How to Reduce Stress While Achieving Professional Goals

If you asked 10 people on the street if they were currently experiencing stress – what do you think their answer would be? There is a good chance that 9/10 people would say “OMG! YES!” What if there were ways to reduce stress in your professional life and the secret lay in adopting a few well-established, self-improvement recommendations from career and life coach Julie Morris? Well, you are in luck! Do not miss these invaluable tips and resources to help you reduce stress while achieving your professional goals.

How to Reduce Stress While Achieving Professional Goals

by Julie Morris

Whether you are a business owner or a busy professional looking to advance your career, there are undoubtedly moments when it can be difficult juggling all the things life throws at you. You might have lofty ambitions and uncertainty about how to achieve them. Perhaps you are a single parent trying to balance a job or a business with taking care of your kids. You might even be a new business owner trying to hit the ground running on your yearly goals while also making ends meet.

If your career has been a source of stress in your life lately, there are many things you can do to cope with the pressure while continuing to achieve your professional goals:

Get marketing help

Unless you have a solid professional background in marketing, it can be one of the most stressful and tedious tasks in the business world. Luckily, thanks to the growing power of social media, it is easier than ever to build your brand. You can use social media to spread the word about your business without increasing business expenses too much. In fact, you can even leverage the extremely affordable social media ads with sites like Facebook to gain new customers, increase your sales and profits, and reduce stress by taking the weight of marketing off your shoulders. And that extra push can be like night and day for your business.

Do not burn the midnight oil

Contrary to what our workaholic society would have you believe, all those extra hours of overtime are not really doing you – or your company – any good. Believe it or not, productivity has been shown to drop off after people work more than 40 hours per week. Work-life balance is not only good for you; it is also good for your career. If you are a business owner who feels like they have too much work to do to cut out early, remember time is money, and you are in control of how you spend both. For traditional, brick-and-mortar retailers, considering hiring someone else to take on some of the more routine tasks that monopolize your time, like financial, bookkeeping, and paperwork. If you run an e-commerce business with physical merchandise, consider drop-shipping. If you have the right products, you can eliminate many of the logistical challenges that come along with maintaining an inventory by allowing the supplier to ship the goods directly to the customer.

Learn to negotiate

If your career has been held back by confidence issues, learning to negotiate might help you finally ask for that raise or promotion you deserve. Negotiation skills help you further your career – and your wallet – and prove your inner critic wrong, giving you an assertive new skill-set that will help you maneuver tricky professional situations for years to come.

Get enough sleep

As many times as you’ve heard it from doctors and health professionals, it really is true: getting enough sleep is important for our physical health and our mental and emotional health. Not only does a good night’s sleep work wonders for your productivity and efficiency at work, but it also helps your brain reset from the previous day.

Look at it this way, if you do not get enough sleep, your performance levels suffer as does your ability to quickly manage tasks that are constantly coming your way. Not to mention that a constant lack of sleep lowers your immune system’s ability to fight off illness.

Find your zen

If you have been feeling burnt out or exhausted, prioritizing your own self-care can help. This can be a difficult transition at first, although it can certainly be done. To help reduce stress and return to a state of calm, you might consider taking up yoga or meditation.

If you are short on time, you might start with just 10 minutes per day of “alone time” and gradually work your way up from there. Even if it’s small meditative moments or mini bursts of exercise at your desk, any little bit counts. Remember: In order to better serve others, you must also make time to take care of yourself.

Get support

One final tip: surround yourself with a social circle of friends, family, loved ones, and even colleagues who support you in your endeavors. If you do not feel like you have a solid support system at the moment, do not worry; there are still plenty of options available. For instance, you might join a local meet-up group or a professional organization in your area. If you live in a remote location, you could even join an online group – or start your own using social media. In today’s constantly-connected world of smartphones it’s easier than ever to make new connections with like-minded people from anywhere in the world.

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