Dealing with Frustration

June 16th, 2011 by Kevin Ngo

One of the most common emotions that we all feel while pursuing a worthy goal, is frustration. How do you go about dealing with frustration? Before I get into that, let me make sure we are on the same page in terms of the definition.

Frustration is simply a feeling of being stuck or feeling overwhelmed. Either way, it’s a situation that makes us feel like we don’t have enough resources to move forward with our progress. Think about the last time you felt frustrated while working on obtaining a goal. Do you remember what exactly got you frustrated? Normally, what causes this feeling is when things don’t work out as we planned.

If you are feeling frustrated with another person, the main reason is because they did something that did not meet your expectations. The same goes for your goals. We get frustrated when something is supposed to happen but it didn’t. I’m sure you have felt this way many times in the past. So how do we go about dealing with frustration?

We deal with it by picking our battles. If the thing that is causing you to feel frustrated is something that you can’t change, such as some external event, then you should focus on something else. If it’s something that you can’t change, focusing on it won’t do you any good. It’s like the sports fan who gets frustrated when his team is losing even though he has no control over the outcome.

When you feel frustrated, all that feeling is telling you is that something you expected to happen did not happen. Not only that, you also get frustrated because it’s something that you can’t do anything about to change the situation. So in order to handle this feeling, besides focusing only on what you can change, you need to slow down and break everything into bit sized pieces. In other words, take the issue that is causing your frustration, figure out what’s the main reason it didn’t work out like how you planned, then focus on fixing the outcome by taking action on things that you can control.

By doing these two simple things, you can save yourself a lot of wasted energy on getting frustrated over things that you have no control over. When you pursue any worthwhile goal, you will inevitably hit some road blocks. When this happens, it will be frustrating, but if you focus on solving the issue and getting past the setback instead of being paralyzed by it, you will be one step closer to obtaining your goal.

Until next time…

Love Life. Do Good. Live Well.

Return from Dealing with Frustration to Personal Development page.

25 Comments

  1. arlene marie d June 26, 2011
    • Kevin Ngo June 27, 2011
  2. sumi June 28, 2011
    • Kevin Ngo June 28, 2011
  3. Mkbpeaches July 3, 2011
    • Kevin Ngo July 3, 2011
      • Nancy July 13, 2011
        • Kevin Ngo July 13, 2011
  4. Mohd.Shuair July 15, 2011
    • Kevin Ngo August 16, 2011
  5. rakhi July 22, 2011
    • Kevin Ngo August 16, 2011
  6. aisha August 30, 2011
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    • Kevin Ngo October 17, 2011
  8. Joanne November 25, 2011
    • Kevin Ngo November 25, 2011
  9. shahid Hassan king January 29, 2012
    • Kevin Ngo January 29, 2012
  10. Luka May 12, 2012
    • Kevin Ngo May 13, 2012
  11. Tammy May 10, 2013
    • Kevin May 11, 2013
  12. SJ Johnson May 31, 2013
    • Kevin May 31, 2013

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