In 1988, Bobby McFerrin released a song that drove me absolutely nuts. “Don’t Worry, Be Happy.” Just ask my husband. I cringed whenever I heard it. The whole idea that you should never worry, and that just being told to be happy would work was just crazy to me.sculpture

Frankly, I still feel that way. No, I don’t cringe when I hear the song, but the philosophy that we should never worry just doesn’t work for me.

Stress isn’t your enemy! Stress can be good! It’s how we grow!

Stressing about stress is your enemy.  Stressing without release is your enemy. But stress isn’t bad in and of itself. In fact, in orthopedics, there’s something called Wolf’s Law – bone that is subjected to some stress, grows stronger in the area of stress. The same thing with muscles. That’s why we’re told to do cardiovascular exercise – so our heart muscle grows stronger.

It follows through into our work lives. If we’re constantly working in our comfort zones, then we don’t grow. But working outside of our comfort zones is stressful.

So what?

You didn’t learn to ride a bike by not taking terrifying first peddles and falling down a few times.

When it comes to our nonprofit work, we have to face the fact that working outside our comfort zone is the only way we’ll grow beyond what we’re already doing.  It may be stressful, but as long as we periodically take some time off to relax and look at what we’ve done, then the stress is good.

If you want to work explore how a coach or mentor can help you or your staff embrace the stress – and work with it instead of against it – let me know! I’m happy to talk about it and see if there are ways that you can put stress to work for you.