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5 Getting OVER it: Strategies to conquer stress and money worries

First off, I needed to get a grip! For the short run, I had to find ways to cope immediately with whatever was making me feel so stressed out it was making me sick. Once that situation was under control, I needed a long-run strategy that would allow me to keep a lid on the angst and also to deal with new stresses that naturally arise.

At the outset, I decided to list the things that were bugging me and try to put them in perspective. What did I imagine was driving me up the wall? Which of those issues were real, major problems, and which were just ditzy annoyances? And one way or another, what could I do about it?

I brainstormed every irritant I could think of, no matter how minor or goofy it seemed, listed them all in a table, tried to assess the seriousness of each one, and added a few ideas for how to cope. WordPress won’t insert this PDF, so click the link below to see the result of that first step:

Aggravating Issues

Thanks to this exercise, I now could see which bugabears were real “monsters” and which were minor issues that could be ignored or put on the back burner. About the mess in Dave’s yard, for example, I realized I needed to mellow out and appreciate Dave for what he is: a big, sweet, good-natured slob. If I let the shrubbery grow so my front window looked out onto a garden with a tall green backdrop, I couldn’t see his rusty junk, anyway! And the unmuffled engine racket from the local Hell’s Angel and the roar of the cop helicopters are just the trade-off for living in a centrally located single-family home with a big yard and a pool that I can afford: to get myself into a blight-free in-town neighborhood, I’d have to resign myself to a one-bedroom condo with a view of the parking lot. So, the conclusions:

1. Get a grip! Quit gnashing teeth over small stuff.
2. Come up with some workable ways to deal with the issues that really do matter.

How this all played out…

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