Managing Stress Reflection. Management. Reaction Paper

MANAGING STRESS REFLECTION
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Managing Stress Reflection
Moving from London to here to join university was a confusing yet interesting experience. I say confusing because the move presented me with a new opportunity to experience another part of the world, but I was experiencing anxiety and fear like never before. These mixed feelings are what made the move interesting. I was eager to settle down and start a life here, but the fear of the unknown was holding me back.
In addition to university work, I am running a business back at home and the distance does not make it easier. The business is run by me and three other friends, who reside in my home country. As such, the day to day activities are run by the other three partners, but I have to be involved in the decision-making of the business being that I am one of the partners. I am mostly involved in strategizing, filing of returns, and keeping records of accounting information. Sometimes conflict arises and this places a strain on my life. Up until last month, I did not know how to deal with the stress. I did not even fully understand the stressors and how they were affecting me, all I know is that I was feeling exhausted and temperamental all the time.
Key Sources of Stress
October 1st
During the course of our class on developing management skills, I was able to understand that there are four key sources of stress. After class, I went through the work of Whetten and Cameron (2016) to further understand the sources and that’s when I started writing a journal to assess my sources of stress. I realized that I was experiencing a high workload, especially from school work, due to group work and assignments, which is more than what I was used to before moving from London. As a result of this workload, I was losing control of the business back home and my partners were complaining due to my low participation in the business.
Reflection: Going through Whetten and Cameron (2016) work made me understand that what I was experiencing is referred to as time stressors, which is one of the common sources of stress. I had a lot of school work to finish within a short time period, and I had to create time for face time with my partners back at home to get updates on the progress of the business, which required regular updates. Now that I understood that this type of stressors results in tension, I was able to assess and make sense of my fatigue. I also became aware that time stressors are more prevalent in the U.S. due to the short time horizon.
October 2nd
I had an argument with my partners over missed meetings and incomplete reports. While I knew that I had failed on my part, I still wanted to blame someone or something else. I wondered why my partners could not understand that I was going through a lot and juggling between school and business was not easy, and the moment I mentioned this an argument ensued. I wanted them to be understanding and stop putting pressure on me, yet when we started the business, I had promised them my full commitment and availability when called upon. After the argument, we stayed for a while without taking and I realized that our business could not survive if nothing was done, on my part, to at least bring back the peace. When I finally received a report on the business performance, the results were not very encouraging as profits had gone down.
Reflection: I took some time to think about the argument and determine the best solution to deal with it and avoid future confrontation under a similar situation. I realized that this kind of confrontation did not only affect my school and personal life, it also affected our business, keeping in mind that my partners were also my long-time friends. Again, I went through Whetten and Cameron (2016) and I learned that the source of this confrontation was what is referred to as encounter stressors, the second key source of stress. The interaction with my partners had reduced as a result of the confrontation and there was some air of mistrust and disappointment surrounding our interaction. As a result, business productivity had declined, which I learned is one of the consequences of encounter stressors.
October 3rd
My move from London could have been a source of stress by itself because it presented some changes in my life that were rapid. The initial phase after the move involved a lot of rapid changes that involved adapting to the new country and culture and missing my old place of residence, all of which came with unexpected emotions that were sometimes extreme. While these changes do not compare to rapid changes accompanied by loss of a loved one or an illness, they still brought with them some relevant amount of stress on my life. I was also experiencing fear of the unknown because I did not know my success chances in a new country. I had to think about making good grades in my university work, and the anxiety resulting from the pressure of being successful in a foreign country was too much. Further, I was also afraid of failing, as an entrepreneur, because running a business while miles away was not an easy thing to do. It didn’t matter that I had partners back at home managing the business, I had a part to play in its success and the fear of failure crippled me.
Reflection: I understood that this fear resulted from anticipatory stress, something that I used to think could only occur if an individual was anticipating something severely bad. It turns out that even the fear of failure or embarrassment is also an anticipatory stressor, something that I discovered during my review of Whetten and Cameron book.
Coping with stress
October 5th
Understanding and managing stress became an intriguing topic for me. I, therefore, decided to look up for more information on stress and during the course of my research, I came across an article by Deasy, et al. (2014), which explained that for most higher education students, some of the major determinants of stress are high workload, finances, and school exams. This resonated well with me because these aspects have also affected my life, leading to a high-stress level. Further, understanding the key sources of stress was the first step towards managing my stress. I decided to apply some of the mechanisms of coping with stress as prescribed by Whetten and Cameron (2016). I learned about the reactive, enactive and proactive strategies that can be applied to cope with stress. Some of the stress I was going through required some of the coping strategies that would lead to immediate results. This was especially important if I was to reinforce my relationship with my partners after confrontations in line with our business back at home.
