Frustration Intolerance: 5 tips and strategies to combat it

What is frustration intolerance and what habits can we change to manage it?

At some point in our lives, we have all set out to achieve a challenge. We have worked very hard, we have decided to postpone other plans to have more time and give that subject all our dedication, only to end up not reaching our goals. and in the end, we didn't reach our goals..

It was not possible, we lost, we failed. This feeling of failure or even anxiety may be for some people a simple bump in the road and for others, depending on their point of view, one more defeat to add to the list.

If you identify yourself with the second option, here are some exercises and tricks you can practice to improve your intolerance to frustration.

Daily frustrations: starting to accept the situation

We cannot deny that, when we feel frustration, the emotions and thoughts that are generated are very intense.. The discomfort exists and we feel it as something real, although we are told that it is only an illusion or that we have an exaggerated attitude, or that we seek perfectionism and seem obsessive...

The feeling of frustration is not pleasant, but it is not unbearable either. With the determination that comes from this idea, we must change our attitude and our internal dialogue to see for ourselves that these small "failures" can help to strengthen and empower us. Thus, the result will always be a better sense of well-being..

So, before we start to manage the feelings related to frustration we must recognize and accept that although it may seem obvious, the world does not revolve around what we want, and therefore, it is necessary to assume that we are not going to get everything we want.. The best we can do is to think that long-term rewards are often more rewarding than short-term ones, and so we must temper our desire for immediacy and discover that we often settle for less precisely because of that impatience.

Some ideas for handling frustration

The most important thing in a situation that generates frustration is:

• Do not let yourself be carried away by the intense emotions of that moment. (frustration, sadness, anger, anger, rage...).

• Giving ourselves a few moments of pause will allow us to reflect and analyze the situation, so that we can look for alternatives to achieve our goal. In addition, we will recover a calmer and more stable emotional state.

Having understood all the above ideas, we can put into practice different techniques that help to increase frustration tolerance and the ability to cope with situations in which our expectations are not met. I propose five very useful ones with good results. Let's go for it!

Tips for improving frustration tolerance

The objectives we seek when using these techniques are to be aware of what we feel, to identify the main emotion, what kind of thoughts overwhelm us and, finally, to enter into a dynamic in which we can analyze our reactions.

1. Key phrase

This involves using a meaningful self-talk that will help us to abandon the thoughts that lead to unhelpful actions and negative moodsand replace them with others that lead us to face the situation. Using this kind of "reminders", we focus our attention on the solution of the problem and not on the discomfort.

Search your experiences for those phrases that have helped you to positivize negative situations, copy them on a piece of paper and remember them in moments of crisis.

2. Give yourself time

It consists of avoid analysis or reflection until you have cooled down emotionally..

How can we do it? We can start doing pleasant or pleasurable activities and practice them when we feel bad and ophoos. It is not an escape, it is a stop in time, a pause for later, to respond to the demands of the moment in a more adaptive way without frustration limiting us.

3. Technique of the 5 alternatives

Many times, we continue to pursue our initial objective, even if an apparent failure seems to block our path.. Look for five alternatives to achieve a goal, evaluate all its advantages and disadvantages. There is no ideal solution, so we will look for the one with the most advantages or the one with the most bearable disadvantages.

4. Telephone technique

Analyze the situation, identify the inappropriate behavior, specify what things have been done well, and think of an alternative behavior that think of an alternative behavior that includes the positive aspects of the previous maladaptive behavior.. Little by little and successively, you will arrive at an "optimal" alternative action, since with each change you polish the mistakes made.

5. Zigzag technique

It can help us to improve our patience and to learn to be constant. People who are intolerant to frustration have dichotomous thoughts (all or nothing, good or bad, black or white, perfect or useless). This technique aims to make the person understand that there are ups and downs and nuances in all situations..

The objective is that we facilitate the ends, dividing the goals into subgoals, and taking into account that sometimes we have to go backwards (zag) to continue advancing (zig) towards the final goal. In this way, achievements are made in a zigzagging fashion and setbacks are seen as opportunities to analyze the situation and reevaluate the objective. The important thing is that when experiencing a setback we should not feel despair, but remain calm, patient and consistent to keep getting closer to your goal without letting frustration be a hindrance.

Some final tips

• Distinguish between wants and needsSome need to be satisfied immediately and others can wait. We do not need to become capricious people.

• Control impulses and value the consequences of our actions. For it, nothing better than to know some techniques of emotional control.

• To be aware that, many times, the Pain or the feeling of failure has a lot to do with imagination.. We must learn to relativize failures and successes, and notice that our reality is built much more slowly than we would like it to be.

• Control the environment, avoid things, people or situations that can frustrate us, as far as possible.as much as possible.

One last thought

When we are children we learn to tolerate many situations that we do not like, we listen to the "no" of our parents and teachers daily and little by little we develop our own tools to combat frustration and know how to manage anger and helplessness. We are getting older and, sometimes, as we are the ones who set the goals and the pressure, we lose perspective and, as a consequence, we lose the ability to manage the situation well..

But this can be remedied, just as in our adult life we put up with many things that would totally frustrate us when we were seven or eight years old. Let's get to work!