With age, comes added responsibilities. Suddenly, work, family, and the desire to grow as a person demand our attention all at the same time and we find ourselves overwhelmed by it all! Personal growth should not be a burden. Here are some tips that can help you deal with stress and optimize your life for personal growth.

1. Focus
To avoid stretching yourself too thin, attend to only one thing at a time. Overhauling your life in one shot only gets you feeling overwhelmed. So, be more selective of your focus. Choose to focus on one thing at a time and your stress levels will decrease.

2. Break-it-down
When huge goals loom on you each day, it can leave you a little overwhelmed and wondering, “How in the world am I going to get there?”. What you can do is break it down to smaller and more realistic goals. Instead of looking to achieve something huge in a year, break that huge goal down to smaller ones where you can focus your energy on month by month or week by week. Each achievement is typically accompanied by relief, joy, motivation to move on to the next step, and a lack of stress

3. Prioritize
We face a myriad of situations each day at the office, at home, on the road, or even within ourselves. Prioritizing is a much-touted solution to stress for a reason - it works. Start the day by determining the "Most Important" tasks on your list. Attend to those, and ignore the rest. If the emails in your inbox are not marked urgent, they can wait. Sorting through your tasks by priority can help you manage your workload and finish what you really have to. Don’t sweat the small stuff.

4. Change your perspective
Stress is a reaction to what a person perceives as a problem. One way to manage the amount of stress you’re facing is to manage your perception of your stressors. Stop yourself there and then, and try to take a different view of your stressors. Stress is the result of a perception - so change it.

5. Take a break
Burnouts are best avoided… so take a breather. Take a walk or close your eyes for a few minutes. You will return to your task with a fresher mind and perspective. Build your immunity to stress by creating a strong support system. Spend time with your loved ones and friends, or curl up with a good book. It is healthy to just completely immerse yourself in relaxation and focus on your personal growth once in awhile. Your work can wait.

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