Agendas

Everyone has their own agenda. Too often, we lose sight of this fact. Of course people are going to do things that don't match up with your agenda...they are more worried about theirs. This isn't right or wrong, but just the way it is. Logically, this makes sense, but emotionally, it doesn't always feel good.

We're emotional animals and this can make our interactions with others difficult. We want things the way we want them and when people don't agree, we can become angry and frustrated. For some, they handle this well. For others, we don't. When we don't handle it well, things can get ugly quickly. Other people can get involved. Lots of feelings can get hurt.

When emotions are involved, people often lose their minds. Things are said that shouldn't be said. We behave in ways we wouldn't normally behave. We do things we regret. Our emotional side is running the show...all because someone did something that didn't fit our agenda.

Why take things personally? If someone does something you wouldn't do or doesn't do something you would do, know they have their own reasons. They did it because of their agenda. What's the point of letting it bother you? Should other people have that much control over you and how you feel?

I'm not saying you have to ignore it, either. You can discuss with people what you would like or how you would have preferred they acted, but don't let emotions get the better of you. You, and you alone, should be in control of you. Don't give other people the power. Focus on the your agenda and let other people focus on theirs. If they don't mesh, then get out of the others way and move on. It's so much better and more productive than getting mad, frustrated or bitter.

Life is way too damn short to spend your time being mad, frustrated and bitter.

Relax

For many of us, frustration is a part of our daily lives. We become frustrated when things don't work well, when people don't do what we expect or even for no apparent reason. Frustration will often pop in to our day without warning, but once it hits, we are no longer able to do our best work.

Frustration saps our creativity and our drive to produce. For many, once frustration sets in, we become more and more frustrated. It shows up and we become surly and have a really hard time breaking out of the funk. Once we are in the funk, it becomes nearly impossible to do the work needing to be done until we can get our minds back on track. Frustration only leads to more frustration until we force ourselves to step back, take some deep breathes and relax. 

The problem is most of us become easily frustrated over stupid things and aren't able to easily to get out of the funk. Society has taught us to keep pushing forward, but sometimes the frustration is your body and mind telling you to take a break. We have to step away and break the hold the frustration has on us. This isn't always easy at work because many of our jobs are stuck in the factory mindset. We show up at a certain time, have prescheduled breaks and have to be doing work, come hell or high water, during the scheduled times. Because we aren't able to step away when we need to, instead of learning to eliminate frustration when it hits, we learn to keep doing things when our mind and body scream to stop.

This isn't always a bad thing, but until we learn to eliminate the frustrations as they hit, we are never going to be able to produce our best work. The mindset we have on the job often bleeds into the time we spend outside of work. We become accustomed to being frustrated and we see it around us all the time. The angry people in the store or road rage or neighbors yelling at each other. We feel it too, when the TV goes out during a show or the dogs aren't listening or people are being "stupid" or someone doesn't understand what we need.

We have to get better at listening to what our mind and body are telling us. Frustration shouldn't control who we are and what we do. It's difficult to remind yourself to take a step back once frustration hits, but this is the best thing you can do. Going through life angry and frustrated isn't good for you or anyone around you. The best thing we can do is learn to see the frustration and then learn to relax once it takes hold. Your going to feel better and the work you produce is going to much better. 

Stressed and Overwhelmed

We all have days where it feels like the world is plotting against us, when nothing works and if something could go wrong, it does. We quickly become stressed and overwhelmed. This usually just makes things worse because once the stress sets in, we can't seem to make a dent in anything. Our mind starts whirling with everything on our to-do list, but we can't figure out where to start or what to do. We feel like we are drowning in work and will never be able to get back on top of things.

This happens to the best of us. It has happened to all of us in the past and we were able to get control and get things done. We just had to focus and start doing things one at a time. It may seem overwhelming at the time, but looking back, it probably wasn't that bad. It's our reaction in situations like this that makes it so much worse. Instead of allowing the hopeless overwhelming feeling to take hold, slow down and do anything you can to help eliminate the stress. This has been floating around on Tumblr for a while and can help you get through these tough days:

Relax. We have all been there and we will all be there again. Being overwhelmed is not the end of the world and shouldn't ruin your day. Put in the work, focus on the priorities and get as much done as you can. Once you take some deep breaths and slow down that overactive mind, things will become a little clearer and you can work your way out of the pile. Even on the worst days, when the world is plotting against you, remember tomorrow will be a new day. 

Frustration

Many of us spend way too much of our time being frustrated by things we have little to no control over. We get frustrated by traffic; we get frustrated by things people say or do; we get frustrated by the things people do not say or do; we get frustrated when our order in a restaurant is wrong; we get frustrated with the weather; we get frustrated when the cable goes out; we get frustrated when electronics aren't working properly. We spend so much time being frustrated over little things and let these frustrations ruin our day.

Every day, something we don't want to happen is going to happen. We have to learn to ignore these little things or fix them without getting frustrated when they happen. We have to start looking for the good instead of dwelling on the bad. The key is to learn to not only let go of these frustrations, but to learn how to keep them from frustrating us at all. We have to find a different mindset, one where we focus on the good things happening and not on the bad. We have to relax and realize most of our frustrations stem from circumstances out of our control. We have to let go and let whatever happens happens. If it is good, celebrate. If is is bad, figure out how to fix it (if we can) and continue moving forward.

Frustration brings little good to our lives and easily compounds. Once we allow something to become frustrating, we begin to notice more and more things which frustrate us. Instead, early in every day, find something going well and think about how good we feel knowing this. As we get better noticing the good, we will start to see these good things compounding more and more and we will begin to feel less frustration for the others. Finding the good isn't always as easy because we have to focus our minds to notice the good and resist the urge to focus on the bad. Our days will never be perfect, but the people who have more good days than bad do this by focusing more on the good. Lots of little things happen throughout our days, isn't it better to spend our time focusing on and celebrating the good? With less frustration, how much more can we accomplish each and every day?