Embrace Frustration
It's a sign you're learning - What crazy thought is this?
Frustration is Well, Frustrating
I’ll be the first to admit that I do not like the sensation of frustration. Whether it’s when trying to learn something new, or when something isn’t working (I’m looking at you my annoying computer), or when I want to do something and something / someone gets in my way. The result is Frustration. Ugh. It’s a horrible feeling.
To me, it makes me feel powerless, incompetent, or just plain dumb because I can’t figure something out. Or it will set off my feelings of overwhelm because I won’t know how to handle the situation. Or I’ll feel annoyed because I want to finish a task and now I can’t because something unexpected happened.
The main thing about frustration is that it stops me in my tracks and I’ll find I can’t move forwards until I deal with whatever has caused the frustration. Can we agree, this is frustrating! I just want things to work properly or to be a smooth and easy process.
Frustration Is A Sign You’re Learning
So, while I was watching a YouTube video by Austin Schrok on how he learned to speak Spanish, he makes the comment, “Embrace frustration. Frustration is actually a sign that you are learning.” He also says that for him, ”The biggest learning breakthroughs always came right after some of the biggest moments of frustration.”
He goes on to say that once he realized this then he started looking forward to the moments of frustration because that meant within a day or two, something was going to click into place for him.
If you have time (13 minutes), this is a great video to watch for a number of valuable life lessons but it was these comments about frustration that captured my attention the most.
Different Types of Frustration
There are definitely different kinds of frustration. The frustration Austin speaks about is when you are purposefully trying to learn something new like another language and it is taking longer than you’d like. We want to know something instantly rather than embracing the journey. I can totally relate to that. I like knowing things and acquiring knowledge. I don’t particularly like the process of learning.
But what about the simple moments of frustration like your computer freezes for unknown reasons? Is this really a learning moment for anything rather than learning patience?
Can A Perspective Shift Change Everything?
This is such a fascinating perspective shift on the feeling of frustration. Can we change things by looking forward to feeling frustration? At first, this sounds like the most crazy thought ever. So, I decided to try for a week to embrace frustration and here’s what happened:
Frustration often happens when I’m in a rush
For example, I need to print something off and the printer jams. That’s very frustrating. I’d find it’d take me longer to fix the problem if I was in an angry, frustrated state. It taught me patience.
Frustration happens when I have something planned and something unexpected stops me
Again, I think this one taught me patience. (I obviously need to learn this lesson) but often it made me stop and think about other ways I could do the task or if this was really the best thing to be doing anyway. And, sometimes, I did learn something new or I chose different options.
For this Life Experiment, it turns out that yes, I did learn a number of things when I took that extra moment to become aware and embrace my feeling of frustration.
Allowing myself to feel the frustration and not do anything except feel that feeling also helped to dissipate the emotion. I didn’t start to spiral into escalating emotions of anger and frustration where it becomes impossible to think rationally.
It Led Me To See Something Bigger
After paying attention to my times of irritability or frustration, I discovered something much bigger. I am on edge most of the time. It doesn’t take very much to throw me off balance or frustrate me. I think this is understandable considering all the craziness in the world right now but it also led me to start reading the book, “Heal Your Nervous System” by Dr. Linnea Passaler. She makes the comment, “The goal is to cultivate the ability to adapt to the challenge and then return to a regulated state once the circumstances change and ease.” I don’t think I return to a regulated state. That’s valuable to learn.
The other thing she mentions is that when your nervous system is dysregulated, it can make it hard to think clearly. Could this be a factor in “Why Can’t I Focus or Concentrate?”
I need to work on healing my nervous system so it can go through all the emotions like frustration, anger, sadness but then naturally reset back to what she calls the “green zone”. Right now, I’m stuck in her description of the “yellow zone” where my body feels anxious, unsafe, and uncomfortable all the time, no matter what is going on in my world.
She provides a number of great exercises which I’m going to work through and then I’ll update you on how it goes. That will be my next Life Experiment.
The Value In Embracing Frustration
An analogy provided in the book is to think of holding a bone. If you hold the bone in front of a dog, the dog will be fixating on the bone and wanting to get your bone. If you hold the bone in front of a lion, the lion will probably see the bigger picture that you would make a great snack. She says think of this when facing issues. Don’t focus on just the bone. Be a lion and focus on the bigger issue. So, instead of focusing on each individual frustration, I’m now seeing a bigger picture and learning to change how I react to frustrations. This includes asking the questions:
Is my nervous system dysregulated right now? If yes, I could do some breathing exercises or even just observe the emotion with curiosity until it passes.
Do I need better coping strategies? If yes, work on those. Or get more info or support to help me.
Am I seeing the bigger picture here?
When looking at the bigger picture, I can also see if there’s one thing in my life that’s stressing me out or I’m avoiding which is causing an undercurrent of frustration. Anyone else dealing with taxes? Taxes stress me out. Everything seems overwhelming when I’m dealing with something I need to do but am avoiding.
By being the lion and looking at the bigger picture, I’m learning to regulate my nervous system but also training my brain to respond in new ways and break old habits.
For this Life Experiment, Austin Schrok is absolutely right and it’s good to Embrace the Frustration. Really any emotion we’re going through.
Focusing on what the frustration really means rather than focusing on each individual frustration has provided me with a great learning experience and a direction to go towards my goal of making my life more peaceful and more functional.
What about you?
Let me know if you try out Embracing the Frustration and come back and tell me what you discover.