Increase personal power by focusing on your options
May 8, 2007
Stress for Success

You’re in a painful relationship. You know it’s unhealthy and yet you see no way out. You feel trapped and powerless. You assume that nothing you do will make a difference so you change nothing. You suffer in silence or look for ways to get even for the perceived wrongs you suffer. Your stress mounts inhibiting your ability even more to see a way out.

This is a classic example of “learned helplessness,” the most stressed position of all. You assume you have no options. It’s a condition named by Dr. Martin Seligman of the University of PA.

Learned helplessness and low self-esteem go hand-in-hand. To inch toward greater personal power focus on what your options are in dealing with your challenging situation vs. on how miserable you are.

Generating options is a vital problem-solving step. Choices equal a perception of control. Just knowing what they are (you don’t even have to act on them) can lower your stress at least a little because you don’t feel so cornered.

The options you can see are determined by your perception of the situation. The more you obsess over the parts of your stressor that are beyond your control the fewer viable alternatives you’ll see. To be a creative problem-solver, open your mind to the fact that there are choices that you can’t see -- yet. Always keep your ears and eyes open. You never know from where your best solution will come.

To produce legitimate options you must first know what your desired outcome is in your stressful situation. State your goal in a way that’s within your control to reach.
§ E.g., to work toward a healthy relationship by first being honest with yourself about it

Preliminarily, what are your obvious options?
§ Seek therapy
§ Journal to uncover your “truth”
§ Talk with your partner about your troubled relationship

To expose additional choices you can’t see yet, try these:
§ Regularly journal about your stressor, especially when you’re upset about it. Repetitive journaling helps you to see your stressor differently. This eventually triggers new ideas of how to handle it. These ideas may pop into your head through the journaling itself or while dreaming or even showering. Be open to them. Don’t reject them. Explore them even more through additional journaling.
§ Journal questions and answers about your stressor. Question-asking is the most important skill in problem solving. Questions lead to more questions, which eventually lead to answers, then to solutions.
§ Have someone you trust pepper you with questions about your stressor. Any question that triggers your defensiveness, emotionalism and/or rigidity points to deeper truths.

Accept that your historic interpretations of a stressor can inhibit you from seeing workable solutions. What have you got to lose? When you’re unsuccessful in resolving your stressor stretch your perception muscles by challenging how you look at your situation. Perceptual expansion through journaling and question asking will, over time, trigger better and healthier options for handling your stressor. This not only lowers your stress, it also increases your self-esteem.

Jacquelyn Ferguson, M. S., of InterAction Associates, is a trainer and a Stress Coach. E-mail her at www.jackieferguson.com with your questions or for information about her workshops on this and other topics and to invite her to speak to your organization.