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Posted by on Mar 17, 2010 in Career, Opinion, TG Roundup

33 Ways To Overcome Frustration

[Via – Dragos Roua]
Picture from Stock.exchng

I have a huge experience with frustration. I experienced it in so many ways, at so many times in my life, that I feel like I’m some kind of a specialist. If you wonder why I have this huge expertise, here’s the answer: growth never happens without it. The more frustration you are able to harvest, resolve and overcome, the more growth you’re experiencing. Avoiding it, hiding from it, deluding the game, none of these strategies will make you a better human being. On the contrary.

What follows is a list of tools and approaches I used to solve my own frustration and limitation episodes.

1. Accept Reality

Yes, something bad happened. Don’t spend your day imagining how beautiful life could be if it wasn’t for that stupid incident or mistake. This is it. It is frustrating, no doubt about it, but rejecting this reality will not lower the frustration, on the contrary, will make it stronger and stronger. Accept reality.

2. Shift Your Focus

It’s so easy to get caught in a spiral of anger and despair when you’re frustrated, and I know that first hand. Shift your focus by engaging in small but demanding activities. Get involved. Do take the necessary steps to get over the frustrating situation, but do not ignore everything else around you.

3. Talk About It With A Friend

Find somebody you trust and talk about it. Let it out. Don’t let it grow inside yourself until you explode. Most of the time, when you reach this point, it’s too late to make a meaningful change that will restore your reality. Let your worries and your tension fly. After all, this is what friends are for, right?

4. Journal It

If you don’t keep a journal, start now. Write down all your fears, all your sensations and describe them in great detail. Do it until you feel you can’t do it no more. You’re going to feel incredibly better. Writing has this side effect of lowering what you write about, making it more manageable. Just try it.

5. Write A Letter About It

Imagine you’re on a desert island. Sit down and write a letter to somebody who could potentially rescue you. Be verbose. Imagine how your life will be after you leave that desert island. Because if you can’t describe that, you will never leave the island. Then destroy the letter.

6. Write A Worse Case Scenario

What is the worst thing that may happen to you right now? List everything from physical loss to emotional imbalances. Try to foresee every little detail of a worst case scenario. What life will you live if everything will turn out as bad as possible? Then read it. It won’t look as bad as you thought.

7. Identify A List Of Possible Actions

What exactly will make the situation acceptable again? What are the things that you could actually do to improve your current status? Make a list. Try to identify every possible action, as improbable as it may seem, and put it on the list. At the end of this, you’ll feel much better: you have work to do.

8. Sleep Over It

Most of your unconscious life happens while you’re asleep. Try to go to bed with a clear thought of resolution. Don’t try to find a solution, just prepare yourself for getting out of that frustrating circle. During the night your unconscious mind will find resources to make you stronger.

9. Be Your Own Avatar

Try to look at yourself from “the outside”. Write on a piece of paper what an observer would see at you. How do you behave? How do you talk, how do you act? The more you’ll do this exercise, the more you’ll differentiate yourself from the frustrating persona and take control over it at the same time.

10. Read Something Funny

This will not solve your problem, most of the time it will only switch your focus to something else, giving you a temporary break. Do not mistake this technique with avoidance, just use it as a chillout session, then get back on track and solve whatever you have to solve.

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