Coping with stress

It's important to have various tools in your toolbox for coping with stress, especially non-destructive ones.  For example, the stress release I employed on Friday isn't something you can do all the time, obviously.  Saturday was my designated day to knock out my first individual paper for grad school.  (Our first team paper was due on the 1st day of class!)  It's an industry structure analysis for Strategy and it's worth 20% of my grade.  I was totally stressing out about it today.  I don't like that the first academic paper that I have to write for grad school is worth 20% of my grade.   My professor is whip sharp, has an MBA from Wharton and was a managing director at JP Morgan.  So I know she'll be savvy vis-à-vis the industry I work in.  But perhaps there is a lesson here.  Strategy is a high stakes game, so why shouldn't a strategy paper be worth a lot?  So...I poured myself a nice hot cup of Tension Tamer and got the paper knocked out.  It took me all day, and I'm not satisfied with it, but at least it's done.  One of the most natural (and dangerous) responses to stress is procrastination.  Do whatever it takes, but don't do that, it just makes things worse.

Comments

[MBA Podcaster]

Hi there!
Great blog you have here. It's refreshing to see an EMBA blogger. A 3 martini lunch minus procrastination is a good way to beat stress, definitely. Keep us posted!

-Janet