For many of us, keeping our stress levels under control and trying not to let things spiral out of control in our minds is a daily struggle. And dealing with stress in a negative way can have major effects on our ability to deal with everyday things in life.
When we get blindsided with a stressful or dangerous situation, our adrenaline and cortisol kicks in, our heart starts pumping faster, and our judgment can be clouded. This “fight or flight” scenario is a product of evolution and is ingrained into us.
Basically, we aren’t thinking rationally when these situations arise.
A psychologist named Gary Klein developed a concept known as prospective hindsight, or the pre-mortem technique to handle the stresses of everyday life in today’s age. Basically, Klein’s technique is meant to prepare for stress before it actually happens.
Here’s how the technique works: look into your future and imagine the worst-case scenarios you might have to deal with. Then imagine what YOU can do to prevent these scenarios from happening or to minimize the damage of these calamities. The pre-mortem technique makes you realize that your brain won’t think clearly when you are under stress.
The idea is to think about how you’ll handle stress pre-emptively when you’re NOT stressed out so you don’t make bad, spur-of-the-moment decisions when you are thrown into a hairy situation.
Here’s a good example: if you lose your keys or your wallet all the time and it causes you to be late for work and stresses you out, put a bowl on your kitchen table where your keys will always be so you don’t have to worry about it anymore.
Hey, bad things are going to happen and stressful things are going to happen in our lives. If you can learn to deal with them in a more positive way, that’s half the battle!
So keep this technique in mind next time things aren’t going your way.
If you can feel the negativity and panic creeping in…it will be a big help!
