If you ever feel frazzled, stop and ask yourself "why" you do what you do.

The answer is often the source of your stress.

In other words, what is your motivation to make life choices like:

• Arriving at school/work 15 minutes early vs. calling in sick
• Planning healthy meals ahead of time vs. mindlessly eating whatever is around
• Getting around 208 quality workouts per year vs. skipping your training session

To learn more about "why" we make certain decisions you can read Maslow's A Theory of Human Motivation, which was written in 1943.

The famous psychologist talks about our five basic needs.

Things like safety, love, and esteem.

But it gets even simpler than that.

Everything you do is motivated by two fundamental desires; one is to gain pleasure and the other is to avoid pain.

The ancient Greek philosopher, Aristotle, famously said, "The aim of the wise is not to secure pleasure, but to avoid pain."

Think about these stress bombs for a second.

💣You make poor food decisions so often that you are overweight or obese; yet, the pain of being fat is not as great as the pleasure of your mindless eating.

💣Perhaps you choose to spend $1,000 at a casino playing Blackjack; yet the pain of losing money is not as great as the pleasurable hope of winning.

Make sense?

As a coach, it's my duty to help clients keep calm by following a few VERY straightforward rules:

1. Keep a positive mindset by limiting negative input
2. Eat fresh and unprocessed portion-controlled meals
3. Follow a progressive strength-and-conditioning plan
4. Get quality sleep
5. Manage stress via RULE #3 (training is cathartic)
6. Be accountable to a coach or mentor

But what good are proven rules if you don't follow them?

And assuming most folks are intelligent and already know these rules, then why are so many people still obese?

Why are so many over-40 men and women stressed?

Well, it's simply a matter of matching your personality with the "right" motivating stimulus.

By the way, self-discipline is the NEW motivation.

To encourage accountability, I ask you to update me with your weekly goals using a simple questionnaire.

Some of my beloved clients choose not to share their weekly goals, despite my humble requests.

And that's okay.

I've learned a long time ago that my desire for you to change has to match your desire to change.

In other words, I can't want it more than you.

One simple way to reduce stress is to set weekly goals.

Why?

Weekly accountability check-ins keep you (wait for it) accountable, give you weekly feedback on your progress, and (hopefully) motivates you to stay compliant to the proven rules.

Admittedly some clients skip these check-ins because they are not maintaining a healthy bodyfat and are embarrassed to face reality.

Again, this is your choice.

My coaching style is firm but fair.

It's a no-nonsense approach governed by these three fundamental coaching rules:

Coaching Rule #1: Stay safe

Coaching Rule #2: Have fun

Coaching Rule #3: Get guaranteed, measurable results

If you want the above three things (especially #3), I'm here for you.

Something else.

It’s really easy to stay connected nowadays.

This is good and bad.

Whether you're staying connected to our great community via FaceTube, doing 1-on-1 coaching calls, or checking the newsfeed to see what else can possibly happen this year.

It’s a blurry line.

One minute you can be with family, the next minute you're checking e-mail or reading a news article from your "smart" device.

I also work from home some of the time.

This is convenient because my home office is literally steps away from my family.

There’s no commute, which is nice.

Although that does allow a lot of privilege that I’m grateful for, it does blur the line of “family time” and “work time.”

I’m sure I’m not alone in the struggle.

Admittedly I don’t work from home every Friday, but the Fridays that I do lead to a higher-quality weekend with the family.

I’ve shared it before, but it merits sharing again, especially now.

It’s called the Friday Freedom Session.

It will reduce anxiety, free up your mind, and help you make a smooth transition so you can focus more on family.

Here's what a freedom session looks like.

10 Steps to Reduce Stress

Grab a notebook and start writing these 10 things to help de-frazzle your nerves.

1. 5 Positives from the week

Write down the five best things that happened this week.

So many folks tend to focus on what you're not getting done, but I'm sure everyone can think of five positive things.

2. Clean up

Do you ever have a clearer mind when your desk is clean?

That's not by accident.

Spend a few minutes cleaning up your desk, organizing all your papers, etc.

Whatever "clean" looks like in your life, make that happen.

3. Inbox zero

This is huge.

Go through all your emails and text messages and get down to inbox zero.

If something needs to be saved, move it to a labeled folder.

The mind will be crystal clear if you don't have 500 little red notifications on your e-mail.

4. 15-Minute mind sweep

Write nonstop for 15 minutes.

Get everything that is in your mind onto paper.

You can organize it later, but it will help clear up the anxiety and stress when you get it all on paper.

5. Review your upcoming calendar

Review next week's calendar and make sure it looks good.

Take care of any rearranging you need to do, meetings, etc.

6. Review your to-do list

You must have a working to-do list.

Review it, see what still needs to stay on there, and get it organized for the next week.

To-do lists contain things that are single steps.

7. Review your project list

Not everything should live on your to-do list.

If it has multiple steps, it's classified as a project.

Get all your projects on one list, and then extract out single steps of those and put them on your to-do list.

8. Review waiting-for list

Your waiting-for list is things that you can't move on until you get something or hear something.

Maybe you're waiting for a phone call or e-mail to come back.

Maybe you're waiting for a package to arrive or another co-worker to finish their part of the project.

9. Review someday-maybe list

This is the list of all the things you want to do but they don't really have any urgency.

It's good to have on paper so that you don't forget, but you want to separate them from the urgent things like your to-do list and project list.

10. Review goals and vision

You should have goals and a vision for your life.

These important things should also be written down.

At the end of each week, I read my goals and vision to make sure I still like them, to make sure my actions are matching them, and to keep them front-of-mind.

That's a freedom session.

It will probably take you about 30-60 minutes but I guarantee you it will clear your head tremendously, and it will make the following week that much more productive.

Give it a try and let me know what you think.

To your success,

Coach Joe

Joseph Arangio helps 40+ men and women get leaner, stronger, and happier. He's delivered over 100,000 transformation programs to satisfied clients around the globe. If you want to lose weight from home, with the best online longevity personal trainer, or you want to visit the best age-management personal trainer in the Lehigh Valley, you can take a free 14-day trial.