Missionary Wellness
An Approach to Managing Stress

“An Approach to Managing Stress,” Missionary Wellness: Stress Management (2023)

An Approach to Managing Stress

One approach to managing stress is to identify your emotions, focus on what you can influence, and start with small steps.

Identify Your Emotions

How are you?

This isn’t just a question to quickly pass over. How are you really?

Check in with yourself. What are you feeling right now? What word describes that emotion?

Identifying or naming your emotions can help you better understand and manage them. Research shows that when you can express your feelings in simple terms (“I’m feeling sad” or “I’m feeling frustrated”), distressing emotions can feel less intense and more manageable.

Try This

Take a moment to check in with yourself and notice—without judgment—any feelings, thoughts, and sensations. Once you notice something, name it.

Then state, “I’m feeling .”

Practice this simple skill often throughout your mission to better understand your feelings and sources of stress.

Focus on What You Can Influence

After discovering what you are feeling and giving it a name, try to think of why you are feeling that emotion. This could bring up several things going on in your life right now, such as the following:

“The person we were teaching just told us that they were no longer interested.”

“I just can’t learn this language. It is so confusing.”

“I struggle talking to people on the street. I’m an introvert, and it feels very uncomfortable right now.”

There are many things that you can’t influence as a missionary, and that can feel scary and stressful. Often in these situations, we default to trying harder to influence the things that are uninfluencelable. This is almost always a waste of energy and causes unnecessary stress. So it is crucial that you identify and focus on what you can influence.

Try the “Focus on What You Can Influence” activity to identify what you can influence, what you have some influence over, and what you can’t influence.

Activity: Focus on What You Can Influence

Make a list of the possible reasons for the emotions you identified. Then sort these reasons into three different categories:

  1. As a missionary, what do you have total influence over? (Your actions, your beliefs, and so on.)

  2. What do you have some influence over? (Your apartment, your schedule, and so on.)

  3. What do you have no influence over? (The weather, other people’s choices, and so on.)

Review the items in each category, and then test your evidence for each one. Are you sure you have no influence over certain things? How do you know? Are you sure you have total influence over certain things? How do you know? Make sure each item holds under critical scrutiny.

Now, take the following steps:

  1. Start with the things you have total influence over. For the next few weeks, focus on taking deliberate action on these items. Influence what you can actually influence.

  2. Think about the items that you have some influence over. Are there things you could do to increase your influence over some of these items? Are there things you could do to decrease your influence? Are these items under your influence only in certain conditions? If so, what are those conditions? Can you influence these conditions? For now, just ponder and think about these items.

  3. Let go of what you can’t influence. Trying to influence the things you can’t influence is often a waste of time and can cause a lot of unnecessary stress. Focus on the things you can influence.

Start with Small Steps

Now that you have a list of items you can influence, pick one that you feel would have a positive impact on your life right now as a missionary. Then, start small. Think of one simple thing you could do to improve that area. Start with something that would only take a few minutes to complete.

Set a time when you plan to do it. Ideally, you want to attach any new behavior to a behavior you are already consistently doing each day. Pick something that would make sense to pair it with. For example, if you are trying to improve your relationship with your companion, you could perform a quick five-minute act of service for them right after your personal prayer in the morning.