How to Cope With Frustration
I know that almost everyone is familiar with feelings of frustration, whether coming from your efforts falling short of achieving what you have aimed or someone else’s efforts failing to meet your needs. Now Coping with frustration is all about recognising the sources that trigger the feeling and using the proper system / techniques to choose a different emotional response.
Acute Instances of Frustration
The first we should understand is our triggers.
A trigger is an element in your environment that causes a sudden emotional reaction in you that is disproportionate to the trigger itself. And there are also some common triggers, but for sure all of us has different set of things that causes these frustrated feelings.
- Like do you get frustrated when you are forced to wait and do nothing? For example, hold-up ( especially lagos roads) or waiting in a check-out line.
- Again, do you also get frustrated when people do not meet your personal expectations or disrupt your work? For instance, someone sending you a text or email that throws off your day or makes you imbalance .
- Even financial status/sex/home /neighbours can trigger it.
- Do you get frustrated with difficult problems?
Knowing what tends to touch a nerve or what will get us pissed will help us recognise when these feelings are likely to strike and avoid the trigger as often as possible. Triggers I know are automatic reactions, so if we know our triggers it can help us control it when we are presented with one.
Another one is Managing your expectations of others. Other people can be very frustrating, because humans can be amazing and wonderful. People can also be irrational, self-centered, unfair, and inconsistent. And trust me It can be infuriatingly frustrating. You can always control your own reaction, but not their behavior.
- For example, keep your phone on silent when you need to work without been distracted or get up and take a break from a difficult work , it helps to relax the nerve.
- If you simply cannot avoid the trigger, try your best to realize that triggers are themselves thought patterns that you can choose to allow or not. So I feel Once we are triggered,we should take our time to think rather than reacting impulsively.
Here is another I have tried : Learn to Practice stress-management breathing.
I once read that Relaxed, regulated breathing changes the chemistry of the brain so activity is dominated by the thoughtful neocortex, not the fight-or-flight amygdala.
So if you do this consciously it can help you to avoid impulsive action or rash words on people or even transfer aggression . Taking a Deep breath before you act out of anger or frustration helps, so just pause and a take a deep breath. Count to four slowly as you breathe in, then count to four again as you breathe out. Repeat until you feel calm, may work for nearly every one except those with quick temper.
- For instance, say you have a friend who is always late for everything but is otherwise a great friend. Manage your expectation by realizing that you simply cannot make your friend show up on time, but you can control what you invite her to. If you know that punctuality is one of your triggers, then avoid putting her in situations where promptness is an issue. That way you have helped yourself.
- And we should try to except more from people. Because when they disappoint you, you get frustrated and transfer aggression on innocent people, I have friends like that and I manage them too.
This is very important, Check in with yourself. Frustration is a stressor that causes the release of adrenaline and other neurochemicals, which can act together to make you act impulsively and even aggressively and this happens nearly everyday if you give it chance. Before you shout, make a rude gesture, or insult someone, stop and mentally go back over the relevant events. Check that your response is neither excessive nor insufficient , try to see if the fault is not coming from you before you take irrational decisions . The goal is not to let others walk all over you, and you too try not to over-dominating and walking all over others. As for me i ask myself these questions to help me figure out how to respond to the current situation:
- Are things really as I perceive them? What might I be missing here?
- Will what happened now matter in a day? A week? A year?
- Can I express my concerns without hostility?
- Is there information I am trying to share especially while chatting ?
- Am I as interested in seeing the situation clearly as I am in my own reaction or being "right"?
- Am I interested in the other person’s needs? Can we cooperate and so on ?
And then again view frustration as "delayed success" instead of seeing it as "failure".
How you frame your situation will change your reaction and emotions. If you see your situation as a setback that you will get over, then you know, you will soon be over come it.
Some people have come of age and yet no husband while some after youth service no job or handwork , they should just see it as delayed success and not failure. That way they can work towards achieving their goal in no time.
- For instance, say you’re saving for a new car but have to take some money from the fund to fix your current car. Instead of fixating on not getting the new vehicle when you’d want, remind yourself that it will only set you back a month or two and that you will overcome the obstacle simple, so it's a thing of the mind, orientation and mentality.
Everybody experiences frustration occasionally . It's that burning feeling in your gut when things aren't going your way. By identifying what causes frustration, however, a person is better equipped to deal with it before it turns to full blown anger.
1 comment:
Nice write up
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