Frustration, apart from being a very addictive game, is a thing that we all suffer from. We get frustrated with ourselves, with situations, with others, sometimes we get to a point where everything frustrates us.
The feeling of being upset or annoyed as a result of being unable to change or achieve something.
Very often in the heat of frustration, we do not stop to think, we do not look at the solution, we keep going over the problem and keep re-enforcing the fact that we can’t seem to solve something.
Frustration is a reoccurring feeling caused by repeat behaviour and thinking.
The only way to break the pattern is to think differently and when a challenge comes up, is to learn to not try to solve it. We need to learn to be able to ask for help, we need to learn to drop our vulnerability shields, as Brene Brown talks about in ‘Daring Greatly’. We need to see it as an opportunity to learn, not a situation that makes us feel not good enough and weak.
We have to break the habit, so we have to act differently, we can learn to ask, learn to count to 10, we can learn to find out for ourselves what the solution might be. What we have to do is teach ourselves to walk away from the problem. Only by doing this do we break the cycle. Once we break that cycle, and that requires repeat behaviour many times over, we free ourselves from frustration and it’s negative effects on our self-confidence. Eventually, it is like autopilot and we learn to always pause before frustration comes in.
Learning something new is exciting, and it gives us a sense of fulfilment and achievement to learn how to solve something that previously only made us angry and frustrated.
Life is all about habits, and the good news is, we control every single habit and we can change pretty much every single one we have formed since birth. We are born without any, so we form all of them.
Frustration is a waste of time, learning is what makes life amazing.
Philip Dodson 