It’s that time of year. Cue the extra stress! The last two months of the calendar year are filled with opportunities and tasks that may test you, stretch you, entertain you, frustrate you, surprise you, or exhaust you.
On top of your normal day-to-day, there are several major holidays, with a host of related activities and expectations. On the job, you may have end-of-quarter deadlines or quotas to meet, annual performance reviews to prepare for, goals and budgets to draft, and social events to attend. It’s not all bad, but together, it can be a lot.
But wait, there’s more. Let’s also acknowledge the ongoing stress in the air from the U.S. election season we’ve just endured and all that comes with transitions to new leadership on local, state, and federal levels. Whether you are pleased or dismayed that voters recently elected Donald J. Trump for his second term as president, change is coming.
Change often sparks stress as individuals and institutions chart new paths, and the sheer magnitude of the changes Trump promised on the campaign trail make it highly likely that we'll enter a period of higher economic, political, and social stress. From raising tariffs to deporting millions of undocumented individuals, we can expect the new Trump administration will hit the ground running on day 1.
No matter the source, surviving increased levels of stress will require having a strong support group of family, friends, and colleagues.
Surprised?
Here’s why having life-giving social connections is important. For starters, human connection makes people smarter, happier, and more productive! Those benefits alone make connection worth actively pursuing.
You should also be aware of how connection helps protect you from being more vulnerable to stress. Research reviewed by Cacioppo and Patrick has found that lacking sufficient connection is associated with a host of negative outcomes, including the following:
- poorer cognitive performance
- impaired executive control and self-regulation (i.e., self-control)
- decreased sleep quality
- lower levels of self-rated physical health
- more intense reactions to negatives
- less uplift from positives
- greater feelings of helplessness and threat
- substance abuse
- depressive symptoms
- suicidal ideation
To assess your level of connection, I recommend you work through the “Atlas Exercise” that we use in our Connection Culture workshops. You can find the exercise embedded in the video below from the “What is your level of connection?” unit of our LinkedIn Learning course, “Creating a Connection Culture: The X-factor in Maximum Performance.” (If you are not familiar with the intermediate-level leadership course, it has had more than 55,000 learners, been rated 4.7 on a 5-point scale, and is now available in 13 languages.) The exercise will help you identify whether you need to increase connection, decrease stressors, and/or boost resilience factors in your life.
Instead of entering the next few months with a sense of dread, or diving in unprepared, take the time to shore up your foundation of connection so you can get through the stressful season ahead in better shape.
