Dealing With Everyday Stresses

Stress happens. Whether it’s brought on by work or follows us to work, stress lingers among us and influences our actions. As a result, it’s important to identify when we are stressed and how we can deal with it – particularly when we work in environments that are so heavily influenced with consumer interaction. A bad day for you shouldn’t mean a bad day for your customers, so what can you do to help control your stress? There is no sure proof answer here, but below are a few suggestions that have helped others in retail environments while dealing with stress.

Reduce Unneccessary Workload

Need to unpack boxes to fill some empty shelves? This may be a stress reliever and help take your mind off things… or it may cause you to stress even more about  how to merchandise your new product, the mess the boxes are making in your already too tiny backroom and more. When feeling stressed, try and eliminate projects on your to-do list that don’t have to take place right away. Only do what you have to, then take the extra time to engage in work related projects you enjoy more than others. Catching up on your favorite retail trade publication with some coffee, reading your favorite retail blogs online, reviewing products for the seasons to come and even cleaning up your messy desk can all be stress relievers. Respond to what you know is soothing to you and let the stress slip away for awhile. Of course, as soon as a customer walks in the door you should put on your happy face, but until then, try and relax in your more favorite work responsibilities.

Leaning On Others

Sometimes it is just impossible to do it all. As much as we each want to believe we can handle the juggle of work, family and life, sometimes we need to believe that what is best for us is to actually have others help out. This may mean taking a “sick” day and having a trusted employee work for you, assigning work responsibilities to others to help balance your work load or hiring out retail support to help tackle all your retail needs.  Whether you believe it or not, having others help cancontrol the stress on your plate. Of course, this all depends where your stress is coming from but when possible, this is a great way to help control the stress you have. An example may be if you are worried about attending an important trade show and still managing to merchandise the new product that just arrived. Letting someone else merchandise the product may not be your first choice, but it is not as crucial as the products purchased at the show since you can always re-merchandise as necessary. Now throw in picking up the kids from school, attending a friend’s important event or having to speak at your local chamber meeting and the schedule gets even tighter! Pick and choose how you can lean on others to help eliviate the stress in your workload.

Give Yourself Time

Between checking our Blackberrys, catching up on Twitter and updating our Facebook pages, it’s no wonder people are short on time! These are all great tools that benefit many of our businesses in many ways, but they can also clutter your day if not managed effectively. When dealing with stress – no matter what kind of stress it may be – it is always important to know when to “back away” for while. A day or two without Twitter won’t kill you. Let time be your friend versus your enemy here. Lay just a little longer in bed in the morning, enjoy your walk to work without rushing by everyone on the way and try and relax with a few deep breathes throughout the day. If you are like the majority of us nowadays, this is way easier said than done. But just give it a shot and see how the time opens up for you. Let this time be your stress reliever in between all the other things you have to get done. Things will pass, time will move forward and the stress will ease in some way or another… You just need to get through each day.

Finally, be realistic with your expectations, workload and stress management. We all break at different moments and under different levels of stress, so let you be the judge of when enough is enough. But don’t fight it. Deal with it. And by dealing with it, hopefully you won’t break but instead will get through it. Your customers will be glad to have the normal you back!