Work can be a stressful place.  If you find yourself excessively tired and easily irritable, it could be due to stress at work.  Perhaps it’s draining you to the point where you can’t even enjoy your time after work because you’re too exhausted to do the things you want to do.  Here are a few tips to help you reduce your stress and live a little easier.

Things To Do At Work

• Arrive on time.  In fact, arrive a little earlier if you can.  If you allow yourself the opportunity to either have a few quiet moments to yourself or even get going on a pending project before others show up to interrupt you, your day can be a little easier.
• Add personality to your workspace.  Bring a few pictures that make you smile, set up a plant or two, or post a few witty sayings by your computer.  Making your space reflect you can make it more comfortable and inviting to work in.
• Avoid negative people.  You probably work with someone who does nothing but complain.  There’s one in every crowd, and you’ve probably played into their whining and even joined in.  Try not to match their emotion.  A positive attitude can go a long way.
• Smile and be happy!  There’s always going to be something to worry or complain about.  If it’s not one thing, it’s another.  But if you smile, crack jokes, and laugh, your mood will be lifted, making it easier to push through the difficult projects.  Even a brief fake smile or laugh can usually trigger a real one, releasing endorphins and happy hormones into your body.  Hang onto them!
• If something has become upsetting, don’t let yourself explode immediately.  Try to stay calm.  Breathe deeply—if you try to breathe through your nose only, it can force you to take slower breaths.  Take a brief break if necessary.  Get up and walk around, head outside, and just get away for a moment.  You’ll give yourself time to clear your thoughts, and you might even return with a plan and feel less overwhelmed.
• Work on your time management skills.  Try to plan your day, and take projects one step at a time.  It’s easier to stay focused if you hone in on only one thing and block out the rest until you get there.
• Say no.  If you’re truly swamped, it’s okay to refuse to help on someone else’s project.  Just do it nicely: “I’d love to help, but I just have too much on my plate right now.”  Practice saying no if you have to, especially if you know you’re always saying yes and then regretting it.

Things To Do At Home

• Get enough sleep.  This one is always tough, especially when you have a busy schedule.  But if you can make some adjustments so that you can get enough sleep, you’ll have the energy you’re supposed to have in the morning.
• Eat right.  You can (and should) even make this a task at work, too.  Greasy and processed foods do not provide the right kind of calories and energy for your body.  In fact, try being strict about eating well for just one week.  You’ll notice quite a difference if you try to eat a sugary snack or greasy burger in the following weeks.  You won’t feel as good as if you had chosen something like a piece of fruit or a homemade sandwich on whole grain bread.  Instead, you’ll feel your food sitting like a rock in your stomach, and you’ll feel sluggish.
• Work out on a regular basis.  Even just twenty minutes of exercise a few times a week can increase your energy levels.  It may sound backwards, since you’re expending energy while working out, but you will notice a boost in your energy as your endurance level increases.  If you can increase the amount of time you can work out, even better.  Find a program that you enjoy and can easily stick to, whether it’s a simple morning walk or an intense cardio dance exercise video.
• Avoid alcohol and nicotine.  It’s common to view these as relaxation tools, but they’re really doing damage to your body and your health, and it’s having an impact on your energy and stress levels at work.  Having a drink as a regular way to unwind after work can lead to dependency and abuse (not to mention, it’s ruining that healthy diet you just adopted).  And while many people look to smoking to calm their nerves, nicotine is actually a stimulant, working to increase your anxiety level.

While all of these steps can help you, don’t create more stress on yourself by feeling like you have to attempt all of them at once.  If you think you can easily work through them all, go for it, but don’t be afraid to take them one step at a time if necessary.  Happy relaxing!

If you were a millionaire, life would be pretty easy, wouldn’t it?  If you’re like me, right now you’re thinking of all of the things you could buy and all of the bills you could pay off in one shot.  You’d be debt-free and living the good life.  It probably seems out of reach, but really, there’s not much difference between you and them.  A millionaire simply thinks like a millionaire.

It doesn’t matter the path you choose to reach this goal.  Maybe you’re aiming for a nice retirement, or maybe you’re starting a business and you’d like to live comfortably within the next few years.  Maybe you want to be an actual millionaire, or maybe you’d like the flexibility to quit your job and pursue a hobby full-time.  You have to start by believing that it’s possible.  Redirect your thinking, change your perspective, etc.  If you begin by expecting failure, guess what?  You’re probably going to fail.  A positive attitude has a much bigger effect than you might think.

Avoid negativity as much as possible.  Ignore and stay away from people who are determined to convince you that failure is inevitable.  Some people simply carry those thoughts with them and would rather not see other people succeed and move on to better things.  You can’t let anyone or anything convince you that it’s not possible to reach your goals.

