Sounds like something negative, but frustration is part of the path of those who want to grow up, who want to move forward in any dimension of their lives, who want to become a better person, who want to reach something. Those who want any of these good things… FRUSTRATION is going to knock on their doors sooner or later.
Actually, there’s no frustration without WILL.
Note this: when facing an obstacle, the person who HONESTLY says “but I didn’t want it anyway, I just don’t care about it” doesn’t hold any frustration. If he didn’t want it, then there’s no frustration when he doesn’t reach what he never wanted in first place.
Hmmm …. so this means that frustration is part of a searching process. In a classroom, with one hundred students, you have those 10 at the back, just playing and mocking around… they are not frustrated by not being able to learn. They lack the desire to learn. Without desire, without the will, there’s no frustration.
I’m Seiiti Arata, of Arata Academy, I’m asking you for your permission to read a bit of an email that the Arata Academy Team got and one that touched me quite a lot.
He starts the email by saying he was never a great student and, sometimes, his mind wandered around without focus. Then he reveals some personal details that, obviously, I’m not going to tell you here in respect to his privacy. But here’s an important bit of his email that really touched me and motivated me to record this video for everyone out there.
He says:
“I caught myself in a situation a little bit complicated and embarrassing, in which I have to study, I have to be focused on my work.
Sometimes I notice that I’m frustrated, depressed and angered because I’m not able to understand right away some stuff as my coworkers do, in all honesty I’m just feeling “Dumb” and that, for me, is very complicated.
I cannot even read a book and that leaves me pretty distressed. I wish I could read some content about the stuff I do.
My work involves a lot of certifications. If I get these certifications, I can really advance my career. But I’m limited and, sometimes, well I mean, almost every time, I give up studying.”
Well. First of all, thanks a lot for your trust when you decided to send us this message – actually, I’ve noticed that on the day before yesterday you registered yourself on the How To Learn Faster course and I really hope that its classes make all the difference for you during the upcoming steps.
But I want to tell you the good news right away. Your email denotes something pretty valuable: there’s a WILL, there’s DESIRE to know something and to improve yourself.
Just remembering: with no will, there’s no frustration. The easiest way to solve things would be to ignore the challenges ahead, not stressing your mind, going out to drink a couple of beers at the beach, laugh about it and give up on your dreams.
But in your email it’s very clear that you’ve already visualized those professional and financial gains, which are reachable if you go after the certifications, and it’s quite obvious as well that you’ve understood what personal fulfillment is, the satisfaction that you’ll have when you become able to learn in a better way, gaining more respect from your peers and, above all, feeling more respect for yourself, as your self-esteems says thank you for doing so.
For you, and for all those who identify themselves with this story, I really want you to write this down on your notebook:
“The ability that I’m going to cultivate and fortify is the ability to overcome frustration!
FRUSTRATION takes place when we have a desire and we cannot overcome an obstacle that is blocking us from achieving our plans.
And then, at that moment, two things can happen. Frustration wins and you give up… or you beat frustration and safeguard your goal’s conquest.
But it’s very comfortable for me to come here and blab out that small motivational talk like “don’t give up on your dreams, believe in you”. I want something more than motivation, I want to equip you, to empower you. To do so, I want to share two practical tips that will help you overcome the frustration.
Practical tip 1: COMMITMENT
First I’m going to give you a powerful technique, but this has to be used carefully. When I want to overcome frustration, my main goal is to put myself in a situation where I’m absolutely sure that I will not give up. Remember: I only have two choices. I give up on my plan (and then frustration wins) or I will move on with my journey, being able to beat that frustration while at it.
So, I want more commitment. There are several ways to improve commitment. One of them is to be responsible in front of others. For instance, let’s say I’ve registered myself in a little course and I have to drive my car to get to the school. And then I found out that there some of my neighbors are attending it as well. I can commit myself to give them a lift. By doing so, even on that day when I’m feeling particularly lazy and just want to skip class, I have an extra incentive to go, because I’ve already committed myself to give a lift to someone else.
If I need to learn a new ability that can be used in my work, I can commit myself in front of the team, saying that I’m going to solve a given issue in a quantifiable timeframe. And then, since I’ve committed myself already, I have a bigger pressure to reach that outcome.
I’ve said that this technique has to be used carefully because if I happen to simply commit myself, but the goal is actually bigger than my ability, then I’ll stress myself. So I only suggest using COMMITMENT in situations where you know you’ll be able to deliver, because you’re just lacking a little bit of will.
To other situations, in which the goal ahead is frightening, extremely hard, very complex, I suggest you the next tip.
Practical tip 2: BABY STEP
This is the simplest technique to implement and the one that’s going to get you results if you’re currently living frustrated. Probably, the current goal is too complicated.
Let’s assume that I can’t speak French. Will I pick a book with the complete works of Medieval French Literature? Of course not. I’m going to pick a comic book, a little book for children.
If I want to learn how to cook, I’m going to start with the simplest thing. An omelet.
Instead of deciding that I want to get the first place in a difficult exam, I’m just going to study a chapter of some subject and then I will test myself several times about that same chapter.
In other words, I want to keep feeding my wish to move forward. What I don’t want is to let frustration knock me out, to put me down, to make me angry, to make me give up on everything.
If I leave everything behind, frustration wins.
And the way to not let frustration win is to simply set goals that are more realistic, which are easier to get done and, then, you move forward little step after little step.
Before summing it up, just a quick word. Don’t feel mad about frustration. When we say we want to beat frustration, you can think that it’s some kind of monster, an enemy that needs to be taken down. Instead, I suggest thinking about frustration as a signal, a reminder that there is desire, there is WILL. And that’s good. Frustration is also an indicator that we’re looking forward to growing up, that we’re facing uncomfortable situations. If I never feel frustrated, it means as well that I’m not taking things seriously, I’m not moving forward according to my potential.
A growing life, sooner or later, will present us frustrating moments.
That’s normal, it’s part of it, and it’s a healthy indicator that we are looking forward to extending our outlooks, that there is a will to reach something which is going to bring us a greater good.
This was our quick video on “frustration”. I hope it was useful to you and if you want to keep getting more stuff like this, you can sign up our mailing list at arataacademy.com. Further, I would also invite you to take a look at our fast course FOCUS.
All the best and until our next chat!