Stress Management… It’s Overrated.

Today, especially here in the United States, everywhere we go people are talking about “stress management”.

Now why would anyone want to manage his stress? I can understand you want to manage your finances, your business, your family, your property etc.. but why would you want to manage stress?

It seems that we have come to the conclusion that if we do things in the world, we’re bound to feel stressful.

I believe that one is not stressful because of what they’re doing, one is stressful because he’s a bad manager of himself. He doesn’t know how to manage his own internal systems. That is why he is stressful.

Everyone believes their job is the cause of their stress. Ask anyone and they will say their job is stressful. It is not the nature of your job that makes you stressful. No job is stressful. But if you have no control over you own internal systems you will be stressed. Whether you do something or you don’t do anything, you will feel stressful.

Fundamentally ‘management’ means you want to decide the course of your destiny. That’s management. You don’t want to live here by accident, do you? You want to take your life where you want to go. That’s management. If you’re managing by accident, then you are not a manager. Without you things may actually run better.

So once you say I’m a ‘manager’ that means somewhere, somehow, you’ve made a decision you want to go a particular way, you want to have a certain kind of situation happen, both inward and outward.

Everyone is a manager according to his own capacity, but at different levels and in different types of situations — whether you manage a kitchen where you cook for your family of four, or you manage a large industry where tens of thousands of people work. Fundamentally, if you want to have a good kitchen or a good industry, you must be a good manager of that situation. So on the outside you’re essentially managing the materials or the people around you, and internally you’re managing the outcome and tens of thousands of minds around you. But if you have no management over your own mind, your managing tens of thousands of minds is going to be a disaster.

If we want to live well, both externally and internally, how well we live here simply depends on how well we manage our surroundings and how well we manage ourselves.

Fundamentally life is management.

How you maintain your body, your mind, your emotions, your situations, your life in general — your homes, your community, nations in the world — will determine your life. The quality of your life will depend on how well you manage things with yourself.

Generally when people think of management, they’re applying themselves to management only in terms of business management, industry management, or money management. They’re talking about management when they talk of economic situations, not life as a whole.

It’s unfortunate that today the most predominant factor that rules the planet has become economics. The other aspects of life have been totally pushed to the corner. When economics rules — when economics is the only thing we’re thinking about — we tend to become very gross and unhappy in so many ways.

People who have failed in their lives, they’re suffering their failures. People who have succeeded in their lives, they’re suffering their success. If you suffer your failure it’s understandable, because failure comes easy. But if you’re suffering your success then that is tragic indeed, because success doesn’t come easy.

So something that you worked for, something that you always longed for, something that you wanted to create in your life — when it happens and if you start suffering that, that’s the real tragedy of life. A large number of successful people on the planet today are suffering their success.

If you look at yourself, when you were around 5–6 years of age, how happy were you? Compare that to today, how happy are you now? If you were to draw a graph out of your happiness level then and now, is it moving upward or downward? In the course of 24 hours of your day how many moments are you really happy?

On your happiness quotient, how would this graph look? Is the line going up or down? If it’s going down that means you’re not a good manager. Because everything you do in your life is in pursuit of happiness, isn’t it? You educate yourself, you pursue your career, you build a family, you run after your ambitions — all the things you do is because from your perspective you believe that fulfilling those things will bring you happiness. After all your efforts, if your happiness is not multiplying it is depleting, and that means you’re a bad manager of yourself. And anybody who does not know how to manage his own body, his own mind, his own emotions and his own energies…if he’s managing outside situations, he’s only managing them by accident, not by intent the way he wants it.

And if you don’t know how to manage your mind, how to manage your energies, how to manage your interiority (is that even a word?), managing the outside is bound to be accidental, wouldn’t you say?

When you manage situations by accident you exist as an accident. When you exist as an accident, you are a potential calamity. When you exist as a potential calamity being anxious all the time becomes a natural way of life. It becomes your nature.

So I say, it’s time.

Time to rise to your full potential. Not just work potential but as human beings — to the peak of love, compassion within yourselves. If this doesn’t happen then it’s bad management. Because the basic intent of all good management is basic human well-being. And that must begin with you.

Manage yourself and all will be managed.

Otherwise you may be making a profit, but you’re broken on the inside and that will radiate to those around you and affect every relationship in your life.

THAT, right there, is called stress. And that is when you will be working on “Stress Management”.

© Rani St. Pucchi, 2019

Rani St. Pucchi is an award-winning couture Bridal Fashion Designer, a Style & Image Consultant, a Relationship Expert. She is an International Bestselling Author, a Speaker, an Executive Success Coach and Trainer. Her recent TEDx talk: Is Your Body Image Holding You Back has received worldwide acclaim. Rani’s #1 International Bestselling Books: Your Body, Your Style: Simple Tips on Dressing to Flatter Your Body Type; The SoulMate Checklist: Keys to Finding Your Perfect Partner; Your Bridal Style: Everything You Need to Know to Design the Wedding of Your Dreams; and her newly released Gold in the Cracks: Move from Shattered to Whole and Reveal Your Light — are available on Amazon and at Barnes & Nobles.

For more information on Rani please visit ranistpucchi.com