I’m not sure how I ended up being, out of four kids, the one who ended up in the big-shot job. I was always the most carefree of the bunch, and the most lax about schoolwork and the like. To be honest, I never even gave that much thought to having a career. And yet, here I am, a hedge fund manager, while my siblings are… well, doing other stuff. Who has time to take note?
You could say that I’m the most equipped to deal with stress, whether in the workplace or elsewhere. As I recall, Belinda would cry at the drop of a hat during the uni exam period, and Henry couldn’t hack the pressure of footy team tryouts, despite being naturally good at the sport. Terrence would get annoyed with anyone in authority telling him what to do; in fact, I think he still does. As for me, I was always able to identify when I was stressed and apply a few simple techniques to relieve it.
I didn’t realise this until recently, but apparently not everyone is born knowing how to do that. In fact, people actually go to stress management lessons. Melbourne is home to a number of companies that offer training in this field. I had no idea! It was a surprise to me that many people find it difficult to navigate stressors in their workplaces, despite working in an undeniably stressful environment myself.
What alerted me to this gap in my knowledge was someone coming to my office to deliver a workplace stress management workshop. Everyone agreed that it was really helpful, which I was skeptical about until I started seeing marked improvements in the wellbeing of my colleagues. One of them even told me that she had managed to get rid of her chronic insomnia by applying some of the techniques, which had seemed really basic to me.
I suppose it’s good for me as well, as far as being better able to relate to other people at work who might not be as resilient as me to the negative effects of stress.
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