Life is full of challenges and surprises.
As John Lennon sang in Beautiful Boy: "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans."
Life can surprise you when you least expect it.
Pressure can happen when life presents a challenge to you.
When something feels too big, too out of control or hard, challenge pressure is present.
This does not mean this is stress.
These "hassle pressures", you may find difficult to resist.
They are inconvenient, you feel irritated by this kind of pressure.
If someone hassles you at work, they cause problems for you, often by repeatedly telling you or asking you to do something, in an annoying way
They are more difficult to ignore.
Typically, hassle pressures are common during every day: queuing at the supermarket, lost keys, obnoxious co-workers, arguments with friends.
Hassle pressures leave us annoyed, upset or frustrated but always motivated to sort them out.
- Some hassle pressures happen to us every day,.
- Others happen infrequently.
- Some may only slightly affect you, whilst others over time, pressure you a lot more.
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Think about your typical day at work, what pressures do you experience ?
If that is difficult, search out or think about your Job Description (JD), have a read. Do these bullet points, give you some clues ?
Are these descriptions setting out more formally your pressure tasks at work ?
JDs are rigid and limited in regards the scale and range of your job. Job roles are much more dynamic, needing to respond to internal changes happening to a company or the external economic market pressures.
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Out of the blue, an obstacle appears that threatens to sabotage your life, attempts to problem solve are failing, you feel unable to cope with demands being imposed upon you.
As a consequence, a crisis has been "red flagged" by you, and now the pressure you feel is much stronger and forceful.
The urgency to act is a priority. You may it much more difficult to resist this pressure, unlike routine pressure.
Pressure rapidly escalates when something unexpected happens, you do not feel the comfort of a familiar routine but something new is happening for which you are not prepared for.
You rise up to this unknown challenge, it feels natural and OK to tackle this crisis pressure. This crisis could be the result of you growing and responding what is important in your life, such as career development.
The pressure of the crisis could be an urgent need to reflect on your own life's purpose or direction or you have just been hit by a serious accident or medical illness.
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Now, the pressure you feel is at its maximum, it is an emergency situation, but you stay calm and focussed, confident in handling the issue in spite of the need to act quickly.
The uncertainty of the scenario and the need to complete any tasks accurately and successfully is vital. Examples are redundancy, divorce or death of a loved one. Inside, you feel resilient.
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Many understand resilience as bouncing back from adversity, it is more helpful to think about of resilience as drawing on your inner resources, a "reservoir".
It's more like climbing a mountain without a map. You take time, utilise inside strengths and seeking help from people around you.
You may experience setbacks along the way, eventually you reach the top and look back at how far you've come. You understand and accept the bigger picture of this emergency situation.
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Pressure can feel like a challenge you want to overcome. Hassle pressures are inconvenient events that irritate you. Crisis pressure feels much more intense and the desire to overcome that crisis is equally strong. When pressure presents as an emergency, your response is to keep calm and use all those inner resources you have to hand.
Next time I will explore the pressure we experience when a major life events appear in your life.