Frustration

One thing I think we all constantly struggle with is letting the thoughts and opinions of other people frustrate us. Do you ever have times when it feels as if everyone around you is pointing out all the negatives about the work you do? Do you ever have people who say they want to help you get better but never seem to listen to the reasons why things are the way they are? How do you handle the constant bombardment of negativity? The easiest way to tell if you let other people bother you is to see how often you become frustrated with them.

There will be times when you have a valid reason to be frustrated, but even then, it really isn't worth it. Why become frustrated with someone else when there really isn't anything you can do to change them? There will be times when someone else just doesn't understand, no matter how much they think they do. There will be times when other people just do things differently than we would. There will be times when our best isn't good enough for someone else. There will be times when things just don't work. Becoming frustrated in these cases does no good.

There will be other times when you don't have a valid reason to be frustrated, but become frustrated anyway. There will be times when you let everything else in your life build up and you become frustrated with someone close to you over something stupid. There will be times when you make a mistake that is easily fixed (or even one that isn't easily fixed). There will be times when someone you love makes a simple mistake. There will be lots of times when we want to get frustrated over things that don't really matter, mainly because of other things going on in life. These are times when we really want to eliminate the frustration.

One major problem with frustration is is continues to build. You get frustrated at work because of a variety of things and then traffic sucks and you become more frustrated. When you get home, the stupidest, little thing sets off the frustration again. Maybe it's the way the dishes are in the sink or you left the coffee pot on or you forgot something at work or any number of little things that shouldn't matter. It all starts with becoming frustrated the first time, probably when you feel you have a valid reason to be frustrated and this frustration continue to build to the point where you are getting frustrated over everything.

How do you stop this? How do you develop a way to keep this frustration from getting to you? I'm not an expert as I get frustrated more than I would like, but I do know some things you can try:

• Practice breathing: When you feel like become frustrated, focus on your breathing. Take a deep breath in, hold it, then slowly exhale. Count the breaths you take and focus on nothing but your breathing. This is usually really helpful when you get to the point where you want to explode in frustration. 
• Exercise: Try to get your blood pumping each and every day. Even if it is for just a short period of time, strenuous activity will help to clear your head and put you in a better frame of mind. You can do simple things (jumping jacks, push ups, squats, jumping rope) or more complex things (weights, jogging, yoga, classes). Not only will you burn the energy feeding you frustrations, but the more you work out, the better you will feel about yourself. The better you feel about yourself, the less frustrated you will get. 
• Meditation: This is a difficult one for many people because they picture a monk sitting perfectly still in lotus position for hours on end and think there is no way they can do it. Meditation doesn't have to be that involved. You can meditate by sitting at your desk perfectly still for five minutes. You can focus on your breathing or on a mantra or on anything that helps you clear your mind. You don't have to be classically trained or perfect at anything to meditate. You just have to find what works for you and make the time to do it. 
• Journaling: Make time each day to write about how you feel about things. It helps to get the frustrations you have on paper which makes them real and helps to let them exit your body. This can be your way of letting things out instead of holding them in until you explode over the stupid, little things. 
• Gratitude journaling: This is a lot like journaling, but each day you focus on three things for which you are grateful. You can focus this on things other people did or on things that just happened. You can do this each morning for the previous day or each evening for the day you just had. By focusing on the things for which you are grateful, you can help to forget about the things that frustrate you. As you begin to focus on looking for things to add to this list, you will stop paying as much attention to the things that frustrate you.
• Forgiveness repetition: This is just something you can do for yourself. Many people will do this as they lay in bed getting ready to sleep. Think about the people or things that frustrated you and forgive them. Practicing forgiveness helps to clear away any lingering frustration and helps to make you feel better about everything happening around you.
• Do what makes you happy: This is obvious, but one we often don't do. When we become frustrated, we will often go home and just fall on the couch and watch TV or we bitch and moan to someone else about our frustrations or we drink a little too much or we eat too much or we just go to bed frustrated and angry. Instead, make time to do something you love. If you love to write, then make time to write. Same for listening or making music or reading or playing a sport or shooting pool or doing anything that makes you feel good. We spend so much of our time doing things we may not really want to do and we forget to make time to do the things we love.

