Although there are endless external influences on your life,such as
your relationships with others as well as the various environmental
factors,how you deal with stressful situations will depend a lot on
the way you perceive yourself.If you are self confident and have a
positive image of yourself,you will feel that you are in control of
your actions and your destiny. This way,stress is unlikely to be a
major problem in your life.But if your confidence level is low and you
feel that you are not in control of your life,you will be in danger of
becoming a victim of persistent,overriding feelings of resentment
,anxiety and fear.
You make yourself stress-prone if you easily lose control of your
life,are not open to change and tend to view all kinds of change as a
threat rather than a challenge.Stress-proof yourself by developing a
‘hardy’ personality.If you belive that you can control what happens or
that even if you can’t ,you can always cope,you may not feel stressed
at all.

All these boil down to one thing,being optimistic.Studies show that
optimistic thinkers are generally happier,more popular,better
performers at work and school,better stresshandlers and healthier.To
arrive at this happy state of mind,start with making small goals
which you are resonably sure you can succeed,work at them and savour
your triumphs.