Of all that you might have heard or read about handling stress is often centred around how you respond to it. And that is true actually. That’s why you must have seen different people responding to similar situations differently. However, proactive coping goes one step further. Instead of waiting for stress to appear, it encourages you to prepare for life’s challenges in advance.
How a person handles the hardships and pleasures offered by life, is a clear reflection of his state of well-being.
‘Stress is not what happens to us. It’s our response to what happens. And response is something we can choose.’ – Maureen Killoran.
Life is full of blissful and tragic moments, and we all have to experience them both at any and every stage of our lives. Yes, no one wants to taste misery ever but we all know that it’s inevitable.
That is why you often come across various strategies of handling stress. And one of such strategy is proactive coping.
What Is Proactive Coping?
Proactive coping is identifying your potential stressors and averting them. It’s like taking a medical insurance for your family. What it exactly does is to make you future ready and be prepared for what’s coming.
Yes, you can’t predict what’s going to happen and you can’t always avoid a difficult phase. But you can put in your best efforts to know yourselves better, read our own mind and help yourselves to handle it with better self control.
It’s not only about listing out what causes stress to us, but also to list out what matters and what not.
If you give a mindful thought to it, you can surely come up with loads of things that don’t even matter to you, then why even worry about them!! Hence you have freed your mind from these stressors already!!
Also, proactive coping gives you a sense of control over your life and everything that you handle. It gives you a functional independence, help you manage your resources, thus overall a very effective strategy to combat stress.
Unlike reactive coping, proactive coping prepares you for challenges before they become overwhelming.
Simple Ways to Cope with Daily Stress
The following proactive coping strategies can help you build resilience and deal with everyday stress more effectively.
Self-Care
Take good care of yourself. An unhealthy version of you shall lose half of your battles before they even start! Nurture your physical, mental and emotional self.
Eat well, not just to fill your stomach but to nourish your body. Choose something that is not only nutrition packed but also delicious. Eating healthy should not be a punishment.
Pick a hobby, indulge yourself in something that soothes your soul and makes you happy. Give yourself these much deserving minutes of leisure.
Have meaningful relationships, spend time with people who really matter rather than partying every now and then with random acquaintances.
Surround yourself with positive people; look for reasons to stay happy.
Set Realistic Goals
How you set your goals is extremely important. Your goals have to be crystal clear, not just a vague idea. You have to be very specific on your skillset and limitations so you can modify your goals accordingly.
Also, you’ll have to take into account the resources you might need and how you are going to arrange those.
Consider your other commitments too, let’s say is it really possible for you to undergo 2 hours of physical training every single day along with your 9 hours of corporate job in addition to 2 hours of daily commute to office?
Rethink and set your expectations accordingly. There is no wisdom in keeping an unattainable target for yourself. You’ll end up burning yourself out without achieving something substantial.
Unrealistic goals can add major stress to your life.
Plan Ahead
Planners give you a clear direction to follow. Planning ahead enables you to anticipate anything that may deviate from what was originally planned.
It gives you sufficient time to arrange resources, or look out for any help you might need. Planning in advance also helps you to take out sufficient time for leisure activities.
You are the one in control when you know that you have scheduled everything that needs to be done systematically. Also, it keeps everything in check so you don’t miss out anything important which would definitely be a reason of anxiety if left for the very last minute.
Be Mindful
Be future ready, but don’t forget to live in present. A simple act of noticing your surrounding is therapeutic.
It’s a realisation that you are not alone. and when you do that, you can see yourself in a bigger picture. Additionally, you begin to understand yourself, like how you feel and why you react.
You get to know your circumstances and realise that even if you can’t avert them completely, and you are mindful of such ups and downs of life.
It’s a powerful tool to build resilience to fight stressful situations. All you need is to take a step back, notice your environment and notice how you feel.
Tell yourself it’s okay to feel overwhelmed or angry or burdened. Accept your feelings without judging them or blaming yourself.
Take a deep breathe and approach the problem in hand with a fresh attitude.
Stay Focussed
Be it your prestigious project at work, a skill that you are currently learning, or a relaxing time with your loved one; key is to be there one hundred percent. No distractions whatsoever.
If you have to reply to email, just focus there and when you are on a dinner date don’t look at your phone for emails. Be present in the moment and make best out of it.
The more focussed you are at the job in hand the more relaxed you shall be with the productive outcome of your efforts.
Reach Out
You need not to handle all by yourself. So ahead, ask for help. Talk to someone you trust, let them listen to your worries and your fears.
A simple act of sharing with a loved one brings calming effects to mind. Draining out negative emotions lightens your head. It also helps to see the problem with a new perspective.
You might discover that solutions was right in front of you, just you weren’t able to see it because your mind was clouded. And even if you don’t get to a solution, at-least you know that you are not alone.
There are people who care about you, understand you, this itself is sufficient enough to charge you up. This whole new sense of confidence makes you a winner.
Stay Optimistic
‘When it rains, look for rainbow. When it’s dark look for stars.’ Optimism gives you hope in hard times. It’s not about ignoring your circumstances, but a realisation that this phase shall also pass through like all other times.
Optimism gives you strength to withstand. People who are optimistic, they expect things to turn out well. Thus, they don’t give up. They have better control over their emotions, and are less depressed because they believe in goodness.
Further, they try harder, and put persistent efforts because they dream to succeed.
Learn to Adapt
Everyday is a new learning. What has worked in past, might not work in future. It’s a continuous process of exploring, making adjustment and trying something new.
‘Change is the only constant.‘ So prepare yourself in advance. Those who don’t adapt often fall behind. This is something nature itself has taught us. Survival of the fittest theory is all about adaptation only.
Adaptability empowers you handle a challenge with much more ease, no matter how hard it may seem at first. When you break free from your cocoon, you can expand your wings to new heights.
Be Flexible
Whatever goals you have set, or plans you have made; be ready to accept a few changes here and there. Flexibility doesn’t make your goal less significant but it enhances your chances to achieve them by incorporating changes.
This approach makes your plan work because you are not rigid on your own methods but very much open to any improvement or suggestion. You are open to new experiences, learnings and capable of handling an unexpected situation without losing your temper.
Self Regulation
In order to be in charge of your emotions, it’s important to understand them first. You need to first be aware of yourself, how you feel, how you think and how you react. Also, you need to identify your triggers as well.
Basically, you need to figure out what works for you and what doesn’t and make changes in your approach and environment accordingly.
Self regulation is basically managing your emotions in such a way that you are not acting under their influence. You are able to separate yourself and the current scenario from your emotional state at that very moment.
Thus you are able to think before you act. You are in better control of your impulses. You accept your feelings without being judgemental. And you are mindful of your values and what’s appropriate, thus giving yourself a choice of avoiding or responding.
Practice Gratitude
Gratitude is appreciating little things in life that we usually take for granted. It’s about enjoying every positive experience of your life no matters how trivial it is.
Practicing gratitude releases happy hormones in brain which eventually relieves stress. Grateful people have positive attitude during adversities because they are mindful of the fact that life is much more than these temporary circumstances.
Noticing goodness around brings our focus from negative emotions to the positive ones. So take a pause and bring your attention to all the things, people, opportunities, circumstances that you are thankful for.
Life is unpredictable, but the way you prepare for it doesn’t have to be.
Proactive coping is simply the habit of taking small steps today to protect your peace tomorrow. The more prepared you are, the calmer and more confident you’ll feel when life takes an unexpected turn.
- learn to respond not to react -