By Karen Porter

There are people who think the job of administrative professional is carefree and stress-free. You know the ones: “I wish I had your job. It looks easier than mine and less stressful too.”

They are not admins. And oh, how wrong they are! Today you are dealing with trying to find any flight not full to get your executive Tom on a trip to a meeting next week for which last week you cancelled the already-booked flight and trip per his request.

Then manager Sally insists you fill in last minute to take minutes for another admin at a meeting. You go but you’re flustered and struggling to remember who’s who and make sense of their technical talk so you can know what to note.

And don’t forget executive Bill who wants to know why a key event is not on his calendar that he supposedly told you to block out time for last week. At least he thinks he told you. Or he meant to. But you know what he meant for you to do, right? All this while, someone is envying you and your easy, stress-free job (in reality, it’s because you make it look easy — after all, it is your forte).

Now let’s throw in the holiday season which may be the catalyst for more stress for you if you’re someone who gets in a personal frenzy around holidays due to personal to-do lists/tasks and commitments. Or perhaps you’re someone who just dislikes holidays. Not to worry, you’re not Scrooge. Some people just get a little moody around holidays in contrast to others’ cheerfulness; everyone is not the same.

But you say the latter is your personal life, and you don’t bring that to work? Not. Of course you’re going to bring a little bit of your personal life stress to work. Sure, the best advice is to leave personal baggage outside the door when you come to work, but it’s easier said than done. The best thing you can do is be self-aware if and when your personal life stress is coming into play during your day so you can check your behavior at that moment.

You’ll have to devise ways to manage your personal holiday stress. However, here’s help to identify and manage six other unintentional stressors that are related to your professional role and workplace:

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