Coping and Finding Your Peace in the Midst of a Professional Storm  

Stress!  We have all experienced it. In fact, you may be sitting in front of your computer right now with stiffness in your shoulders, a tension headache and a cup of chamomile tea trying to distract yourself from the weight of the world.

There are dozens of ways to combat the everyday stress that comes along with being a working woman, but there are times when the stress you encounter can’t be cured with an aromatherapy candle, a back rub and a hot yoga session.

In fact, there are times — and if they haven’t happened yet, they will — when your work life will be wrought with chaos, and you have to figure out how to overcome the crisis.  For me, it was Memorial Day weekend 2015.

My Storm

Back in May 2015, I was four months into my new position as a communications director for a central Texas town when I came down with a terrible case of bronchitis. Fever, uncontrollable coughing, asthma and aches knocked me off of my feet.  Unfortunately, Mother Nature was also working her magic and brewing up a massive rainstorm. I was stuck in bed, medicated and tweeting out weather warnings.

In the early morning hours the weather warnings became more urgent, and hundreds of people were forced to evacuate their homes as the city’s two rivers burst over their banks flooding homes, businesses and roads.  I was one of the evacuees, and I immediately headed to our emergency operation center.  The floods impacted 1,200 homes in the county. Twelve people lost their lives.

My job was crisis communication. I spent two weeks in the emergency operation center managing Facebook, Twitter and the city’s website, holding press conferences and sharing life-saving, and in some cases heart-wrenching, news with my community.  I worked 16 to 20 hours a day and my phone never stopped ringing. National and local media, state and federal elected officials and families in crisis all demanded my attention.  It was one of the biggest challenges of my career.

It was chaos, but I was able to weather the storm. Whether you are a banker, a teacher or a medical professional, no matter what type of professional pressure you come up against, you can apply the lessons I learned to help you weather the storm as well.

Plan and Prepare Ahead

While no one can see the future and most people do not consider themselves psychic, everyone can prepare for the possibility of disaster.  There is also the phrase, “Build a kit, make a plan.”  Anyone who lives on the East or Gulf Coast knows that you have to have an emergency plan for severe weather situations – so there are kits with bottled water, canned goods, batteries and flashlights, along with a plan for evacuating at a moment’s notice.

So think about the type of work crisis that may arise. Your computer could crash, your assistant may quit, and you may lose your biggest client.  With luck, none of those things will ever happen to you.  But have you put any thought into what you would do if those situations transpire?  Create a plan to deal with the disasters, and then put together a kit.

A couple of sample kits you could create, to deal with a myriad of emergency scenarios:

• Weather disasters/kits stocked with clothes, snacks, pain relievers, pens, notepads, battery backups and extra phone chargers, in case you need to leave in the middle of the night.
• Stock your car for minor emergencies.
• Carry an extra blazer, pair of shoes, and rain boots in your briefcase, or have them stashed at your desk.
• Have contacts in your phone for every kind of emergency.
• At work: try to connect with at least one person associated with each of your work vendors who you can call on in an after-hours emergency.
• Expand your professional network to include people who can help you, and whom you can assist in a crisis.
• Have a few friends/neighbors on whom you can call upon to drop everything/come to your rescue/be your lifelines.

Ask for Help

Simply put: when you’re in high water, call on others to throw you a life preserver.  Rely on your mentors, your mentees, and people in your network who can assist you in a crisis. During  the crisis I described above, the retired communication director whom I had replaced showed up to assist; my intern was invaluable; my counterpart at the County shared the responsibilities; and co-workers from other departments who had communication skills brought relief and assistance to my strained team. In fact, they had remarkable perspectives and came up with innovative solutions when they were needed most.

A possible snag in all of this: the first place your mind will go when you’re faced with major adversity and you need reinforcement is a place of pride.  Your mind may tell you, “I can do this alone.”  It’s possible to wonder if your boss will think you’re incapable if you rely on others or ask too many questions. It’s even possible to wonder if your mentors may outshine you.  Take those prideful thoughts, and trash them.

In fact, a good manager knows that she doesn’t have all of the answers, and that she can’t do it all on her own. Recruiting a well-prepared response team is as much of an accomplishment as completing a task on your own – and it gets a lot more done, a lot more quickly.

Help doesn’t only come in the form of colleagues.  You should also seek assistance with everyday tasks and chores so you can focus more of your energy and time on the projects at hand.  Recruit friends and neighbors to help by supplying meals, babysitting when you need a break, or pet- sitting when you have to be away for long hours.  Something as simple as a friend taking care of an errand for you can mean the difference between being overwhelmed and managing your daily dose of stress.

Take Care of Yourself

Men may have this figured out a little better than most women do. Women often have a tendency to put everyone else’s needs above their own.  The problem comes when women are faced with a major catastrophe in the workplace, and push their needs even further onto the back burner.  This happened to me during my work crisis when I was sick. The work would have been done eventually; it would have been better to rely more on others, or ask people to wait for tasks that weren’t urgent.

You should always give it your all, your absolute all, but you should also include taking care of yourself in your list of priorities.  Find a balance. Here’s a tip: when dealing with a crisis, take an hour each day to meditate, or just enjoy some silence, eat healthy meals (even if you have to recruit someone else to deliver them to you), hydrate constantly —  and make sure to assess your mental and physical well-being at least once a day.

Put Things into Perspective

In the midst of a crisis, problems can get magnified, situations blown out of proportion, and perspectives can become unbalanced.  So take each problem, issue, or situation, one at a time.  Don’t allow yourself to get overwhelmed.   A light-hearted example: the “Bridezilla shows” on television.  A woman who is normally sane and rational spends an exorbitant amount of time, energy and money to make her special day is one she will never forget.  The day before her wedding she finds out that her flowers are the wrong shade of pink.   Of course, she has a major meltdown, yells at everyone, and insists that her day is ruined.   Is it really ruined?  Of course not.  It’s likely that no one else will realize the flowers are dusty rose instead of blush.  But she allowed herself to lose sight of what it’s important — and in the process, ruined the day for herself and everyone around her.

The lesson? When you’re in the midst of a stressful work situation, don’t allow your mind to trick you into making things worse than they really are.  Make a list and prioritize tasks.  When something goes wrong, step back to evaluate the impact of the situation.  Really delve into your top priorities, and make sure the little things didn’t overshadow those significant issues and weigh you down.

Learn from Your Experience

Another perspective of all of this: Oprah Winfrey gave a speech at the Harvard University Commencement a few years ago.  She talked a lot about learning from our failures, giving ourselves time to mourn the bad decisions, and accepting that we aren’t perfect. But one thing she said has stuck with me: “Learn from every mistake, because every experience, particularly your mistakes, are there to teach you, and force you into being more who you are.”

In every crisis that’s encountered, from a failed relationship, to a lost job or a major career hurdle, taking stock of the situation and the choices that are made, celebrating the successes and learning from the mistakes, shapes you into a better woman.