Stress occurs when you're not in control, when outside events are driving you instead of you driving events. Much of this book so far has been about trying to get to a situation where you are in control; where the uncertainty and guesswork surrounding your project have been reduced to a minimum, and where you know you have done all that can be done at any particular point. In Chapter 15 we looked at ways of overcoming problems and difficulties that might be causing you stress. All of the techniques presented in that chapter should cause a significant reduction in your stress levels. However, even the bravest of us are still prone to anxiety, worry, stress, and so this chapter talks about some other things you can do. In general these things won't remove the cause of the stress “ it is up to other parts of this book to do that for you. What the methods in this chapter will do will be to change your attitude to the issue in question, and hopefully reduce your anxiety about it. Here's a quote to set the tone of this chapter.
With this idea in our back pocket, this chapter looks at twelve ways of reducing and controlling stress. |