Stress is Not Always the Monster We Think it Is

by | Nov 11, 2019 | Pro

I only like one sport and that is NASCAR stock car racing. I have followed one driver, Kyle Busch, since he started at sixteen years old – he is now thirty-four years old – and I love every minute of him.

Kyle Busch is the 2015 NASCAR Champion, is Number 1 in points for 2019, and qualified on the Pole for the next to the final race in Phoenix, AZ this 2019 season. If he wins one of the Top Four spots in Phoenix, he gets to race against the other three top four drivers and hopefully wins the 2019 NASCAR Championship in Miami FL next week. He is also driving against almost forty other drivers who may be out to get him so he doesn’t win.

This is where good stress works wonders. It takes stress to even drive in a stock car race. The stress to learn how to drive these cars, the stress of wondering if your car is in good enough shape to qualify and then win. The stress in getting your own ride with a stock car owner. The stress to continually drive the NASCAR season, sometimes at over 200 MPH. The season is a long one – 38 races spanning 10 months. The race season starts in February and ends in November every year. Even baseball season is only seven months long.

Week after week, to see the stands not filling up as they have in the past is frustrating. Stock car racing particularly is always in transition. A good thing is that fans have loads of access to drivers. If it rains on race day, the race is postponed which tampers with my schedule as well as the race car drivers and their families. Again, stress. But is it good or bad stress?

Talk about teams. These drivers win and lose, as a team. It is always a ‘we’ within NASCAR. Again, stress.

Stress continues when drivers have accidents, some debilitating others not so much.

Again, there is the stress of traveling in a motor home, although some of them are super stunning, yet you are stuck for over thirty-eight races in a tin tube.

In addition, NASCAR drivers’ schedules are crammed with media interviews, public appearances, travel, and practices. More stress.

Yet this is considered ‘good stress’ We all experience it. When you start that new business, it is ‘good stress’; when things go wrong, it is ‘bad stress’. When you win that race, it is ‘good stress’, when you lose that race, it is ‘bad stress’.

Stress can help you achieve more – stress is not always the monster we usually think it is.

Good stress can equal success; bad stress can be debilitating.

Need some help with your stress?

Joanne

Joanne Victoria
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