Frustration: 5 Keys To Managing It Positively

Frustration is one of the most powerful emotions we have to face from our earliest childhood, making it one of the most dangerous. Indeed,  despite our ability to feel frustration from an early age, learning to manage it is not an easy task.

Besides its intensity, what makes controlling this emotion difficult is that no one usually teaches younger people how to channel the energy associated with it . 

On the other hand,  many parents worried about their children’s emotional intelligence tend to either overprotect them or trip them up on their own.

So we gradually become adults, and many of us still don’t know how to deal with frustration so that it doesn’t become an emotion that ultimately backfires on us.

What is frustration?

Frustration is a negative character / valence emotion (it’s unpleasant to feel it), but like all emotions, it serves its purpose. Frustration is the result of not getting what we want or hope for; it tells us that there is a good distance between what we would like and what we have, and that this distance is important to us.

There is implicit in it a difficulty that we have had or with which we have problems to negotiate. In other words,  the ultimate function of frustration is to get our attention and make us react.

However, when the frustration is very powerful and intense, it is often difficult for it to perform its function. We lose ourselves in the discomfort that this emotion generates, so that we only feel it and are not aware of what it wants to tell us.

This is why we will describe below 5 strategies to manage this emotion in a positive way.

How to deal with frustration?

1. Take some distance from the events

As we said before, the frustration can be very intense, which can lead us to perceive the events as catastrophic and to view the situation in an unrealistic way.

So,  to deal with frustration in a positive way we need to distance ourselves from events, postpone the decisions we have to make and try to look at the bigger picture.

We must, when we feel frustrated, seek “ the big picture ”, observe everything from the outside and in a holistic way.

One of the best ways to distance yourself from events is to focus on the overall positive and negative aspects of the situation that frustrate us and consider each of them, not just the negative ones.

We can also do a little exercise: compare what happened to us with something very, very bad that we went through, and ask ourselves if what we went through now seems so bad to us.

These little “tips” will allow our mind to distance itself from events and allow us to observe the situation from a more objective perspective.

2. Feel the frustration and let it go

When an emotion takes hold of us, whether it is frustration, anger, sadness or joy, it is best to live it and let it go. It doesn’t mean that we express it and let it explode, rather it means that we have to feel it deeply and then let go and let it go, away and out of us.

In other words, the more we try not to feel frustration, the more we will feel it, this is the paradox of the human mind. From this paradox will eventually develop obsessive disorders in which the person tries not to think of “X” and ends up thinking of “X, Y and Z” all day long.

In other words, the mind works like this: the more we avoid thinking or feeling “something”, the more we experience it. Therefore, observing, smelling, and letting go is a foundational skill that can greatly improve our emotional intelligence. 

If we want to be able to feel the emotions and let them go, we can practice, for example, mindfulness techniques or techniques of acceptance and engagement. All of these approaches can help us lessen the negative impact of this emotion.

3. Take the time to calm down and then act

There is no better advisor than frustration. Although this is a very powerful emotion with a high proactive effect, it tends to steer us towards behaviors that are improper or beneficial, even self-destructive.

Indeed,  frustration leads us to attack or injure the object that generates this emotion. In other words, it is an emotion that is not very restorative and rather vindictive, which is why we must avoid acting when its effects are acting on us.

In other words, what we want may or may not be what we need, and all of this will require circumstances which may be more or less adequate.

Therefore, let’s separate what we want (after all we have the right to want what we want), what we need, and what other people can provide to us. It is about adapting our needs to reality.

Because n e can be desired when and how we want, but remember that many desires are far from the needs, they are closest final to be opportunities or challenges.

5. Identify if this is a situation that we must accept or that we can change

If the situation that is causing us the frustration has no room for change, it is normal for the emotion to increase in intensity. Faced with this type of situation where there is no room for maneuver,  it is better to work on acceptance, rather than working on the capacity for frustration. We will explain in more detail the difference between when it is worth getting frustrated or not.

 

If it is a situation that can be changed, frustration, handled well, can become our ally  as it acts as a kind of beacon suggesting changes in our behavior. Once the feeling of frustration has passed, it is time to consider what needs to be changed and how.

Now, if the situation cannot be changed or if we do not have the possibility to make changes, we will have to change the direction of the thoughts that feed the emotion and prevent them from passing until they disappear.

These 5 keys, put into practice with intelligence, will help the frustration to play in our favor. We can therefore  make the most of one of the most unpleasant emotions by avoiding this direct confrontation which only increases it.

---

Our thoughts

Are we really living the life we ​​want to lead? Are we making our decisions based on what we want? Let’s think together …