Reflection: I applied some reactive strategies to cope with the encounter stressors that were not only affecting me as an individual but was also affecting my business and partnership. According to Whetten and Cameron (2016), reactive strategies produce immediate, short-term results One of the reactive strategies I applied was taking deep breaths whenever a confrontation ensued, not only with my business partners but also with my fellow students, and with the people I interacted with on a daily basis. The results of this were immediate because deep breaths allowed me to relax and as a result, I was able to measure my words and reduce the probability of the other person (s) reacting to my words negatively. This strategy was specifically helpful during an encounter with a security guard with whom I had a poor interpersonal connection and on this particular day, our interaction was very cordial. Further, even after a confrontation with one of my business partners over poor performance, I found that deep breaths helped me cope with the stress immediately.
While doing this assignment, I also applied a reactive strategy. I know that assignments will be part of the overall grade and to cope with the stress of making good grades, I used the imagery and fantasy mechanism prescribed by Whetten and Cameron (2016). Through this mechanism, I pictured myself scoring high in this assignment. The images on my head were also motivating because as much as I was imagining good results, I also wanted it to be a reality. As a result, my stress due to the assignment reduced, albeit for a short period of time.
October 8th
While doing this assignment after a busy day of classwork and late meetings with my partners through Skype, I realized that there is no getting rid of school work or my business. Assignments, class work and exams are a permanent part of being a student. Since this aspects are also determinants of stress as indicated by Deasy, et al. (2014), the only solution for me was to be proactive. Further, my business had to remain operational and it is not something I could eliminate.
Reflection: I applied some of the proactive mechanisms that are long-term and require developing resiliency to handle stressful situations. While addressing stress arising from university work, I focused on approaching the work and assignments as a new experience that would challenge me to be better and increase my learning experience. As a result, I did not feel threatened by assignments and exams, but rather, I felt challenged and in control of my school life. The new approach to assignments as a learning opportunity gave me the resiliency I needed to get through assignments and classwork such that in the end, I did not feel stressed as in the previous sessions.
The stress arising from running a business miles away was also addressed through a proactive strategy. The business I ran back at home, Myanmar, is one of a kind, providing premium services to men. As I reflected on the business and the number of people who have benefited from the services we offer, I found new meaning in the business. Finding meaningfulness in work is one of the strategies provided by Whetten and Cameron (2016) to increase individual resilience to stressful situations. Applying this strategy helped me appreciate the work we are doing back home and I can say that the stress of trying to manage it while miles away reduced. I decided that from then henceforth, instead of thinking about the demands of the job, I will think about the impact of the business back home, which has been helpful in managing stress.
Further, I decided that accepting responsibility on my part when the business was not doing well was the right move. This was especially important given our time-zone difference with my partners, which meant that everything had to be scheduled and failure to be available as agreed would disrupt the daily operations of the business.
Management Strategies for Eliminating Stressors
October 11th
The fear of failure has always been lingering around me, and I seem to be always on the rush to meet a deadline. On this particular day, I got news from my partners that we were short on capital for business expansion and we may not be able to take advantage of a business opportunity that we had come across. The plans of opening a new branch in the other end of town had been there for a while and our chances of grabbing the opportunity were dwindling each day. Thus, when news came that we were short on capital, I was overwhelmed with fear of failing. This further increased the fear of failing in other aspects of my life, especially school work, and I became determined to eliminate these anticipatory stressors. One of the strategies for elimination proposed by Whetten and Cameron (2016) is goal setting, which involves setting a short-term goal to focus on an action that can be achieved within a short time.
Reflection: Goal Setting Strategy as an Elimination Strategy
I decided that in order to eliminate the stress of the anticipated failure in expanding our business due to capital shortage, I had to come up and focus on a solution that would provide the remaining capital. I set out to look for an investor, someone who had an interest with kind of business we were doing back home, and with enough money to supplement our savings to start off the expansion. Once I knew what the goal was, I set to take actions that would lead me closer to the goal.
October 12th
The first thing I did was talk to my partners who were to help me in identifying potential investors. We agreed to limit the geographical location to my home country, where the business was. I made several calls to my network of associates and friends back home. Second, I decided to embark on writing a business plan that would be given to the identified potential investors. This second action was to be achieved within a week’s time, and I had my business partners as my accountability partners too to ensure that the goal was achieved. Together with my partners, we also established indicators that we would use to determine whether the goal was achieved. Some of those indicators were a list of potential investors and a well-written business plan. The overall indicator was having an investor on board and on time.
October 15th
Having a short-term goal for the business actually diverted my mind from the present problem of capital shortage and as a result, I was under no stress. This prompted me to set a goal for my school work. The thought of failing in school was always reactivated when I was handling a challenging ass...