship with you. And do not assume that unrealis- tic performance targets are not negotiable – indeed, the assumption of the goal-setter may be that they must be realistic because you have not challenged them!
Being assertive
Being assertive is not the same as being aggressive, awkward or ignoring others’ needs. People who act assertively can often deal with situations in a relaxed and composed manner, avoiding misunderstandings and prevent- ing themselves from being persuaded to act against their better judgement. Underlying the process of being assertive is your belief that all people are equal and have the same basic rights. In the case of role uncertainty, for example, explain to the people concerned how the uncertainty is making you feel and how it is impacting on your performance, and that you need your role to be clarified for the good of both yourself and the team.
Presenting some possible solutions rather than just the problem is often very helpful. At all times, respond in a non-aggressive, reasonable and self-assured fashion. This will give you the best chance of satisfying your need to address the source of the pressure in a constructive way.
Making decisions
It is often more difficult to make decisions when under stress. This can make things worse because dealing with stress often requires you to make decisions that will enable you to cope with it more effectively. For example, demand overload has the potential to leave you burned out if you don’t tackle it. Decisions around how important success in your work is to you and what you are willing to commit, balanced against the other demands in your life, cannot be delayed if you are to deal with this source of stress effectively. Deciding how you will approach upcoming change rather than being a passive participant, and sometimes ‘victim’, can radically alter your experience of change.
If you are regularly missing out on selection for positions that you aspire to, then you have a decision to make about whether to move on or stick it out. Delaying such decisions merely prolongs the stress and the need to withstand its symptoms.
Maximising supports – minimising constraints
During my early career as a researcher at Sheffield University I was involved in a number of studies that examined stress levels and their causes in different occupations. One of these studies18involved spending time in a top security psychiatric hospital which housed patients who had committed some of the most horrendous crimes imaginable. Our task was to assess levels of stress in the mainly male nursing population and to uncover the major predictors. The predictors were placed into three differ- ent categories: the demands of the job, including their face-to-face dealings with some highly dangerous patients; the supports that helped them carry out the job; and the constraints that hindered them from doing their job. The results revealed that the biggest predictor of stress in the nurses was constraints, followed by lack of supports and then demands. It was not the job itself that caused the stress; it was things like the slow decision-making
18 K.Janman, G.Jones, R.Payne, & T.Rick. Some determinants of stress in psychiatric nurses. International Journal of Nursing Studies, 24, 129–144, 1987.
up the hierarchy and the things they were allowed and not allowed to do that were ‘dictated by “suits” who had never been nurses’. We found a sim- ilar pattern of results in other occupations where stress was more related to the frustrations of the job and lack of support than doing the job itself. The demands/supports/constraints approach provides a very useful framework for developing a structured situation-focused strategy for dealing with stress. With your own role in mind, use Time-Out 4.4 below to work through the process of identifying your demands, supports and constraints and reflect on the extent to which they impact on you.