The Business Bulletin
How are you coping with stress? If personal development is a process of self-improvement, then I would argue that when it comes to personal development, the most important thing you can do is to find ways to look after your own well-being.
And well-being – both physical and
In terms of what it is, defining
mental – is certainly something that
“well-being” can be problematic as
Opening the “tap” on the stress
we are all becoming more aware
(in academic research) there is no
container – which acts as a safety
of, with a plethora of articles, blogs,
agreed definition of what the term
release valve – relieves the pressure
webinars and the like provided by any
well-being means other than the
and stops you getting to a crisis point.
number of individuals and businesses
assumption that it is “a good thing”.
– my own included. But when talking
The reality is that most people think of
to different people on this subject,
“subjective well-being”, which focuses
I’m often struck that things I take for
on themselves as an individual, and
granted because of the field I work in,
draws on their personal perception
are not at all obvious to others. So for
of what is important in terms of both
this article, I’m going back to basics
physical and mental health.
to consider exactly what well-being is, why it’s important to you, and what you can do to improve it.
In fact, some argue that when
And opening the tap is achieved by doing the things that make you feel good. It’s worth mentioning at this point that you should be aware of unhelpful coping strategies – using alcohol or drugs, or by staying up late to go online rather than get some sleep might make you feel good in
it comes to analysing well-being,
the short-term, but have a detrimental
happiness represents the truest
effect over time. The aim is to build
measure. Equating happiness to
positive habits that make you feel
well-being is a key point, because it
good in the long run. Whilst that all
allows us to be in control of our own
seems simple and straightforward, the
well-being, and boils down to the fact
problem in reality is that when things
that you can increase your well-being
get tough and life starts to overwhelm
by doing things that make you feel
us, we tend to focus on doing the
good. It really is that simple.
things that we feel we “have” to do
The flip side to well-being are all the stresses in life that seek to wear us down. Even more important than the stresses themselves are how you cope with them. When working with people on mental health awareness, we think of how people cope in terms of a stress container (see figure 1). Stresses (whether from work, home
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to look after your own well-being.
(like working late to meet a deadline). In doing so, the things that we “like” to do and make us feel happy are the things that we tend to give up first. Although prioritising tasks and concentrating on the most important jobs at hand is important, ignoring the tap on your stress container will ultimately lead to a problem. And
life, relationships etc) flow into the
it’s a big problem – not only for the
top of the container. In order to stop
individual but for businesses and the
the container overflowing, you need
wider society.
