As highlighted by Psychologist Kelly McGonigal in her TED presentation, new research suggests that stress may only be bad for you if you believe that to be the case. Kelly also urges us to see stress as a positive, and introduces us to an unsung mechanism for stress reduction: reaching out to others. So in order to help our clients, and the coach, understand their stress better it may be useful to understand what stress means to them (see the table below). Questions that may be useful to uncover what type of stress people are experiencing are: What is stress to you? If you were to use another word to describe your situation, what would that be? Stress is a word, and like any word has a different meaning for different people. What does it mean to you? How does your experience of stress interfere with your work? How does it limit you? (Rob McNeilly)
| New definition of stress | What’s the concern |
| Overwhelmed | More time, more support, less work |
| Tense | Relaxation |
| Too Busy | Time to do nothing |
| Confused | Direction clarity |
| Over tired | Rest |
| Fearful | Security |
| Trying to cope with change | Learning to cope with change |
| Bored | Interests |
| Not challenged enough | Challenged |
| Worried | Trust in the future |
| Resentful | Forgiveness of another |
| Resigned | Generating future possibilities |
| Procrastination | Taking action |
| Out of Control | Sense of control |
Categories: Coaching
