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Step 5: Redesign
In this final step of our stressaholic recovery process, you will begin to redesign your lifestyle so that it supports your efforts to strategically manage your energy. A big part of this requires setting aside time when you can rest and invest energy back into your system. Merely knowing what to do has never been enough to cause sustainable change. You must have a strategic plan in which you feel confident—one that requires you to make a few small changes at a time to support the growth process. To do this, you start to create a pulse throughout the day by using consistent breaks to refuel energy through nutrition and movement and breaking up your workday into blocks that allow strategic engagement and disengagement.
Creating healthy oscillation requires that we identify rituals that can be implemented at both individual and organizational levels. The biggest problem with most current stress management programs is that they are reactive. In other words, companies use resources to make sure that people can get the help they need if something negative happens as a result of stress. Although this is an important safety net, only a very small percentage of employees use these types of services; oftentimes, significant damage has already been done. However, participants seem more apt to welcome proactive programs that build training and communication around a more global theme of building health and resilience. These initiatives also improve employee morale, because ...
