33 ways to overcome frustration - dragos roua

I have a huge experience with frustration. I experienced it

in so many ways, at so many times in my life, that I feel

like I’m some kind of a specialist. If you wonder why I have

this huge expertise, here’s the answer: growth never

happens without it. The more frustration you are able to

harvest, resolve and overcome, the more growth you’re

experiencing. Avoiding it, hiding from it, deluding the

game, none of these strategies will make you a better

human being. On the contrary.

What follows is a list of tools and approaches I used to

solve my own frustration and limitation episodes.

1. Accept Reality

Yes, something bad happened. Don’t spend your day

imagining how beautiful life could be if it wasn’t for that

stupid incident or mistake. This is it. It is frustrating, no

doubt about it, but rejecting this reality will not lower the

frustration, on the contrary, will make it stronger and

stronger. Accept reality.

2. Shift Your Focus

33 Ways To Overcome Frustration - Dragos Roua http://www.dragosroua.com/33-ways-to-overcome-frustration/

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2. Shift Your Focus

It’s so easy to get caught in a spiral of anger and despair

when you’re frustrated, and I know that first hand. Shift

your focus by engaging in small but demanding activities.

Get involved. Do take the necessary steps to get over the

frustrating situation, but do not ignore everything else

around you.

3. Talk About It With A Friend

Find somebody you trust and talk about it. Let it out. Don’t

let it grow inside yourself until you explode. Most of the

time, when you reach this point, it’s too late to make a

meaningful change that will restore your reality. Let your

worries and your tension fly. After all, this is what friends

are for, right?

4. Journal It

If you don’t keep a journal, start now. Write down all your

fears, all your sensations and describe them in great

detail. Do it until you feel you can’t do it no more. You’re

going to feel incredibly better. Writing has this side effect

of lowering what you write about, making it more

manageable. Just try it.

5. Write A Letter About It

Imagine you’re on a desert island. Sit down and write a

letter to somebody who could potentially rescue you. Be

verbose. Imagine how your life will be after you leave that

desert island. Because if you can’t describe that, you will

never leave the island. Then destroy the letter.

6. Write A Worse Case Scenario


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6. Write A Worse Case Scenario

What is the worst thing that may happen to you right

now? List everything from physical loss to emotional

imbalances. Try to foresee every little detail of a worst case

scenario. What life will you live if everything will turn out

as bad as possible? Then read it. It won’t look as bad as

you thought.

7. Identify A List Of Possible Actions

What exactly will make the situation acceptable again?

What are the things that you could actually do to improve

your current status? Make a list. Try to identify every

possible action, as improbable as it may seem, and put it

on the list. At the end of this, you’ll feel much better: you

have work to do.

8. Sleep Over It

Most of your unconscious life happens while you’re

asleep. Try to go to bed with a clear thought of resolution.

Don’t try to find a solution, just prepare yourself for

getting out of that frustrating circle. During the night your

unconscious mind will find resources to make you

stronger.

9. Be Your Own Avatar

Try to look at yourself from “the outside”. Write on a piece

of paper what an observer would see at you. How do you

behave? How do you talk, how do you act? The more you’ll

do this exercise, the more you’ll differentiate yourself

from the frustrating persona and take control over it at

the same time.


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the same time.

10. Read Something Funny

This will not solve your problem, most of the time it will

only switch your focus to something else, giving you a

temporary break. Do not mistake this technique with

avoidance, just use it as a chillout session, then get back

on track and solve whatever you have to solve.

11. Stop Blaming Yourself

Maybe you did something really wrong, and your current

situation is the result of that mistake. Take responsibility

but don’t blame yourself. It’s all in the past. You’re in the

present now and you can do something about it. Blame

will only put weight on that past and drag you down.

Avoid it at all cost.

12. Take A Walk

Even on the wild side, if you like the wild side, but do take

a walk. The mere action of moving will set you up for

action and hopefully will make your mind a little clearer.Â

Walking always helps me put my thoughts in order and let

off the steam a little bit. And it’s free of charge.

13. See It From The Future

This one goes hand in hand with number 6. Try to

describe your current situation and look at it from the

future. 1 year from now, your problem will be asÂ big as

it is right now? How about 5 years? Or 10 years? Putting

your frustration in a larger context will usually weaken it

or at least make it manageable.

14. Cook A Delicious Meal


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14. Cook A Delicious Meal

As simple and mundane as it may seem, cooking is an art.

And every time you perform some sort of an art, you’ll see

the world through your intuitive mind. You’ll summon

your way out of frustration rather than find it through

logical inference. And cooking is the cheapest – and

tastiest – art one can afford.

15. Go To A Party

Not to be abused and transformed into some sort of

escapism but extremely useful to lower your shirtiness.

Go out, mingle and see if you can wipe out your frown

from your face. You can get back to your problems later,

when your body and mind will be more balanced. After

the hangover, of course.

16. Write About Your Past Successes

You don’t have to keep a journal for it, you can just sit

down at a table and remember all your breakthroughs. Or

only the most important ones. Seeing yourself succeeding

will definitely weaken all that frustration you feel right

now and will also give you some hints about how to

completely overcome it.

