Tolerate frustration

We find ourselves surrounded by unforeseen events, setbacks and annoyances that from time to time contribute to putting our plans or desires for later and, in some cases, to abandoning them completely. Knowing how to handle these situations and ultimately, tolerating the frustration that they produce us is the best tool to continue and not get stuck.

What is frustration?

The feeling that we experience when we do not achieve a goal or a desire or simply when we do it but not at the level of demand that we had set ourselves is called frustration. Something like a combination of anger, anxiety, irritability, disappointment, or dysphoria that inevitably involves discomfort.

However, it is important to note that not all of us feel frustration in the same situations, nor is it experienced with the same intensity. The emotional experience of frustration is different for each person. A series of factors such as personal history, experiences and education, among others, have a lot to do with their experimentation. For example, two brothers may not behave the same when they fail an exam, just as two workers from the same company do not show the same behavior when their project is denied..

Experiencing frustration is more common than we imagine, especially in children, due to their poor development of skills. Thus, frustration is a natural reaction that we all experience but that we should not stop paying attention to. How we handle it will be decisive to prevent it from taking over our lives, invades us with discomfort and doubts and causes a lack of motivation, which in some cases can lead to a negative self-image.

How to tolerate frustration on a day-to-day basis?

The first step in beginning to tolerate frustration is acceptance. Accepting what happened and how we feel is the key.

Once we have identified that we are frustrated because we have not achieved what we had proposed or the situation has not developed as we expected, it is important to manage that discomfort that we feel. For this, we can look for a moment of pause. A moment in which we can connect with ourselves, reflect and look into perspective.

This is nothing more than checking the entire process from beginning to end. Contrasting the expectations that we had in the beginning with the reality will give us clues about how we are. In addition, we will recover a more pleasant and calm emotional state and we will not let ourselves be carried away by the negative and intense emotions that we initially experience..

Being calm will help us explore other paths, other possible ways to do what we wanted. Even if we feel frustrated by something that has happened with another person, we can also look for possible ways to solve it or convey what we think. The question is not to get trapped in frustration but to reflect on how we can move forward in one way or another. Now, in the event that it is not possible, accepting that we cannot do anything and extracting learning from what happened would be the most important thing..

What is not recommended in these cases is to remain immobile in frustration, complaining and going over what happened without drawing anything in conclusion. Believe it or not, it is one of the most common ways to react when we experience this emotion. Ruminate, ruminate and ruminate. In addition, constantly thinking about it will not solve anything but it will cloud everything we are carrying out, hindering our performance..

7 fundamental learnings of tolerating frustration

Now that we know what frustration consists of and how we can manage it in our day-to-day lives, it is convenient that we delve into the wonderful learning that we can obtain through it. Thus, tolerating frustration teaches us that:

• Accepting has nothing to do with getting but with managing.
• Most of the time the prize is not the goal but the path taken.
• Differentiating between expectations and reality will give us clues about our emotional state.
• Staying in the complaint does not contribute anything and anchors us to victimhood.
• Exploring other paths is possible. Sometimes goals, relationships or our desires require more effort than we thought.
• Focusing on solutions is much more constructive than focusing on the problem.
• The requirement has a limit. Everything can't be perfect.

Getting frustrated is necessary because it does not teach the value of effort and the opportunity of mistakes. But above all, the important thing is what we do with that frustration, how we manage it and how we use it to continue growing.