You’re going to have to invest time and energy, and lots of it.  Not that you need to spend every waking moment stressing out over how to reach your goal, but you’re going to have to devote a significant amount of your time into the process.  And you will run into bumps and small failures.  Learn from it and continue.  Perhaps the incident will spark an idea for a better and easier way to reach your goal.  If you view even the negative moments as opportunities rather than obstacles, it will be easier to stay on the path.

Change your thinking to long-term.  Unless you win the lottery tomorrow, it’s going to take time to build up your wealth.  Don’t set unattainable short-term goals; you’ll only set yourself up for disappointment.  Set your goals far enough away that you’ll have time to take all the necessary steps to get there.  If short-term goals make it easier for you to stay on track, be sure to keep them reasonable.  Stick to your deadline, but don’t be discouraged if you find it’s going to take a little longer to fulfill once you get to that day.

Finally, make sure you’ve chosen the path to wealth that you’re passionate about.  If you’re really not interested in being a business owner, then that’s not the way for you to become a millionaire.  Maybe a high-interest savings account would be the way to go.  Find a way that works for you and that can help you reach your goals by the time you’d like to.  If you follow your passion, the path will be easier to stick to.

The idea of becoming an entrepreneur can be intimidating.  You might feel like you’ll be in this by yourself, and what if you fail?  The key is to think big but start small.  Nothing will happen overnight.  It’s going to take a lot of work, but if you follow steps like these, the process can be much easier.

• Start with your idea.  Does it have potential?  What will your start-up costs be?  What about overhead in the future?  How much time will you need to invest to get things off the ground?  Who is your market?  Do they want what you’re selling?
• If you’re having trouble thinking of a good idea, try thinking of a bad one.  If you can see what won’t work, it may be easier to view the opposites to find what would.  Try to meet a need, and don’t over-think it.  The simplest solution is usually the best one.  If you find a need to meet but aren’t sure how well your solution would be received, consider one definition of selling: convincing people that they need or want something that they didn’t know they needed.  Can you do that with your product or service?
• Don’t get overwhelmed by your idea and all of the surrounding questions!  There’s an easy way to settle in and find your answers, and that’s by creating a business plan.  You should go as in-depth as possible regarding every aspect of your business, but there’s no need to create a 50-100 page document (unless you’re going to apply for a bank loan for funding).  You’ll find yourself forced during this process to answer questions you may not think of at the start.  One detail will open up a new question, and you’ll want to know the answer.  Plus, writing everything down, especially goals, will give you a better chance of success.
• Know that you are not alone.  Go networking, attend seminars and conferences, and talk to people.  You’ll encounter entrepreneurs who are just starting out like you and others who have been at it long enough to offer you some sound advice and possible help.  You never know; that person behind you in the checkout lane might be the best mentor for you, and you won’t know it if you never open your mouth.
• Keep your work ethic strong.  You’ll only get out what you put in.  Start part-time if you need to; you won’t be raking in the millions right away, perhaps not even for a few years.  So don’t quit your day job if you know you won’t be able to survive financially without it yet, and focus all of your free time on your business.  Once it grows, you can take the next step into running it full-time.  Try not to get discouraged by any failures or slow times.  It’s inevitable.  Learn from it, talk to contacts and mentors, and keep going.
• Another simple but great piece of advice is to READ.  Chalene Johnson, a personal favorite entrepreneur and motivator, suggests in her blog that reading is the key to succeeding at anything, business or otherwise.  Pick up books and magazines and check out websites and blogs and the like.  You’ll learn about other people who have been in the same boat and have been kind enough to pass on details of their journeys and what they learned from their successes, failures, and other people.  And you don’t have to stick purely to business material.  Motivational, self-help, spiritual, and comedic books can all help you, and of course the list doesn’t stop there.  Think you don’t have time?  Make time.  Find time.  There’s probably at least a few minutes in between daily duties where you can pick up and read a few pages.  (The Kindle from Amazon comes highly recommended, as you can download and store numerous books at once and read on the go.  If you’re exceptionally busy, this can be extremely helpful.)

As you may suspect, I recommend checking out Chalene Johnson’s blog at www.chalenejohnson.blogspot.com.  She may be a fitness personality, but her passion lies in motivating others in all aspects of life.  In her July 16, 2009 blog, “Become the Smartest Person You Know,” you’ll find her advice on how reading will help you reach your goals.  Also, www.toiletpaperentrepreneur.com is a very interesting site, with more advice than I had time to read!  (I know, I know…I’m not listening to my own advice.  But my article had a deadline!)