One of my clients was recently giving herself a hard time because a week after moving to a new state and a few days after starting a new job, she wasn’t relaxed. In fact, she was downright stressed.

I call this the Super Woman syndrome. This is the expectation that you can—and have to!—do everything while always being happy and relaxed.

How reasonable is that? Particularly if you are going through some pretty significant life changes?

Now this doesn’t mean that you can’t go through a move and job change feeling relaxed and happy, but regardless of how many people can do that, your reaction is your reaction.

So here are 3 tips to help relieve stress and have more fun.

1—Ease up on yourself, particularly in the moment. Notice your reaction, but let go of the self-judgment as much as possible. Beating yourself up for your reaction—to any situation—is just adding negative fuel to the catabolic fire. It just makes you feel worse and will prolong the stress.

2—Give yourself a little perspective. How much of your day do you feel stressed? Is it 100 percent of the time or were there just some significant moments of overwhelm that colored your perception of your day? Start paying attention to how many good moments you are having.

Begin to track just how much of the time things are going well, you are making progress, you are coping, you are feeling relief, satisfaction, gratitude, and even joy. You might be surprised that there are more of those positive anabolic moments than you thought.

3—Give yourself a break. Being is just as important as doing. Take a moment to slow down. Think about how important a task is before you make yourself do it when you are exhausted and really need a break. Will an unswept floor really crash your day tomorrow? Really?

You are more than just this physical body going through the motions. Letting yourself relax and have some fun—and shifting your attitude so that you are having more fun doing what you are doing—will actually boost your energy level. The result is that you get more done with much less stress.

Together we can do it!