How to Manage Stress as a Consultant: 3 Proven Techniques

Consulting naturally comes with pressures. It can feel overwhelming at times, especially as a new consultant.

Implement these strategies to alleviate burnout and thrive in this demanding yet rewarding career.

Why Consulting is Stressful

There’s three reasons why consulting has unique pressures:

High accountability for project outcomes and pressure to maintain the firm’s reputation
Constantly parachuted into urgent, high-stakes business scenarios with senior clients
Long hours and tight deadlines

How can you manage consulting stress so that you can thrive in your career?

Seek the Learning

Often we feel stressed because we feel like something is happening to us rather than with us. By actively asking yourself ‘what do I want to learn from this situation?’ you can turn the dial back in your favour.

Try implementing these three things:

Ask "What do I want to learn here?"
Reframe challenges into growth opportunities
Focus on personal development

Gamification

Gamification is about looking for how you can turn the mundane into a game-like scenario.

Gamification isn’t about trying to undermine the importance of your work, instead it’s about making it fun. For example, challenge yourself to elicit three positive comments from a tough stakeholder.

Inspired by the productivity guru, Ali Abdaal, ask yourself this: “how can I make this fun. Making work feel more like a game relieves stress.

Embrace Choice

Reflect on which bits of the situation you can have control over.

Which components can you influence? What decisions could you make? Choice creates empowerment.

Then, pull the levers to make those choices happen. Everything else, try and gamify to make it more bearable. For example, if unreasonable deadlines are imposed, can you negotiate timeline or resources? If not, can you control workflow or staffing? Identify and pull available levers.

Bonus Tips

Here’s some extra tips for helping decrease stress levels:

Set boundaries and try to limit weekend work. Communicate your boundaries to your team. It doesn’t mean you’ll contribute less, you’ll just distribute your time differently.
Practise mindfulness or meditation techniques, even if it’s 15 minutes per day.
Find an outlet like exercise or a hobby. Make time for that and ensure you completely switch off.