In nowadays work lifestyle at Multi-national companies, 24/7 global and local operations and support it is quite common hear say “Life is quite stressful”. Stress is an essential part of life and let us see how project management plays an great avenue to improve ABC’s – (Attitude, Behaviour and Cognition) of life to better handle and cope up with the various stresses that we come across in all walks of life.
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What is Stress?

Stress is the emotional and physical response to the demands from the outside world. Stress is very much a part of normal living and necessary for our survival. Stress is always perceived as bad but there are both positive stress (Eustress) and negative stress (Distress).

Eustress helps to

• Motivates, gives energy
• Inspires our life
• Within our coping abilities
• Gives a feeling of happiness and exciting
• Improves performance

Whereas Distress causes

• Anxiety or concern
• Demotivates and harmful
• Outside of our coping abilities
• Gives an unpleasant feeling
• Decreases performance
• Can lead to mental and physical problems

Note: We use the terminology stress to distress as it is commonly being used.

The tolerance or coping up with stress is unique to each person and if it exceeds the limit or moderation level it affects the mental and physical health. Some of the signs are constant tiredness, aches, pains, and feelings of being ‘out of sort ‘and ‘below par’ that limit the activities and significantly reduce the quality of life. In nowadays lifestyle vast majorities are affected by stress in one form or another.  When it comes to stress it is always “Prevention is better than cure”. The seeds of the happiness are embedded in the right form of emotional development and constantly if endeavour for emotional development, we are able to better manage the tendencies towards both stresses –eustress and distress.

Stress and ABC’s of Life:

Life falls short of our expectations, which we insist that things should be different which might me our own performance or due to someone’s actions or various events we come cross. All these thoughts and happenings may lead to negative emotions such as frustration, anger, irritation, annoyance, anxiety, inadequacy etc., pertaining to distress. In order to come across such stresses, Project Management is a great eustress avenue to uplift the ABC’s of life where A: Attitude, B: Behaviour, C: Cognition. Well-defined set of attitudes, behaviours and cognitions contribute significantly to the way we respond to life.

There is truth to the familiar saying “You are what you eat”. And the same applies to mind. Our attitude or belief is nothing more than habits of thoughts whereas our behaviors are actions done and our cognitions are ways of thinking that helps us get going. In nowadays-modern lifestyle attitude, behaviour and cognitions are immensely affected by the world of material objects and economic achievements take centre stage in life. A positive attitude will help one to stay focused, while a negative one simply throws up roadblocks in the path.

Project Management as an eustress avenue:

“Life is ten percent what happens to you and ninety percent how you respond to it.”

– Lou Holtz

As we know stress simply can’t be avoided but we can stop ourselves from getting unduly stresses about the stress we face in life by using project management as one of the great eustress avenue. Learning is a lifelong process and it’s never too late to start learning to improve our ABC’s of life using project management knowledge. Also Project Management helps in motivation, which is like nutrition and is an essential component, required in life to keep it going. Also motivation is the persistent drive that gets through the difficult times and helps to attain the objectives. It’s the ability to maintain an interest and a sense of direction and forward movement towards a desired outcome.

“Those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything”

– George Bernard Shaw

ABC’s of life form endless circles and hope we can always improve and change our mind for better life using the knowledge and shared experiences from Project Management. As we know when we stop learning we stop growing since it is essential to build the capacity to uncover, solve new problems and existing problems in new ways. Developing healthy ABC’s of life once for all takes time and effort and it is an evolutionary not a revolutionary process. We can use project management knowledge as an avenue for self-directed, self-controlled, lifelong learning in order to be self-organized and to transform and improve one’s own ABC’s of life.

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