Does reducing stress by changing your thoughts intrigue you? This material is adapted from a monthly subscription service Mind Tools article on Cognitive Restructuring (CR). Key points are:
- Stress often produces unhappy feelings and moods, which trigger “automatic beliefs and perhaps distorted thinking” that affects the quality of your leadership performance.
- CR helps us to reframe the unnecessary negative thinking so you can approach situations in a more positive frame of mind so you don’t sabotage yourself.
- Eight steps are suggested. To illustrate these you have just been told that your request to add additional FTEs per participating in transitions of care has been denied for the second time. Needless to say as the pharmacy leader you are upset, frustrated and stressed out because you know what patient care value your clinical staff could bring. Your thoughts are all over the place including should I find another job, what did I do wrong, why can’t I sell this as the organization is adding hospitalists, etc.
- Calm yourself. Rather than allowing yourself to get angrier and stressed take a few minutes to take a few deep breaths and pause to relax your thinking. Perhaps take a walk, compliment a staff person, ask the staff how things are going, just listen to music or anything that shifts you out of your automatic negative reactions.
- Identify the situation. Document the situation that triggered your stress because doing so clarifies your reactions. Such as exactly what are you trying to do, your chosen approach, what happened and what was said.
- Analyze your mood. Document exactly how you are feeling and be honest with yourself. It is common to experience this a personal failure, certainly a leadership failure, you let your staff down, etc. so don’t deny these feelings.
- Identify your automatic thoughts. Add to your documentation your natural reaction or most distressing “automatic thoughts” such as I should be able to get what my department needs, I knew I couldn’t do this leadership thing, I am the only one who can’t get additional resources, when can I retire, etc.
- Find objective supporting evidence. Being candid what led you to react the way you did such as I am a bit insecure as a leader as I thought because I was a good pharmacist that I could be a good leader, leadership looked easy, etc.
- Find objective contradictory evidence. Think about what is the other side of the coin, which is fairer and more rational. Realistically you win some and you lose some, leadership is an art not a science, if it were easy everyone would compete for these positions, things worth doing are rarely easy, etc.
- Identify fair and balanced thoughts. Step back and review the situation objectively. This might be a time to talk it over with a mentor to get additional ideas. In this tight reimbursement environment additional resources are costly. Perhaps I should have figured out how to make this a cost neutral or a revenue generating process. I will bide my time and look for another opportunity such as ACOs or Medical Homes.
- Monitor your present mood. By now your mood probably has improved so ask yourself how you should approach a future similar situation. Perhaps I should reset my expectations about winning every time as an example.
Please share your thoughts on handling the stress that naturally comes as a pharmacy leader. Remember if you aren’t having some stress you probably aren’t maximizing your leadership.
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