by Chas Bonner
The world is drowning in research and documents regarding stress, and most discuss the negative impact upon your job, your relationships, and your life. Granted, stress can be very taxing, but we must try to reframe it. If viewed positively, we should be able to improve output and quality of performance. See it as incentive, as an inevitable part of life, so go with the flow.
Research has shown that most worry is about something in the past or something in the future. Little is focused on the present. If your worry is directly connected to the task at hand, it can be a motivator. If not, learn to discard it. Apparently the brain works better when in positive mode.
Support from others always helps stressful situations. Learn who you can trust, look for learning material, and share worries with others. Often, when a trusted confidant advises that your worry is senseless, it disappears---hopefully with some permanence.
Finally, this may take some practice. It is simple to discuss and think about turning negative stress into positive motivation, but doing so consistently is not easy. Therefore, one might look at negative situations, and practice turning them positive.
Farming is a stressful game; there are so many things over which we have no control, and payday is usually once per year. I am an example of senseless worrying, having owned a 20 acre tree fruit farm in California 30 years ago, and the first morning of every picking season, I would walk out of the house, vomit, then go about the first day. Other than occasional market problems, the season was invariably positive.
Easy to say, tough to do. But focus on what you control and recognize most things turn out better than expected provided we are well-prepared.
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