Financial Holiday Stress

Some, if not most of us feel a financial pinch during the Holidays. Stress seems to be a constant companion. At a recent webinar on Time Management put on by Day-Timers, Inc., there was a brief section on stress, control, and events that I found helpful and you may too.

Stress occurs when there is high demand for something and you have low control (control meaning to be able to have power or influence over something) over it. For example, in a work setting you have little control over your boss and he can have high demand over you which equals stress!

Now, there are situations where we just have to grin and bear stress, other times we can take action. There are actually five conditions of events – and we need to know which condition we are in so we can take appropriate measures to reduce stress. The five conditions are:

1. There are events you cannot control–we need to learn to adapt to reduce stress.
2. There are events we think we cannot control, but we can–we need to change our mindset and take control over the situation.
3. There are events we think we can control but we do not–we need to be proactive and take control.
4. There are events we think we can control, but we cannot–we need a reality check and realize that we cannot control everything we would like to.
5. There are events we can control–so we need to take action.

So in regard to our holiday financial stress – what events are causing this stress? Is it self-inflicted or is it caused by outside forces? Which area above (1-5) would you place this event? Can you do something about it? Do you need to adapt? Do you need to take charge?

I find that a lot of times we place blame on others or events when in reality we could take charge. A lot of our stress, especially financially, is self-induced (there are exceptions of course). Let’s be more proactive this Holiday season, take a look at what causes us financial stress, and take the aprropriate action or if need be change our way of thinking.