Learn How To Handle Frustration
Even with the best personal philosophy, things will go wrong. You might slip up or overindulge, because humans make mistakes. The important thing is to know when you are slipping and get things back on track before it gets serious. To succeed at anything we need to exercise discipline and determination.
Sometimes you will stick to your personal philosophy one hundred percent and things still go wrong. That is how life is. What matters here is not so much the thing that goes wrong but how you deal with the situation. With the best plan in place, things still go wrong. It is a fact of life. Life is full of frustration.
Another fact of life is that every frustration will eventually pass. When you are faced with a frustrating situation, just say to yourself, this too will pass. Knowing that each frustrating situation will pass will make it less stressful. Not everything in a given situation will be frustrating, so you need to identify what bits made it frustrating. Then change the frustrating bits when the opportunity arises again. Below is a three step approach to dealing with frustration.
1. Know that the situation will pass.
2. Assess what bits went wrong.
3. Change the bits that went wrong when you are face with a similar situation.
An example is:
You live in Mandeville and need to go into Kingston to buy an important bit of material for your science project. Your teacher gave you the address of the only store where the material is sold. You travel to Kingston and find that they are out of stock and did not expect a delivery until the following week. You are frustrated because you have wasted your money and your time.
Using the three steps, you would:
1. Take a deep breath and pause, realising that that is not the worst thing that could have happened and it too will pass.
2. Ask yourself, what went wrong? You did not contact the store before hand to make sure that it was still at that address and had the material in stock.
3. Get the store’s telephone numbers, the name of the person you spoke to, their opening times, their estimate of the quantity you need for your project and the cost. You could also find out if they offer a postal or delivery service or if they would put some aside for you. If the material is that rare, you might even consider paying for it and getting the appropriate receipt.
If a similar situation arises, you would find the store’s telephone number in the phone book and get all the information that you need. You might find that you do not even need to leave your living room. How is that for dealing with frustration?
Frustration comes in different ways, but with prior planning and adjustments, through experience, life will become less frustrating. A final important fact about frustration is that success is on the other side of frustration. Every successful person has faced and conquered frustration along the way. If you give up because of frustration, you will not achieve your goal.
Personal philosophy: Every frustrating situation will pass to reveal the success on the other side.
.jpg)
