The #1 Stress Gap

Most stress isn't random.

It follows patterns.

In our quest to figure it out, we point to health stress, time stress, task stress, demand stress, financial stress, email stress, clutter stress, and all the other obvious and irrefutable choices.

All true, otherwise they wouldn't come to mind.

But the biggest source of your stress isn't your time management, your overflowing inbox, the tasks you can't seem to finish, your home clutter, or relationship friction.

Those are the easiest things to point to and are essential to improving your life mastery journey.

Like a fish unaware of the increasingly warm water it swims in, most people can't identify their number one stressor because it's not an event or a task.

We become used to our environment until it becomes uncomfortable. Even then we don't notice we're in hot water until it's unbearable.

It starts to become clear when we work on organizing their time, space, information, finances, and decisions, often catching people off guard.

Some of it can be changed, some not.

What is it?

Minding the gap is as simple, and complex, as where you place your next step.

The #1 cause of stress is the gap between what you have and what you want.

It's the lack of control, perceived or not, we have over the demands that we answer to that gradually get out of synch with our selves. (space intended)

We don't devote much mind to our gap(s) because they seem minor, until they're not.

Sometimes we're confronted with a huge uncontrollable gap that is unbridgeable as we currently see it, but the gap is the same. It's not what we value. It's not what we want.

We feel it.

At work it's being expected to move faster, stay later, work with those you cannot abide (facts are facts, folks), and to be more 'efficient' in an environment that doesn't support realistic human capacities.

At home, it's the clutter of things bought because someone said you needed them, gifts you guilt-clutch, projects started with the best intentions that now accuse you of failure, and time spent doing things you don't want to do.

It's the financial burden of choices made in a different situation.

It's the medical or family stressors that affect you deeply yet you have little or no control over them.

All of them remind you that you're living by someone else's definition of a good life instead of your own authentic self. Yes, even if that someone else is you.

The unacknowledged gap between what we want and value and our current reality is what often drives people toward thinking if they organize their closets, buy a new time management system, or order a pack of colorful file folders all will be settled.

That's true, to a point.

An organized life does create more clarity, more ease, more follow-through, and more of that rare feeling that who you are on the inside finally matches how you're living on the outside.

But what I often see after the closets are organized, time, space, and financial systems are streamlined, is the realization of the gap that opens when "getting organized" is a step toward other, deeper changes.

I think people don't begin an 'organize my life' path for the same reason as when they quit psychotherapy when it becomes difficult or feels futile.

Yet, that's when the best benefit happens.

So what's next for you?

Start by noticing and noting what your stressors are.

Be specific. From dried up pens to stacks of statements, it all matters.

What can you change?

What seems out of your control? Can you control it or must you adapt to it?

Tackle the seemingly low priorities of organizing your spaces, time, and information.

Be patient with your self as you declutter and reshape because you're learning you, past, current, and hoped for.

Even if you're facing a seemingly insurmountable frustration, grief, or other hard issue, controlling what we can — if only by donating an unneeded shirt — can coax a sense of control out of your (internal) closet.

With every thing, or task, or chafing obligation you shed, you're minding and closing the gap.

And this, my friends, is the heart of it all.

Whether you're organizing your sock drawer, tidying your home, shredding paperwork that no longer applies, crafting smarter routines, resisting a compelling sale, understanding your finances, choosing yes or no with intention, or truly seeing, not merely looking at, the world around you, every small act of mastery speaks to the truth of Master your day, Master your life.

Exactly as life intended.