Why Achieve Alpha? Continued
Stress management seminars are as varied as the personalities of the individuals who present them. As mentioned, they all offer a wide range of methods and techniques to help you cope with the idiosyncrasies of your job and the effects your job has on you personally. Should you be interested in starting a seminar of this nature at your work, there are many ways to begin.
Does your work offer medical coverage? If yes, speak to the insurance carrier about how to create stress management seminars. Your local county mental health department should also be helpful. So too are the hundreds of books written on the subject of overcoming stress. Consulting a professional therapist is also a good starting point.
There are dozens of questions you need to be concerned with when considering seminars of this nature. These professionals will help answer many of them for you. However, please keep in mind that after twenty-one years of personal observations, I have seen many of these seminars fail at their goals simply because workers did not utilize the methods and techniques they learned from attending the seminars. Whether they were too busy keeping up with their job responsibilities or did not take the time to incorporate the methods into their daily job routine, it really does not matter. It all boiled down to “out of sight – out of mind”. Stress management seminars can be very beneficial. You are shown techniques that improve both your job performance and quality of life. Put to use what you are shown.
Everyone, at least once a day, seems to visit the break room. Does your break area have comfortable chairs or a sofa for relaxing? What color paint covers the walls? If you enter your break area and the last thing you feel is relaxed, do something about it! Most employees do care about their working conditions and some may be willing to help make changes that would be beneficial for everyone. Take the initiative. A handful of employees on a slow day or perhaps after hours can turn a break room into an area conducive to relaxation. And the long-term benefits of volunteering your time to do this can be remarkable. No longer would you have to sit on metal chairs and look at walls that scream “get back to work”! After all, the employee break room is for you and your fellow employees, right? Approach your employer, share your thoughts about sprucing up the break area and why. Place emphasis on what researchers have found: less stress equals higher productivity. Their response just may surprise you. Need assistance in formulating your approach? Email me at Michael@Mindmachines.com.
Now here is an inexpensive way to put light and sound systems in your break room. Call your local light and sound dealer and explain what you are doing, the reasons for doing it and how it can be of benefit to the dealer (if we have units at work, many will want units at home). If there is no dealer in your area, contact manufacturers. Offer to have questionnaires for employees to fill out that you would be willing to make available to them. This is a huge benefit to manufacturers for a number of reasons. Most important, they need feedback like this to help in their continuing efforts to improve on the sessions and user friendliness of their instruments. I have never talked to a light and sound manufacturer who wasn’t willing to listen and help where they could. Donating equipment is always a possibility. Approach it right and a possibility can turn into a probability. All of you can benefit. But you won’t know until you try.
Copyright: Michael J. Landgraf & Mindmachines.com, Granada Hills, CA. / November, 2012 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be copied or duplicated without prior written approval by Michael Landgraf.
Published by Little Minnie’s Publishing House. ISBN 10: 0966259602. ISBN 13: 978-0966259605. All inquiries pertaining to this book should contact Michael@Mindmachines.com.