“How to take

control over stress”

with Mirian B Sanchez

www.mirianbsanchez.com

Here is how we will role

– 40 min. live workshop

– 30 min. is valuable coaching

– Plus Q&A Session

– Follow by recording of workshop

What do you need?

– Pen

– Paper

– Be in a place you feel comfortable and relax and nobody

can interrupt you

Who am I?

Well-being is what I strive for in life

What we are going to cover today

– What “locus of control” is and types

– The conexion between your locus of control and your ability to cope.

– 1 x coaching exercises to discover your locus of control

– 1 x coaching exercise to take control over stress

– Create during the length of this coaching webinar a ‘’thinking environment’’

What is ‘’locus of control”?

– The term “Locus of control” refers to where we feel the

control lies in our lives. It refers to our beliefs about how

much control we have over our life situations.

– Our locus of control can be external or internal.

External & Internal Locus of Control

– Someone with an EXTERNAL locus of control believes that most of what happens to them is controlled by fate, chance and by other people, and that they can have little or no influence on a situation. Externally controlled individuals can feel powerless and tend to blame themselves.

– Someone with an INTERNAL locus of control believes that they have control over what happens to them, through their decisions and actions. They feel grater responsibility for what they experience. They don’t so much blame themselves for what goes wrong, they analyze their role in the situation and they can make adjustments to avoid a similar circumstance in the future.

Case Study – David & Kate

– David and Kate have worked long and hard to accomplish a goal that was important to them. The goal was to be selected for an assignment that would give them valuable work experience and responsibilities related to a future career. There was a lot of competition for the job but they had both been selected as finalists. After weeks of effort and preparation, each of them had just been told that he or she was not selected for this important assignment. This is what they each said to themselves immediately after hearing the disappointing news.

Case Study – David & Kate

– David: “It was just bad luck. I tried as hard as I could but there was nothing I could do. It’s not fair! This sort of things happens sometimes and all I can do is accept the situation and maybe look for another opportunity in the future, But it’s so darn discouraging to be so disappointed after all the work I put into preparing for this job”

– Kate: There must have been something I can do differently. I thought I have done all I could but, obviously, it wasn’t quite enough this time. I need to find out what I can do to improve any chances next time. I don’t believe the person they selected was any better qualified than I was. I’ve just have to figure out a better or different way to present myself the next time.”

David & Kate – Reflection Questions

– What do you notice is the key difference in the characteristic ways

that David & Kate respond to the news that they were not

selected?

– Which one of them do you think is going to be more likely to feel

depressed and anxious over the disappointing news?

The conexion between your locus of

control and your ability to cope.

– An internal locus of control is related to many positive outcomes, such as well-being, job satisfaction, job performance and lower levels of work-related stress. In turn, individuals that have a more external locus of control and believe that outcomes are controlled by luck or others are more susceptible to stress, emotional exhaustion and have lower organizational commitments. And these three elements are directly related to burnout.

– You feel less stress and more peaceful when you feel you are in control of your life. Feeling in control is also associated to higher optimism, self-esteem and ability to tolerate pain, ambiguity and stress.

– The good news is that we can learn to develop your internal locus of control and you can learn to apply coping mechanisms to deal with your day to day life events and situations. We will learn one in this session but first, you need to discover what your locus of control is.

Coaching exercise

– There are not right or wrong answers.

– The exercise is only for yourself and results won’t be share.

– For change to happen in your life, you first need to understand yourself. And self-understanding begins with self-observation. t’s important that you see this exercise as a tool to help you start observing and understanding your behavior and beliefs. Don’t beat yourself up. Be kind to yourself. The first step to change is understanding.

– It’s essential that you are as honest as you can be.

– Don’t think too much or take too long

Locus of Control

– I’m going to ask you 10 questions.

– You need to rate the degree to which you agree or

disagree, as follows: SA–1, A-2, D-3, SD–4

– If you strongly agree with the statement choose 1. If you

strongly disagree with the statement choose 4.

– Something like this:

LOCUS OF CONTROL SA A D SD

1.- Our society is run by a few people with a lot of power and there is not much the ordinary person can do about it.