These are just some of the things you can do to help alleviate the frustration. The more you do them, the less and less you will automatically get frustrated (hopefully). Some of these may not work for you...the key is to keep trying until you find what does work. Let your loved ones know what you are doing and what you need from them. You don't want your frustration to boil over on to them.

Frustration sucks, but it is something we will all feel from time to time, no matter what we do. Some of us become frustrated at the drop of a hat or have certain people in our lives who are just really good at frustrating us. Some of us will work jobs that are so frustrating that we start to dread them before we even get there. Some of us will get frustrated over things that don't bother anyone else, but we will all have to deal with frustration. How we deal with it will have a lot to do with the overall happiness we feel in life. The easier we frustrate and the more it happens, the less time we have to enjoy the things we love. Personally, I would rather spend my time doing things I love with people I love than feeling frustrated about anything. 

What do you do to help alleviate your frustration?

Get Out Of Your Head

Dream. Do the work. Challenge yourself. Take chances. Feel free to fail. Be yourself. Blaze your own path. Learn something new every day. Create great art. Do something amazing. These are all things I have written about doing and think we should all strive to do. The hard part, the part many of us continue to struggle with, is getting out of our own heads and actually doing them.

Even though we may not realize it, we spend a lot of our time comparing ourselves to others and doing what we think the world wants us to do. We become frustrated when we can't express what we want to express; when we can't enjoy doing things we think other people want us to do; when we just can't quite live up to the ideas we have planted in our heads of what we are supposed to be like. We worry about the things we feel we should be doing. We regret the things we did or didn't do. We start to have doubts when we see someone who is writing better than us or creating better art or taking more chances or doing anything we want better than us.

Instead of getting out there and doing what we should, we become paralyzed by over-analyzing. We allow our fears and doubts and frustrations to paralyze us and continue to have more fears or more doubts or more frustration. We aren't able to accomplish the things we want to accomplish because we are constantly worried about getting it wrong or not being able to do it. We become frustrated when we feel we aren't doing what adults should be doing or when we can't just keep on track or no one is reading our writing or no one is buying our art. We get scared because we don't know what we should be doing and instead of looking and trying new things, we stick with what we have, even though we know it isn't the path we are looking for. We freeze and allow more negativity to creep in.

To do anything that matters to you, you have to stop allowing the negativity to creep in. If you want people to read what you are writing, keep writing. If you want people to buy your art, keep creating and putting it into the world. If you want to blaze your own path, then keep dreaming and taking action.  If you want to find what you love to do, you have to search for it. Ignore the frustrations and doubts and fears and just push forward. Stop assuming you know what other people think about who you are and what you do. Stop worrying. Stop the self-flagellation. It's good to critically think about what you do or who you are, but being overly critical or self-deprecating is just wrong. Stop letting this happen.

I know, you are saying this is easier said than done and you are right. Start by becoming more aware of what you are thinking and how you are feeling. Question yourself when you start to feel the frustration and doubts and fears. Don't berate yourself for feeling them, but question where they come from. Notice these feelings and allow your awareness to help dissipate them. Every time they pop up, continue to do this. Once we start eliminating this negativity, what can we accomplish? When we don't freeze from the negativity, there is nothing stopping us. It's about time we got out of our own heads and actually did something.  

Let It Go

Walking around with built-up bitterness is a recipe for disaster. When we feel slighted or screwed over by someone we will often hold resentment towards this person for years to come. We will constantly talk about how we really dislike them and will let others know how we were screwed over.

Everything the person does is viewed through a lens of negativity. We assume every decision is one based on malice and bad intent. We may even think that anything done now is still an attempt to one up us or make us look bad. Some of us will struggle the rest of our life trying to prove the other person wrong. 

