Focus on journey : Handling Situational Stress

“To achieve great things, two things are needed: a plan and not quite enough time.” - Leonard Bernstein

STRESS !! Everybody experiences stress sometime or other. For some its once in a while, for some regular depending on the stimulants we are surrounded by.

Stress has been a small part and parcel of my career and dance journey, and I thought I had learnt to deal with it. With so much of experience, you think you had gained knowledge of all situations, and you can handle everything. But this time I was wrong.

I recently had a brush with situational stress. The impact of the stress I went through was something at a different scale. Difficulty sleeping, Lightheadedness, concentration problems, were all a part. To the extent, my emotional control was questionable when I snapped at someone. A realization that however experienced you are, sometimes you need to face the challenge. Being prepared does matter.

It all started with me offering to choreograph a theme dance for the Rajyotsava event in our office. Just when I was struggling to get a right dancer, we were told that we needed to present our Unit's core work to our Level 1 leader who was visiting. And this was also planned just a day before the cultural event day. (In fact first stress was, it was planned for the same day , but thanks to my colleagues who were organizing this, they helped me by moving it to previous day). As the head of the unit spanning multiple teams and important topics.

It was important for me to present as many topics the right way. This also needed a choreography, albeit on a different path, to create stories around the products we deliver, get my team members to understand and build around it that can be presented and demoed well to send the right message. Since time was short, we were also under pressure to get the right systems, storyline, speakable content, synchronization together.

On the other hand, my hunt for my 3rd crucial dancer for the theme dance, which was supposed to showcase our state's contribution to classical music and dance was not going well. It was initially decided that I would not be dancing, but only deliver on the research, concept and direction of the dance. After a week's struggle to get a good trained dancer of Kuchipudi, I decided to give a try to train a Bharatanatyam dancer to do Kuchipudi at short notice, which was not working well for both.

Everything adding together was really taking a toll on my mental strength to deal with 2 big events. In case of situational stress resolution, the first advice is generally to be able to say a NO. In this situation, my challenge was I could not say a no to both.

How could I stay prepared for next time?

Identify stressors

Dance is something that helps me eliminate stress when I do it for myself. But here it became a stimulant. Reason being, I didn't have known people in my dance group, I was a creating a new team, and was missing a dancer for one style and I wasn't dancing it. Though the thought was that by my not dancing it would be easier, it actually became difficult, due to the missing dancer and trying to work with a new team at short notice. I was not dancing myself, as I was asked to take up a different role in the event and support our chief guest who is a very famous personality. 

On the other side, we had very little time to create the elaborate demo we had planned. We had to keep the content of the talk short and sharp, to ensure we share right message, and we had many things to cover in the given time period. We were also missing our video expert to quickly work out the final cut of the demo.  

So when under the situation, breathe, and think. Identify your stressors, because only then you can think of ways to eliminate some of them.

Eliminate some stressors

It was clear that I had to let go of some stressors or some things I perceived as opportunity. I had hit a point where I had to either cut down the 3rd dance style which would bring down the beauty of the theme concept, or I had to perform myself. Performing myself meant I let go of the rare chance to be with the chief guest. I decided that my priority was the dance concept. I decided to dance myself, thus eliminating the stress of searching or training someone else. Also, now 3 experienced dancers meant we could work out our pieces individually and only worry about the final group piece.

Instead of running around explaining the final video cut to a new person, I took this up on myself. It helped to ensure the final video of demo came out well as how we were envisioning it, with right content.  (Agree, I was adding work to myself of editing. But in the less time we had, explaining to someone new was not an option for me. I could do the editing during my free time. And being well versed in editing videos, it was easier. I was anyway working on the video for the dance.)

Not everything can be or has to be in your control. Not everything can be done or achieved at the same time. Focus on what you can control. Eliminate what you cannot.

Reach out; gain different perspectives

The biggest help was reaching out to friends/team members and asking for their opinions and suggestions. I reached out to my friend about the decision to dance myself, as I was also worried about how it will be accepted or perceived. And her point of view actually made me realize the opportunity that I was going to miss. It was a rare chance to be with the chief guest which I would miss with my decision, but it was an equally rare chance to perform before such an accomplished artist too. So, there was a positive angle in taking my decision forward. Rest of the perceptions of anyone else really didn't matter.

Opening up and listening to the wiser people around you can make a big difference in your visualization of the outcome you wish. That can in itself eliminate unseen stressors.  

Take support

For the preparation of the demo, I let the team members who came forward to create the first story cut to help drive this further. The other individuals in the team worked out the details of the story and creating first short videos, and were well supported by the seniors of the team. Letting whoever took the initiative to take things forward, even if it seemed small, like working out the time taken by each speaker, clocking time at dry runs, was a huge stress reliever. Thanks to every member of the team who continuously took the inputs I was passing them, and working on it. 

Teamwork, teamwork and teamwork. The binding force behind every triumph. 

Calm down

What I did not do right was calming myself down. Letting my high expectations of the results, define my actions, including the outbursts at times. Being attached to the result meant I was stressed by it. Either of the events, all of us involved had all put in the right effort, and the best we could in the short time and limitations we had. That should have been the only thing to look for, and let the result decide itself.

As the Bhagavad Geeta says, "You have a right to action alone, never to its fruit. Your motivation should not be fruit of action nor should you be attached to inaction." Don't expect too much from the final result. Do you work, and the results will follow. 

 “Stress acts as an accelerator: it will push you either forward or backward, but you choose which direction.” - Chelsea Erieau

Stress is not necessarily bad. Letting stress override your thinking is what makes it bad. 

In this case, my stress was built by my wish to get the best out there. And it meant that even till the last minute, my thought process on both the events was helping me constantly improvise and get the best.

As rightly said by Robert Eliot 

“Rule number one is, don’t sweat the small stuff. Rule number two is, it’s all small stuff.”