How many of you woke up this morning and thought, I really need some more stress in my life? The reality is I think many of us feel like this, and it’s totally normal. But you see this in your teams, in your people and in your family, and you want to offer some help.

The last 19 months have thrown an absolute worldwide curveball. Leadership skills have been tested like they have never been tested before. We know that when we look at the research, anxiety levels, stress levels, burnout levels are being recorded at record levels. If you feel like this, it’s totally normal. In fact, I think recognizing that we feel like this and knowing that sometimes it feels like there is something wrong with us is part of the problem.

I notice more and more people are saying, “I just want to feel less stressed. I just want to feel less tired.” Again, that makes sense. But when your goal is to feel less stressed, then what you get is feeling less stress, and you get less of what you don’t want. What I think you really want is to feel challenged, to feel motivated and to feel inspired, right?

Being less stressed is far different than being your best you. We need to switch that benchmark. What are some of the words that come to mind when you are at your very best? Inspired, passionate, energized, blessed, content, gratitude and appreciation.

What does it give your clients? How do they show up, your teams? The people in your life who are most important to you, how do you engage with them? Anybody feel more focused? Anybody feel more grounded? Even as we start talking about these words, you feel that energy starting to shift. That energy, that aliveness has a name, and that name is “vitality.” This idea of vitality is going to be something that we set as our benchmark.

Vitality comes from the combination of our emotional, mental and physical energy directed toward something that matters to us. And our leadership vitality is the energy that fuels our capacity to chase down and take on those big, bold, meaningful goals. It’s what allows you to lead in positive and impactful ways. And I think, most importantly, it allows you to pursue a fully lived life, adversity and all.

So, the goal shouldn’t be just to have less stress. The goal is how do we create more meaningful stress. Stress can be unhealthy and bad if not managed.

What is one practice you can put in place that would help you manage that stress, that would help buffer the challenges and increase the energy? Meditation. Taking some time to slow down, reflect, focus on breathing. What’s another one? Exercise. Move your body, however you want to do it, but get up and move. What else? Hydrate. Water, it’s like giving your internal organs a shower. Give me another one. Journal. Reflect, take some time, put the phone away. Reflect on the day.

I think that this is important to understand ourselves. We care about how our brain is designed to influence our decisions and our choices and how we actually see the world. When under stress, our brain is designed to give emotions the upper hand. And these emotions are very powerful negotiators. To recognize how these emotions negotiate us out of the most logical decisions is how we actually empower ourselves to head into stress in the most effective way and start to actually leverage it.

I think that one of the most important skills of the future is genuinely going to go back to our ability to be self-aware and to self-manage. The more that people work virtually, the less people there are around us who are able to let us know how our behavior and work effectiveness are starting to change, and the more important it is to recognize these changes.

It’s in those moments when it would be most valuable to take a break. I want to offer a strategy to think things through, to reverse engineer how your brain is responding in those moments so that even if you can’t stop, you can figure out how to work more effectively. I call this a P.O.W.E.R. break. This is just a moment to regain perspective and make the decision that makes the most sense for you, and to do it in the way that your best comes to the table.

“P” is for “permission.” Just straight out give yourself permission to pause. I see, too often, too many people using fear, obligation or a sense of guilt. They emotionally blackmail themselves into thinking that they should keep going. Nothing is more wasteful than actually stopping but continuing to berate yourself because you feel you should be working in those moments.

“O” is to “oxygenate.” When you are stressed, you breathe, you just breathe faster and quicker. And you’re breathing in a way for that stress response to kick in. So oxygenating is our ability to actually slow down and deepen our rate of breath.

“W” is to “walk.” We know that every single body system is optimized through movement. If you are sitting at a desk all the time, you don’t have to go run a marathon; just get up and move.

“E” is “emotional “energy.” Take that moment while you are getting up and moving your body to just check in. What are you awfulizing? What are you amplifying? What are you simplifying in this moment? It is amazing how much a drain negative emotional energy has on us.

“R” is to “reconnect.” Everything we have done has been to reverse engineer what our brain does under stress. We have recognized that emotional system has kicked in. Reconnect to your values.

We need to be able to reconnect to those things that matter, and that’s purely your being intentional in these situations.

So many of us with the very best of intentions lead by the philosophy of “Do as I say, not as I do.” Yet, what this shows us is people do as you do. It doesn’t matter what you say.

This is the leadership piece we need to be thinking about here. I can’t leave you without this one last story. I was working on an assessment for a group similar to yours, and my husband thought we were going to watch a movie. I was working late, he came in, and I said, “I just need 10 more minutes.” He said, “I know you love what you do, and I know the people who you do it for so appreciate it. It just means I don’t always get the best of you.”

And he was right. Are the people who deserve the very best of you getting the very best of you? Or are they getting the leftover you? And that includes you. You use that work ethic that you have, but are you willing to then match that with a rest ethic? Rest is not a reward for getting everything done. It is an act of self-leadership.

Are you willing to actually raise the bar and not only take action but lead the action to create an environment that allows your vitality to be ignited? And more so to create an environment for other people to be at their very best as well? Because when you do, that is where you are going to find the leader you are meant to be. That is where you are going to find the fully lived life that you are meant to have.

Sara J. Ross is the founder and Chief Vitality Officer at BrainAMPED, a research and coaching firm that provides brain-based tools to decrease stress and exhaustion and increase leadership vitality, even in the most complex and pressure-filled moments.