[ ]: Bracket Your Problems – Compartmentalizing is Coping
August 19, 2018 | Posted in Leading Hartfully, Living Hartfully | By Gaia Hart
A Gallup poll suggested that four out of ten workers report feeling frequently angry at work. Compartmentalizing your work issues so they don’t overlap into your personal life is an effective strategy to combat stress and save your partnership and family life at home. The same goes for bracketing problems at home to avoid a drain on your creative energies necessary to get your job done at work. Avoid the spillover of disgruntlement from one area to another, and the people around you will be happier too.
Complaining and negative talk can only spiral downward leading away from imaginative solutions. I realize that we are holistic beings and that we cannot completely separate ourselves into two halves and completely set aside our stresses and issues, but we can be keenly aware of how these issues affect our psyche and our energy. Knowing that we would be better off not taking out our work frustrations on our kids, our pets, or our spouse, is a step in the right direction of bracketing our problems and dealing with them in the most productive and effective way and to save others from our stress.
Figure out what you can and cannot control and who could help you deal with your coping strategy. If something is not under your control, bracket it and let it go. If a problem seems too large, separate it into smaller chunks, bracket each piece and then deal with it one portion at a time until the whole problem is solved.
Sometimes we get paralyzed by fear of the unknown, or fear of how to start, or fear of how to cope with our problems. By separating out what we need to do and who needs to be involved, we can better cope with the stress of the situation.