1 2 3 4

2.- Success hinges on being at the right place at the right time 1 2 3 4

3.- There will always be conflict in the world, however hard people work to stop it. 1 2 3 4

4.- There is no point in voting, it won’t change anything 1 2 3 4

5.- Everything which happens in life is predestined 1 2 3 4

6.- It’s a waste of time trying to change people, they will always stay the same 1 2 3 4

7.- Whether I work hard or not it won’t make any difference to how others assess my performance

1 2 3 4

8.- Leaders are born not made 1 2 3 4

9.- Luck and chance play a key role in life 1 2 3 4

10.- Most of what happens in life is controlled by forces that we do not understand and can’t control

1 2 3 4

Locus of Control

– 1.- Our society is run by a few people with a lot of

power and there is not much the ordinary person

can do about it.

– 1 – SA, 2 – A, 3 – D, 4 - SD

Locus of Control

– 2.-Success hinges on being at the right place at

the right time

Locus of Control

– 3.- There will always be conflict in the world,

however hard people work to stop it.

Locus of Control

– 4.-There is no point in voting, it won’t change

anything

Locus of Control

– 5.- Everything which happens in life is

predestined

Locus of Control

– 6.- It’s a waste of time trying to change people,

they will always stay the same

Locus of Control

– 7.- Whether I work hard or not it won’t make any

difference to how others assess my performance

Locus of Control

– 8.- Leaders are born not made

Locus of Control

– 9.- Luck and chance play a key role in life

Locus of Control

– 10.- Most of what happens in life is controlled by

forces that we do not understand and can’t

control

Locus of Control

– People who score mostly 1 and 2 are said to have a high external locus of control, believing that what happens to them is largely outside their control and is largely directed by outside agents such us luck or fate.

– People who score mostly 3 or 4 are said to have a high internal locus of control, believing they have control over what happens through their own decisions and actions.

– In order for any form of significant change to happen in your life, you need to have an appropriate level of belief that you have an internal locus of control.

– The good news is that you can develop your internal locus of control.

Approach to develop a greater

internal locus of control

– The main approach to develop a greater internal locus of control is to realize that you always have a choice, even if you choose to do nothing or don’t like the choices in front of you, and even if that choice is limited to how you interpret an event.

– It is within your power to apply coping techniques to deal with our day to day life situations, not matter how difficult or unpleasant those situations are.

– Coaching sessions are the most effective approach to develop a greater internal locus of control and learn coping mechanism to build resilience.

– Today, I’m going to share with you a powerful problem-focused coping technique to take control over stress.

Coaching Exercise – Stress Log

– You’re going to do a stress log: Write down everything that is stressing you out.

– Why? Because:

• Because writing it down, you get out of you all your stress demons. You get them out of your head and down to the paper. This opens the door for you to deal with your stress strategically instead of leaving it in your head or in your body.

• Because in the moment we write down what exactly is stressing us out all of the sudden that big thing that is stressing us out starts to become smaller than it was, while in our heads.

• Because you can take action. Right there on the paper you can start working out the strategies you can take to solve the problem.

• It gives you power: knowing that you have a specific place to write down your stresses and that you have a system to deal with them, gives you a sense of power and strength.

Coaching Exercise – Stress Log

– The idea is to identify the things that are stressing you out in your life, instead of feeling that your whole life is so stressful.

– When something stresses you out, write it down in the stress log. And while you write it down feel that you own it and that it can’t stress you out anymore. Self-understanding begins with self-observation.

– Keeping a stress log is an effective way to discover patterns and emotional stress and the strategies we can implement to deal with what is stressing us out.

– The stress log looks something like this:

Description of what is stressing me out

Date & Time of day

Where?Doing what?With whom?

What thoughts or feelings did I have?

What did I do in response to the stress

Identify 3possible solutions that would help me to solve/deal with this.

1

2

3

4

5

6

Home-work

– I encourage you to experiment with your own stress log. You can do it on

paper or digital or in your notebook. It doesn’t matter. But I’ll email you a

template after this webinar. Writing it down will give you the feeling that

you can do something about it. Whether you find a permanent solution

or you need to change your attitude or approach.

– Do your best to be as specific and detailed as possible.

– And remember: You are in charge of your life and have control over what

happens to you. And in the situations when you don’t have the control of

what happens to you, you can always choose how to respond.

Special Gift

– And now I’d like you to congratulate yourself for investing this 40 minutes in you. I do believe that Investing in ourselves is the best investment that we can do. And just because of that and because I love action takers, I’m going to give you a special gift:

– 30 minutes online/phone coaching session with me.

– After this webinar, I’ll email you a link to my calendar for you to book the session.

**This special gift is only for the people who have made it live to the coaching webinar.

Q & A’s

Thank you