17. Borrow Some Enthusiasm

Stay around energetic people or get involved in active

projects. Choose to be part of something that exhales a lot

of energy. Get involved in fresh projects. Being around

enthusiastic people will lower the frustration to the point

where it can actually become manageable. And it will

make you just feel better.


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make you just feel better.

18. Soak and Dry

Let it flow through you until you’re completely overloaded.

Just be sure not to do something during this stage. Isolate

from the world and allow yourself to be frustrated. Then

slowly wait for the frustration to dry out. Sometimes, this

“all you can eat” approach is the only way to deal with it in

a healthy way.

19. Go Watch A Comedy

As an alternative to number 10, “Read Something Funny”.

Giving yourself permission to laugh will lower your anger

and hopefully will make things easier to handle. Also,

seeing people in strangely hilarious situations will make

your own frustration seem awkward. Through a good

laugh at it.

20. Attack It With The “Why?” Weapon

Another writing exercise, in which you start to find the

root cause of your frustration by asking “why?” questions.

“Why am I broke?” – Because I spent too much. “Why did I

spent too much” – Because I’m feeling insecure. “Why?…”

You got the idea. At some point, something will click

inside.

21. Volunteer For Something

Frustration is closely related to your ego, or the part of

your being that is concerned with those big phrases

starting with “Me…”. If you volunteer to do work for

somebody else, you’ll stop feeding your ego with energy.

The weaker that part gets, the stronger your authentic

and powerful part will be.


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The weaker that part gets, the stronger your authentic

and powerful part will be.

22. Stand Up And Fight

Be a soldier. Give yourself orders and follow them. Instill

some rough and unquestionable discipline in your life.

Get up early in the morning, do your work as if you’re on a

battle field and then go to sleep. Repeat until your

problems become just situations you can solve by

following an easy sequence of new orders.

23. Stop Blaming Others

Similar to number 11, only this time your attitude will turn

towards other people, in a desperate attempt to avoid

feeling hurt. Just stop it. Although it may seem like a relief,

blaming others it’s just a temporary hack, it won’t last. In

99% of the situations, what we experience is the direct

result of our own actions.

24. Do Small, Repetitive Tasks

Borrow the behavior of a machine. Do those tiny little

things you avoided so much because they seemed so

boring. Now it’s the best time to start working on them.

Slicing your time and focus will dissolve the pressure.

Frustration will slowly dilute in this sea of tiny, repetitive

tasks.

25. See It From The Past

Alternative to number 13, looking at your own frustration

from the past will color it in a new, fresher light. Most of

the time, the feeling triggered by this perspective is: “I’ve

been through though times before, I can get over this”.

And this is more often than you think true: we have a


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been through though times before, I can get over this”.

And this is more often than you think true: we have a

huge life experience, we just don’t trust it enough.

26. Read Similar Stories

You’re not alone. And even if you find it difficult to talk to

other people you can always do this by yourself: just

scorch the Internet using descriptive keyphrases about

your own frustration. You’ll discover that you’re not alone.

Somebody else have been there too. And now he’s so over

it.

27. Assess Progress

Every second of your life changes something. Look for the

small steps you’re doing and assess them. The first item

on this assessment list may be: “I’m starting to assess my

progress and this is in itself a huge step forward”. The

more you write, the bigger your progress will seem.

28. Disguise It

Put a mask on it, make it look like something else: “I’m

feeling frustration right now, but this is a mask for…” and

replace with whatever quality you want to build:

discipline, personal power, endurance. Transform it. I

usually use the caterpillar – butterfly image: it’s bad now

but look what it can become.

29. Contrast It With A Worse Situation

Try to identify a related situation but with a significantly

higher degree of damage. If you’re in debt, imagine how it

will be to be bankrupt. If you’re having a relationship

hickup, try to imagine how it would be to live on a desert

island for the rest of your life. Be grateful for what you


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hickup, try to imagine how it would be to live on a desert

island for the rest of your life. Be grateful for what you

experience, because it can be worse.

30. Dilute It With Meditation

I don’t preach meditation as an all-in-one cure, but from

my personal experience, it does help. Meditation will not

only shift your focus from your current situation, but it will

also clean your thoughts and help your body regain a

subtle energetic balance. Remember you’ll still have to

take action, meditation will only dilute it.

31. Get Physical

Start an aggressive exercising routine. Getting physical will

make it easier to embrace action and to do it with vigor

and determination. A side effect of exercising is the

“endorphin effect”: the induction of a well-being state

generated by your own body.

32. This Too Shall Pass

Impermanence is at the core of our human nature, is our

curse and escape: we’re prisoners of time and everything

we experience is bound to it. Laughter and sadness, joy

and depression, everything will fade away in time. The

same will happen to this frustrating period too: it will pass.

33. Write A List Of 33 Ways To OvercomeFrustration

This is an incredible exercise. As funny as it may seem in

this context, it’s actually a very powerful standalone

approach. Just sit back and try to imagine 33 ways to get

over your current frustration. I bet that around number

20 your problem will seem smaller than you thought it


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over your current frustration. I bet that around number

20 your problem will seem smaller than you thought it

was.


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33 ways to overcome frustration - dragos roua

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