Relieving Unrelieved Stress
Savvy Saturdays - 6/20/20
Hello friends,
Greetings from Austin!
Crazy news, but I’ve started using TikTok! 😄
Now now, before you guys jump on the hate train of TikTok, or completely shame me for my choice of taste, I must share some insights.
Like any social media, there is multi-purpose for it, and I find TikTok to be an amazing creative outlet for many different communities!
Though the mainstream content on TikTok ranges from dance video trends, pranks, and storytelling, I’ve enjoyed #relatable Christian memes and faith reminders, learned a lot on dental care and mental health wellness, and appreciated the solid dad jokes everyone makes.👨
(Of course, it eats up a lot of time, and I’ve been asking for Hoyas and doing random dance moves in zoom calls… 😅)
I haven’t created a video yet, but if you want to be updated on it, follow me @theCreedo!
That aside, this past week has been quite stressful, and I’ve been biking every day in order to decompress and healthily relieve my stress.
Through a book I’m reading, Leadership Pain, I’ve learned that my health doesn’t deteriorate only because of the amount of stress I have. Rather:
“Too much unrelieved stress is the culprit.”
And it makes sense.
Most of the time when I’ve reached a limit and mentally broken down with emotions was when I had no outlet for my stress. The build-up from that tension leaked in micro-emotional ways before exploding from my interactions with others.
This insight has helped me be more aware of my stress, and practically, I have been taking more proactive action in reaching out to a loved one willing to hear me vent, or going biking for a couple of hours in order to process and reach a stable point.
If you’re feeling a huge amount of stress recently, here are some things to consider:
How do you healthily relieve your stress? How do you unhealthily relieve your stress?
Do you know 1-2 people who can listen to you during this time?
If you are a believer, how are you going to God with your stress?
Anyways, I hope y’all are balancing out your levels of stress in life! 🙂
Find ways to spend time with those you love and keep on wearing your face masks if you go out! Let’s bring that curve down for our healthcare workers in the hospital!
Thanks for checking in, and I'll see y'all in the next update! 😊
Weekly Collections
Faith
I recently started watching The Bible Project again, as I’ve been wanting to better understand different theological aspects of the Bible and the Gospel.
This video is the 1st part of a three-part Wisdom Series, exploring the purpose and meaning of the Old Testament Wisdom Literature (Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Job).
This 18 min series had a lot of amazing analogies over the beauty of wisdom, and how “fearing the lord” is the first step to wisdom.
Entrepreneurship
Habits of High Performing Teams
This article has a lot of really good points on learning empathy and strategic teamwork for software engineer teams. I found this quote from the article to be very comforting and empowering:
“Assume that every student you interact with has limited information, but infinite intelligence.”
No one knows everything, but everyone has the capability to learn anything.
Productivity
The rule of awkward silence, embraced by Elon Musk and Steve Jobs
“The rule of awkward silence is simple: When faced with a challenging question, instead of answering, you pause and think deeply about how you want to answer.
‘If you pose to [Elon] a serious question,’ says Reisman, ‘he'll consider it. And he'll kind of go into this, almost like a trance--he'll stare off into space and you can see the wheels turning. And he's focusing all of his intellect, which is considerable, on this one question.’
When it comes to answering challenging questions, you might be tempted to just spit out anything, even if it doesn't make much sense. Or, you might say what you think the other person wants to hear instead of what you truly believe.
…try to take your time before giving an answer. In doing so, you will:
Buy yourself time to think
Put yourself in the driver's seat
Keep yourself calm
Increase your confidence
Produce better, more quality answers
Say what you mean, and mean what you say
The more you practice, the awkward pause won't feel so awkward anymore--and the more you will be able to make emotions work for you, instead of against you.”
Weekly Reflections
Mental Model
When ego and not competence drives what we undertake, we have blind spots.
If you know what you understand, you know where you have an edge over others. When you are honest about where your knowledge is lacking, you know where you are vulnerable and where you can improve.
Understanding your circle of competence improves decision making and outcomes.
—(Mental Models: The Best Way to Make Intelligent Decisions)
How to apply the mental model:
What areas of expertise would you say are within your circle of competence?
What areas of expertise are outside of your circle of competence? Do you know people who you can rely on for what’s outside your circle?
Verse of the Week
“For if anyone thinks he is something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself.”
—Galatians 6:3 ESV
Challenging Quote
“At the end of the day people won't remember what you said or did, they will remember how you made them feel.”
—Maya Angelou