by Dr. Claire Hayes, Consultant Clinical Psychologist
Do you remember the ‘Safe Cross Code’? It encouraged us to stop, look and listen before we crossed the road. That important advice can be applied to many things, including your role as a HR Manager.
Stop.
That is often easier said than done. Stop what? Stop when? Stop how? You are the person who can best answer those questions for you. The truth is that if we don’t stop voluntarily, circumstances will force us to do so. Remember the powerful words of Emily Dickenson: ‘Because I could not stop for death, he kindly stopped for me.’
Stop what? Bob Newhart has a wonderful sketch focused on ‘Stop it’ which you can watch on You Tube
Before we can ‘stop it’, we need to know what we want to stop. Each of us have habits that are warning signs, if we pay attention to them. How do you know that you are experiencing too much stress in your life? Do you start doing more, promising more and achieving less? Do you speak faster? Do you eat more, drink more and exercise less? Do you compare yourself unfavourably to practically everyone else? Do you catastrophise and lose perspective? Do you beat yourself up harshly if everything is not perfect? Do you snap at others and resent them for making you feel bad? Do you dig into your own comfort zone more? Do you do more, more and more for other people in an attempt to gain some sort of control, confidence and a sense of well-being? Are your sleep and energy levels affected? Do you want to at least slow down but find yourself constantly speeding up?
If you have noticed yourself doing any of those behaviours, maybe it is time to stop, even for a few moments. Stop.
Now, look.
Look at how your life is right now. Is it how you expected it to be? Is it how you want it to be? Look carefully at the various things you do to make yourself feel good. Are they working for you right now? Do they give you a sense of ‘feeling OK’ in the short-term while storing up problems for the future? Look at the impact your actions are having on other people. Are they concerned about you? Do they notice that you are even a tiny bit under pressure or have you hid your challenges so that they are oblivious to your struggles? Are they continuing to expect more from you than you are able to give right now?
Look at your own body. Are you able to breathe in and out simply and easily? Look at your own home. Is it nurturing and welcoming for you? Look at your relationships with your colleagues? Do you enjoy meeting them or is every conversation an occasion of more pressure for you to carry, more tasks for you to do and more responsibilities for you to hold? Look at when you last had an easy, fun time with friends. Look at the dreams you had. Where have they gone? Look at the dreams and plans you have for your future. Do they give you a deep sense of joy or do they seem too unrealistic right now?
Look at how you look at yourself and your life. Do you do so with gentleness, kindness, understanding and compassion or do you berate yourself savagely?
Listen.
When we are experiencing too much stress, the last thing we might want to do is listen. How do you react when someone walks up to you and starts a sentence with ‘Listen’. We might immediately interpret that as that person thinks that ‘we aren’t listening’, ‘we don’t listen’ and/or ‘we should listen’. In times of stress being told or even asked to do something as simple as ‘listen’ can be too much.
When you listen to others, what do you hear? Do you tend to hear their words as supportive or as critical? Do you misinterpret what others are saying or immediately take it to be true? Do you tend to ignore kind words and listen for what you could have done better?
Do you hear what you say to yourself? Can you listen to your inner dialogue and hear its tone? Is it supportive and encouraging or is sarcastic and judgemental?
Are you good at listening to your own wisdom? Your deep sense of knowing what is right and what is wrong? Your gut instinct? This is something that we can practice and become better at.
Before:
As children we were advised to stop, look and listen before we crossed the road. As adults it might be enough to remember to, ‘Stop, look and listen, before.’
Stop, look and listen before you are forced to stop through illness, a grievance complaint or another of life’s unexpected challenges.
Think of yourself in a difficult situation at work and it is your job to somehow sort it out. Take a moment to stop, look at how you are perceiving the situation and listen to your own instinct before you say something. Now take another moment to stop, look at how you think the other person may be perceiving the situation and listen to what they are not saying as well as to what they are saying.
Stop to pause and breathe slowly. Look at the opportunities as well as the risks. Listen to what you hear as opposed to what you think you hear.
As always, the better able you are to recognise and manage your own stress, the better able you are to support others to recognise and manage their own stress.
That’s why an essential stress management strategy is to stop, look and listen before.
About the author
Dr. Claire Hayes is passionate in the areas of coping, prevention and resilience. Her
interest in helping people cope with stress dates back to research she carried out in
the Irish Management Institute in 1988 on how people cope. Her two Masters
degrees and her PhD expanded on this work, exploring further the areas of stress,
coping, prevention and resilience.
Claire continues to build on her combined forty plus years of training and experience as a clinical psychologist, lecturer, executive coach, author and teacher to help individuals, groups and organisations to understand the particular nature of their stressors and to apply evidence-based psychological principles to help them cope with these. Claire has written widely on how to help people cope with stress and has become a regular contributor to Irish national media including current affairs television and radio programmes and national press. Her fifth book, ‘Enjoy Work: Enjoy Life – A Practical Guide’, which is due to be published in the Spring of 2025, will be an invaluable resource for HR Directors and Managers.
If you are interested in Claire working with you and/or your Company to develop
your resources to manage stress well, you can contact her at info@drclairehayes.ie
