How to Greatly Reduce Your Stress During Uncertain Times as a Humanitarian and International Development Leader

As an NGO leader, you're already facing enough external challenges—funding cuts, humanitarian crises, and job uncertainty. But what if part of your stress is coming from how you're thinking about these challenges?

In this episode, we’ll explore how your mindset may be adding unnecessary suffering and what you can do to break free from it.

More specifically you'll discover:

• How to recognize and stop unhelpful "what if" thinking before it spirals.
• Simple mindset shifts that reduce anxiety and help you focus on what you can control.
• Find out how to communicate in ways that minimize drama rather than amplify it—both in your own mind and in conversations with others.

Press play now to start reducing unnecessary stress for yourself and others!

REGISTER FOR FREE WEBINAR:  "How to Feel Better During Hard Times as a NGO Leader" 

This one hour webinar will give you practical tools to understand the source of your uncomfortable feelings, solutions to address those feelings so you feel better immediately.  Come to the live call to discuss your particular situation and what you can do to step away from stress and into action.

Please register by selecting your preferred day and time below:

Wednesday, March 12th - 10am to 11am Bangkok time 

Monday, March 17th - 2:30pm to 3:30pm Bangkok time

Monday, March 17th - 8pm to 9pm Bangkok time

Tuesday, March 25th - 10am to 11am Bangkok time

Tuesday, March 25th - 8pm to 9pm Bangkok time

FULL TRANSCRIPT:

Welcome to The Modern Humanitarian and Development Leader podcast, the podcast, helping humanitarian and development supervisors make a greater impact by taking control of your time, leading more inclusively and empowering your team all the while avoiding stress, burnout, and overwhelm. I'm your host, leadership coach and former aid worker, Torrey Peace.

Are you ready? Let's get started.

Hello, my aspiring modern NGO leader. I hope you're having a wonderful week. And so I wanted to continue along the lines of helping you cope with difficult situations and uncertain circumstances, which a lot of us are going through right now. And I myself, I'm also experiencing that. I think I've shared it over the last few [00:01:00] weeks, and I've also talked about before on the podcast, the idea of how sometimes we amplify our own suffering, that we are actually causing more suffering than needs to happen to ourselves. And I have caught myself over the last few weeks doing this exact thing as well as a few other ways that I am, let's say, compounding the drama that exists in the world right now.

And I have taken a few steps, which I'm gonna share with you today. And it's been so helpful to help me really reduce the amount of stress and suffering that I am experiencing during this time, and I thought it would also be very relevant to you. So whether you're going through a [00:02:00] natural disaster or a humanitarian emergency, or just the uncertainty of not even knowing if you'll have a job in a few weeks or months. I think that this will help you

Lessen the unnecessary stress and of course, there will always in those really difficult times be times where we're going to be experiencing stress, where we're going to be experiencing loss or grief or suffering. It's unavoidable. It's part of the human experience to have those things.

However, like I said just now, a lot of times we amplify or compound our own stress and we might not even be aware of how we're doing it. So I think that these things I'm sharing with you today are also, great ways of you to manage both your own behavior, your actions, and your mindset no matter [00:03:00] what is happening in your work or personal life, which can really help you have a higher quality of life.

And another thing is this, you know, these difficult situations or circumstances that we have occasionally during life can be very helpful in terms of setting an intention to manage our mindset or our feelings even more than we would normally, because it becomes almost like a way of survival, a way to not burn out, a way to really not thrive, but do well in situations that are difficult.

So we have a tendency as humans to be attracted to fearful or scary situations. That is why I think, why true crime is so [00:04:00] appealing to so many people. There's something about it that is just a very primitive attraction for us to want to be part of the the knowing of what happened and who did it and so on, and those who control the news and the algorithms for social media know that this is a part of our human design.

And so they want to design content to give you a strong emotional response. And that emotion is usually fear or anger or anxiety or worry. And that is why we also tend to see more negative news, in our, our stream or our news feeds.

So just to say before I introduce some of these ways of coping once again, this is a great [00:05:00] opportunity to be more in control of your thoughts and your emotions. And one thing that I teach in the course "Becoming the Modern NGO Leader" is how our mindset or our thinking produces our feelings, our emotions.

It's very much related and from that feeling, we take a certain action, we do or do not act, and that is how we get the results in our work and our life. So we can't control all of our mind or our thoughts and our emotions, but the more we are aware of them, we can choose which ones are most helpful to focus on.

