Working under pressure engages within itself a lot of circumstances that are constrained by time, resources, task difficulty and more. Hence, defining stress is not as simple as it may seem. Stress is a formulation of many things put together: it is a family of correlated experiences, conduits, reactions and outcomes that are caused by a wide range of different occurrences at varying levels of intensity.

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Pressure is defined as urgency in one’s personal and professional affairs or business.  Working under pressure is the reality of many people’s professional lives. Some people have to deal with very high pressure every minute of their lives while others have to deal with it as the project deadline approaches.

People working with the bomb squad, the President of United States’ bodyguards or neurosurgeons are examples of high pressure jobs where pressure is an omnipresent factor. Meeting sales targets or financial targets, or project delivery are the kinds of work where pressure increases as the deadline approaches closer.

Generally, very high pressure jobs are the ones that are highly paid, purely because you need exemplary mental and physical resilience to simply go through a work day and emerge unscathed. One also has to be ready to go through this kind of pressure, day after day, year after year. It’s good for somebody who looks forward to it with enthusiasm enough to last a lifetime or one who has the courage to carve a career out of it. However, it’s not everybody’s cup of tea.

Pressure can be utilized in various ways, sometimes to better your team’s performance and productivity. There are a great number of people who work only under pressure and are unable to perform satisfactorily in the absence of pressure.

There are a few prerequisites to be able to work well under pressure. They are:

• Mental Resilience is Extremely Important. This refers to the strength to not lose your emotional balance when faced with high pressure situations. Only people who are mentally resilient can stay motivated under high pressure and keep at their task without giving up. This quality alone can prevent early burnouts and help keep you in shape health-wise while meeting deadlines.
• Planning is Indispensible. Situations or actions that can be anticipated will help you tackle them better under pressure and give you the results that you want. Planning ahead definitely gives you an upper hand.
• Focus is Vital. This ultimately helps you achieve what you want—whether under pressure or not. So, it can be the deciding factor in the race to meet your goal.
• Delegate Work. It’s impossible to do everything under the sun—instead delegate work. This is a worthwhile exercise and can help meet professional deadlines. Breaking the project into bits and working to meet the “bit” deadline is far easier. By meeting these “bit” deadlines, you will complete the entire project well in time.
• Be Composed. Composure is a valuable asset for people with high pressure jobs. The ability to remain calm and collected is helpful in many ways. It helps you stay focused, think rationally and take correct decisions. When calm, you are in control of the situation and can respond to it appropriately.
• Be Adaptable and Flexible. These two qualities are useful weapons in your artillery to deal with high pressure situations that can sometimes change your world upside down in a matter of minutes.

These are the qualities that will help you move on in life, instead of being bogged down by analytical rhetoric over what happened.

Do share your thoughts in the same.