The credit crunch has undoubtedly left many business owners feeling stressed and loosing sleep about how to manage a thriving business on an even tighter shoestring. It is always better to raise your inner threshold so that you can cope with more stress.

One of the most frequent questions I am asked is ‘why is it that some people can handle stress better than others?’ My answer is that everyone has their own unique inner threshold, which determines how stressed we let ourselves get and how we deal with it, and this is no different in business life.

The most common problem faced by business owners is balancing their perception about how much they can cope with and when they need to buy in external help, be it freelance or permanent employees. Whilst this is not a problem in itself, when the economy begins to shift and costs go up, employees can put additional strain on the business and threaten its ability to operate as the market continues to shrink. This is why it is crucial to work out exactly how much you can manage before you take on additional staff.

Are you working  beyond your inner threshold?

The typical symptoms of being beyond your threshold include; problems concentrating, lack of focus, not getting things done, being clumsy and accident prone, poor sleep, inability to relax, minor illness, irritability, aggression and angry outbursts for small things.

There are many things that contribute to a reduced inner threshold and these include; confused unfocused thinking, unresolved negative emotions, unresolved events from the past, inner conflict, limiting beliefs, failure to take action and poor physical condition.

These things take up your valuable mind and thinking space, as the more mental clutter you have the less capacity you have for creative thinking, problem solving and inspired decision making. If it gets really bad you will find yourself unable to focus on important information being given to you or current events. You might even miss something vital; this is one way that accidents happen.

To raise your threshold you could heal up emotions from the past. I strongly advise releasing them using a proven technique such as Time Line Therapy (TM) or Higher Self Therapy. Rather than simply suppressing (ignoring) or expressing (talking about them) these two techniques actually RELEASE the emotions. Although suppression or expression are more common they have been proven to be ineffective at raising your inner threshold. Unresolved events from the past also affect your threshold as you will always have that particular event replaying in your mind and you will sometimes find it occurs at inappropriate times e.g. at work, in a meeting, during a speech etc.

Coping with a busy business

First and foremost, you need to be able to figure out what tasks you should focus on most i.e. the ones which will benefit you most. You should also take time to meditate or sit in silence so you can gather thoughts together and to push negative thoughts out, this will allow you to concentrate more on your work and with that slightly shorter list of tasks you can do it easily by yourself/within your team.

If you find yourself feeling a bit down and energy-less try doing some exercise, as the mind and the body effect each other, so by increasing your physical strength you’re also building up your mental strength. Exercising has many neurological benefits including triggering the reduction of stress hormones and the production of endorphins plus other “happy” hormones and neurotransmitters.

Also, try spending 10-30 minutes sitting in silence, this will remove all of your mental clutter and make you feel a lot more mentally lighter, also another quick tip is too look up when you feel upset because looking down takes you into your emotions.

How is your inner threshold? Are you above it? If you think you are, don’t panic, it can be raised and you can start to get back in control of your life.