Are You Creating Your Own Job Stress that May Affect Your Career Planning and Advancement?

When it comes to the idea of work-life balance, we tend to focus primarily on finding ways to make our job less stressful. Many of us believe that reducing the stress we get from our job makes our life better. This is good thinking, of course, but the question is always how you could make your job not stressful. How do you know which aspect of it gives you stress anyway? Is it how you do your career planning? Is it the people you work with? Your boss perhaps? Or your own pursuit of career advancement?

What many of us don’t realize is that they are doing things that create the very stress they want to get rid of. Thus, if you don’t want to suffer any more job stress, you must first know what’s causing them. Listed below are some common tendencies workers have that lead to more stress at work.

1. PROCRASTINATION

If you’re a person who is likely to wait until the last minute to do something important, like to complete a task, it’s no surprise you’re often stressed out! There’s nothing really wrong with waiting, especially if you are given so much time to do an assignment. The problem is that you can never know what other projects or tasks will be assigned to you that will keep you busy for some time. Also, it is possible that the resources you need are not available anymore when you’re about to do your task.

What to do: Do what you have to do the moment you’re asked to do it.

2. OVERWORKING

If you’re really confident about your skills and you tend to take on more than you can actually handle, you’re giving yourself something to stress about. Of course it’s fulfilling to do everything, but it won’t be any fun if it turns out giving you lots of stress.

What to do: Prioritize your work and don’t bite more than you can chew.

3. OVERREACTING  

If someone asks you to do something, do you feel like you have to do it immediately? Stress can be the result of too much pressure, especially if you think that everything you’re asked to do is urgent! You’ve got to learn how to choose which tasks require your immediate attention.

What to do: Ask your supervisor when the assignment is due, and then check your schedule so you may prioritize work accordingly.

4. LACK OF SELF-CONFIDENCE

Many of us feel like they have no right to speak up to the management about anything. While it is often the case in workplaces, it is still important that you know when to speak up and when to not.

What to do: If you feel that you’re being given more work than you can take on, try to approach your immediate supervisor and seek some advice.

Although stress can never be totally eliminated, there are ways you could reduce it so it won’t affect your quality of life, career planning, and career advancement.