The Crazy Simple Stress-Busting Tool You’re Not Using (Yet)

This look is pretty, but it’s painful. Y’all don’t know what we go through here. My legs turned blue and sh-

Hey it’s Marie Forleo, and you are watching MarieTV, the place to be to create a business and life you love. And today I want to let you in on a little trick that I’ve been using to completely obliterate stress. Now, to give credit where credit is due, this is all thanks to my man Josh. So earlier this year we were in LA and it was really, really warm out. I mean, it wasn’t just nice. It was Marie warm, I’m talking flip flop weather.

Anyway, I was pacing around and I was venting about something stressful that was happening in our business. Now, my venting is usually pretty loud and it’s R rated. So when I got off the phone, Josh naturally asked, “Is everything okay?” And I said, “You know what? Everything is amazing except for this one little thing that’s causing us so much stress and taking up so much time and it’s driving me bonkers.” Now, my man Josh knows me really well and he also knows I’m a problem solver and I love a doable. So he gave me one. He said, “You know what Marie? You should keep a stress log.” And I said, “Hmm. Go on.” He said, “You know, you should write down everything that’s stressing you out. You should make a list,” because he also knows I love to make lists. So immediately I knew this stress log idea was genius. And here’s four reasons why.

Number one, it’s cathartic. So you’ve heard of exorcisms, right? Well, this is a way to give yourself an instant stressorcism. You get to purge all of your stress demons out of your head and down onto the page. And it’s also a place that you can go to dump your stress and deal with it strategically so you don’t have to always keep your stress living in your head or in your body.

Number two, it causes shrinkage. And when it comes to stress, that is a good thing. You know, when all of us get stressed out, it can feel like everything in our life is stressful. It’s almost as if we have this huge amorphous blob over our life and we can’t seem to manage it. But the moment that we write down exactly what’s stressing us out, all of a sudden that big blob shrinks down to these manageable little peanuts. Makes it really kind of cool. It’s a lot easier of course to say, “You know what? I have these three things that are stressing me out right now,” rather than, “OMG, my whole life is so stressful.”

Number three, it’s actionable. And this is my favorite part. So when I write something down in my stress log, immediately my mind goes to work on how I can start to actually solve that problem. So right there on the page, I start working out the strategies that I can take, and then I share them with my team and we see if we can bring them to life. Now, the cool thing here is if you can’t solve a problem completely, ask yourself what can you change about your attitude or your approach so that you don’t continue to stress yourself out about it.

Number four is it gives me power. So knowing that I have a specific place to write down my stresses and I have a system to deal with them, that gives me a sense of power and strength that I just didn’t have before. I know it might sound silly, but now when something stresses me out, I actually get excited to go write it down in my stress log because I feel like, “You know what little stress? I own you. You can’t stress me out anymore. In fact, your little stress ass is gon’ be grass.” So point is, I would highly encourage you to experiment with your own stress log if this sounds like a good idea. You can do it in the little notebook or you can do it digitally, it doesn’t matter. But it all does come down to remembering this tweetable: Writing it down kicks stress out of town.”

So now I would love to hear from you. Let’s have some fun with this stress log idea starting right now. So in the comments below, identify one specific thing that’s stressing you out in your business or your life and then tell me three possible solutions that would help you fix it. I cannot emphasize this enough, writing this stuff down is so empowering. What you’re going to see is whatever stresses you doesn’t have to be this constant thorn in your side. You can do something about it, whether you find a permanent solution or you experiment with some things or you just need to change your attitude or your approach. Do your best to be as specific and detailed as possible.

Now, as always, the best discussions happen after the episode over at marieforleo.com. So go on over there and leave a comment now. Did you like this video? This is one of my favorites. If you liked it, subscribe to our channel and be sure to share this with all of your friends. And if you want even more great resources to create a business and life that you love, plus some personal insights from me that I only get to talk about when I’m doing email, come on over to marieforleo.com and sign up for email updates. Stay on your game and keep going for your dreams because the world needs that special gift that only you have. Thank you so much for watching and I’ll catch you next time on MarieTV.

Are you dropping a stress log or pinching a stress loaf? I wrote it. We’ll get you a cookie, girl. And some feet. Bacon feet.