And which ones we want to encourage and be intentional about thinking rather than just having all of these thoughts in our head that we're not aware of that could be [00:06:00] causing us a lot of drama and stress. So once again, these difficult times are a great opportunity to become familiar and to practice this, and also a way to survive without burnout and stress, and even in some situations thrive.

So being aware of the way you are talking about a difficult situation or what is happening with others and with yourself is one of the ways that I've been able to manage my stress levels over the last few weeks.

In order to do this, I need to be listening to my own thoughts or aware of them and be aware of what I am telling myself because it will lead to either more or less suffering. So if you are feeling a lot of anxiety, nervousness, or [00:07:00] fear, you are likely thinking a lot about scenarios that have not yet happened and may not happen.

So one way to keep yourself in check is by fact checking yourself and be aware of your what ifs and how helpful they are to be thinking about in this moment. So for example sometimes, and this usually happens in times where I have some downtime, so for example, I'm getting ready to go to bed or I wake up very early in the morning and I start thinking about these things.

Or when I am, you know, cooking or whatever, I find myself thinking all these thoughts of what if. For example, what if other governments outside of the US also withdraw their humanitarian funding? I might start thinking about that, and then [00:08:00] I start thinking of the consequences of that and how it will impact so many other people, and what are we gonna do about it?

And then how might it impact my friends or how might it impact, the communities and how might it impact myself? So this question and this type of question is just not helpful or useful. It is something that has not happened. It may be it will happen, but it's not useful thinking about it right now, it is only my own speculation or opinion or projection of what may or may not happen.

So I try and notice when I start thinking about these what ifs and I start going down these long trains of thought of if this happens and that might happen, then oh my gosh, what are we gonna do? And I try to notice these types of thoughts when I begin thinking them. Because these thoughts, like [00:09:00] I said, are not useful or helpful. They're only going to make me feel nervous and anxious. So the only time when, what if thinking is useful is when you are seated in a place where you are actually planning for the future based on factual circumstances or if you are contingency planning, those are the only times where what if thinking is helpful.

If it's outside of that time and you're not intentionally trying to come up with a contingency plan, which is probably for most of us, most of the time, then it is not helpful.

When we start to think what if thoughts and the more attention we give to them, the more they will dominate our thinking and create these feelings, compounding our suffering.

I have found that if I catch myself thinking, what if thoughts and I ask myself, has [00:10:00] this thing that I am thinking about, for example, that other governments cut humanitarian funding happened yet yes or no? Or I ask myself, is this thing I'm worried about a factual circumstance happening right now?

And the answer is usually no. And when the answer is no, then unless I'm contingency planning, I can stop that line of thinking. I just don't give it attention and I tell myself it is not useful or helpful and will only compound my drama and suffering, which is true. So the more awareness you have over your thinking and the way you're thinking, the more you can decide what you want to pay attention to and what is helpful for you and is going to help you get in a place where you can actually take control and do something versus all the things which we usually [00:11:00] think about, which are not helpful and are out of our control.

So these thoughts of what if and things that only produce fear and worry will add up and will compound your suffering. And the crazy part is you are doing it to yourself. You are the one amplifying your own suffering by allowing those thoughts to build and build and build. This is not helpful. It is not useful.

And so the more you can be aware when you start this line of thinking, the more you can decide to stop doing it, and this has helped me tremendously over the last few weeks. Another thing to be aware of when it comes to the way you think is to not try not to compound drama by saying something to yourself like, [00:12:00] this should not be happening, or, this is horrible.

This is awful. Those things might feel true to you, but it is just not going to help you in terms of taking action or in terms of, useful ways of thinking. They're just going to produce more feelings of helplessness and fear. So being aware of how you are talking to yourself about what is happening, and try not to use judgmental phrases too often, and that is not only the way I talk to myself, but also when I'm sharing with others, I try not to go

into too much like, this is horrible. This shouldn't be happening, this is bad. The more we talk about that, the more we give thinking time to that or even voice that, the more we're just adding to drama that, [00:13:00] you know. Yes, for sure, I myself think that a lot of the things happening right now in the humanitarian sector when it comes to the cutting

of USG funding and so on could be labeled bad, but the more I say that to myself, the more I'm gonna feel anxiety, worry, fear, and it's just not helpful. So I also don't add that to the conversation, whether it's in my own mind or verbally. So it's not that you don't have the opinion that something happening is bad, but the more you repeat it to yourself or the more you think about it, the more you tell someone else about it, it's just going to lead you down a very negative space.

