The Stress of Preparation

How many times in your life have you had a test that you needed to study for, meetings that needed to be prepared for, or just a talk with a friend that had to be done but that you were putting off? I know I have had my fair share of all of them.

So what do we do? We prepare. We study for the big test(for me it was always the night before with a cup of coffee always in hand). We get our research together for the big meeting. We call and set up a time to met our friend and think about what we really want to say. After we have prepared we go over and over the scenarios in our mind. Sometimes they go smoothly, sometimes not so smooth. Either way, we stress.

What I am going to invite you to try is something different. Its is called "prepare, double check, and let it go". So lets take the example of the test at school. We study, then we go over our notes, and then we quiz ourselves. If we feel we know the material, we go on to another activity, if we don't we study some more. That's it, pretty simple.

So we learn to let go. Stress clouds our judgement and causes self doubt. The more you learn to trust yourself, the less stress you will have and the better you will be at any task you needed preparation for. All the resources are there, you just need to be able to access them. To do that, you need a clear head. Learning to let it go gives you that.

Til next time!

Sending you the best,

Dr. John Zipp