The sad part is we can never, ever do our best work when we are doing it out of spite or in an attempt to show someone they were wrong about us. We can only do our best from a place of peace. Our motivation to do great work should not come from a place of negativity, like proving someone wrong. We will all do this from time to time, but when the past wrong constantly drives us, we will go nowhere good.

As hard as it sounds and as hard as it is to do, we have to let go of these negative emotions. They are doing nothing good for us and will only continue to bring us down. Yes, the person may have screwed us over. Yes, they might still be doing things in an effort to discredit us. Let them worry about the negativity they are bringing to their work. If this is really their goal, nothing good will come of their emotions, either. We have to be the bigger person and just let go. We should do the work we want to do and not worry what anyone else thinks, especially people we don’t like.

Bitterness can only be a driving force for so long. It feels like it is pushing us forward and helping accomplish things, but in the end, it will only lead to burnout and disappointment. Eliminate the bitterness and we will be able to find motivation from positive sources.

Think about why you do the work you do. There may be some bitter motivator, but for many of us, we do the work because we want to make a difference. We do things we are good at. We do things we love. We have a vested interest in what we do. In any case, the motivation behind your best work is always going to be positive motivation. Forget the past and move towards the future while living in the moment. Getting over the past isn’t going to happen overnight and is going to take time, but as we continue to work towards it, we will feel better.

There is nothing we can do to change what has happened and very little we can do to change people’s minds or attitudes. But, we can leave the game they are playing and play our own. No one says we have to get along with everyone. We have to live our life the way we see fit and there will be some people who just don’t figure in to it. Instead of letting them ruin your day, your week or longer, just move on with your life. Eliminate the bitterness and let the positive motivation allow us to do the best work we have inside.

Battling Negativity

I'll be the first to admit, some days it is just harder to attack the work with my best. It could be that I don't feel well or I am frustrated by something or someone or I am just out of sorts. On these days, I have to be extra sensitive to where my mind goes as it is very easy to become negative.

When any of us become negative in our thoughts, problems seem to compound. We start taking things personally, we are incapable of doing our best work and we often become more and more negative. When one thing goes wrong, we start seeing more and more things go wrong. When this happens, we have to instantly recognize it and work to pull ourselves out of this negative mindset.

Each person has their own ways of trying to eliminate the negativity as they feel it creep steadily in. Some people will meditate, some people exercise, some people just move around for a while, some people do breathing exercises, some people find ways to laugh and some people will do any number of other things. What works for you when you start to feel the negativity taking hold?

Stress and Frustration

Most of us walk though life with so much stress and frustration bottled up that we suffer from it. We are stressed about work and relationships and money and feel frustrated things aren't going the way we want or we aren't doing what we think we should or we just can't seem to get ahead. These are all normal feelings and we aren't alone with these stressors or frustrations. But, we have to find ways to let go of these feelings; we have to find positive outlets to help get rid of them.

Some people use exercise. Some use writing. Some meditate. Some practice yoga. It doesn't matter what you do, you just need to find whatever works for you. Life is too short to carry around all this negative energy bottled up, just waiting to explode. We have to let it go. If we find a release, we will realize most of the frustration and stress are caused by things that shouldn't cause is so much frustration or stress. We will realize things happen every day and the less we let them bother us, the better off we will be.

Start today. The great thing about having the release is you will notice the little things will stop bothering you so much. With less negativity on board, it's easier to ignore the little things; it's easier to focus on big pictures; it's easier to go through life being a little happier and more peaceful. When you don't have a release, the opposite is true. Little things add up and we become frustrated over things we shouldn't. We lose it over things which normally we wouldn't. We all have a way to release the negative, we just have to find what works best. What works for me won't necessarily work for you. Try it...find your release and see how much easier it becomes to not bottle up negativity. Think about how much better your life would be if you weren't carrying the weight of all of these negative emotions with you through each day. Think about how much happier you can be if the little things didn't bother you so much.

What do you do to release and let go of negativity?