So when it comes to something that should or should not happen that is also just not a useful way of thinking. It will also only make you feel poorly and only feel disempowered [00:14:00] as if you are a a victim to your circumstance. When we say this should not be happening, we would want to add to me, this should not be happening to me, and the to me is what makes us a victim.

So once again, it is not that you are not allowed to think or have that opinion. It is just that the more we think that the less helpful it is. And then finally, this is the same when you are sharing with others verbally. So first part was looking at what we're thinking and what's helpful to ourselves and our own thoughts and what produces, suffering, but

when we're sharing with others, I also try to only share verbally factual information that is helpful to make decisions or have a call to action. And that also comes to when I'm sharing anything like [00:15:00] social media or information. So in other words. I only share things that are facts and something that they can do about the situation.

I do not share anything that is not immediately relevant or factual. So for example, on social media, I sometimes get videos of people sharing what they think is going to happen in the US or to the humanitarian sector. But these are only speculations or someone's opinions. They're not facts. So I do not share

this type of content. I also don't share the type of content which is simply a video talking about, you know, someone I don't agree with or them sharing their opinion. This will only make me feel more suffering. It's not useful, it's not helpful. It's something that I already have an idea that a lot of people have this particular opinion I don't agree with, but me watching it on a video

is not going to help me to, feel better [00:16:00] or to take useful action. So a great way to know whether you're sharing it for drama or to help others, is to ask yourself, what is my motive for sharing this? And this is whether you're just sharing your opinion or you're sharing your thoughts during a dinner or in social media, what is my motive for sharing this?

Am I trying to get a reaction from someone or am I sharing this because it will genuinely help this person make this situation better? Like they can take action or they will be more informed in a way that can help take action. So I've noticed that I have started to say a lot less dinner parties and around others, and when talking with friends and family, because I notice that I want to contribute to the drama and how often the thing I want to say is something that may not be based on fact, may just be based on my own opinion, what I think might [00:17:00] happen, and it is just not useful. It's just not useful and makes me feel worse and makes others feel worse. It adds to the drama.

So if you're sharing with a friend and you want to share for your own mental health, like how you're doing or what you're thinking or how you're feeling about a situation, that is a bit different because I feel like in that situation, it's almost like you're trying to share your, your feelings or your, your perspective and you just need to talk to someone.

But if we're at a dinner party or we are just talking to friends and family in an everyday situation and they start to bring up something that they've seen in the news or wherever, and you add to that and what you add is, is not something that can help them be more informed, like factual information or how they can take action around it,

then I just [00:18:00] tend to not say anything, and I notice that my anxiety level and my stress level has gone way down since I've started doing that. So I encourage you to think about these things. I shared quite a few things in this episode, but the major things are just being aware of the way you're thinking about situations and what you're telling yourself that may be making you feel worse.

Being aware of things that are just not helpful to tell yourself, like going through all these possible scenarios that haven't even happened yet, unless your contingency planning, which most of us are not. And then also being aware of what you're telling and sharing with others and making sure that your motive behind it is helpful and one coming from wanting to help and not trying to just get a reaction or spread and compound the [00:19:00] drama that a lot of us are feeling right now, because that just is going to amplify everyone's suffering. So if you're interested in this, if you enjoyed this episode, I recommend that you sign up for my free webinar that's coming up, how to Feel Better during Hard Times.

This is going to give you more practical ways to cope in uncertain and difficult situations like a lot of us are facing right now. And we'll give you some ways that I haven't even discussed on the podcast that I think will be immediately relevant and will help you to step away from the stress and more towards acceptance and action.

So if you're interested in that check out the show notes for the links to sign up. All right. Until next week, keep evolving. Bye for now.

Are you the type of leader that tells others what to do? [00:20:00] Or do you let them figure it out for themselves? Understanding your leadership style is the first step to deciding what's working for you and what's not. To find out your leadership style, take my free quiz "what is your leadership style?" You'll immediately find out your default style, how it may be impacting your team, and a few practical ways to become an even better leader.

Just click on the link in the show notes, www.aidforaidworkers.com/quiz fill out your quiz and click submit. So what are you waiting for? Go to www.aidforaidworkers.com/quiz and discover your leadership style now. Your team will thank you for it!