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We’ve all been there.
The disbelief. The irritation. The annoyance. The discouragement. The outrage.
The other team missed their deadline again. Prospects are not responding to emails. The expensive campaign didn’t perform - even when we looked at the data beforehand. Team members keep gossiping over Slack during meetings. Upper management still isn’t addressing the low morale in the company. The folks you manage aren’t pulling their weight.
And the thoughts come pouring in: “Why do they keep missing their deadlines? When are these prospects going to start responding? Who looked at the data and said we were good to launch? Why can’t people just be nice? Why isn’t management doing anything about bro culture? Why can’t people just do their jobs?"
Our muscles tighten. Our breathing shifts. Our heart rate goes up and down.
Tension, everywhere.
The frustration we feel when things aren’t happening the way we expect or want them to happen is REAL. It manifests in our bodies. We can almost instantly feel the effects of the sudden release of catecholamines flooding our bloodstream, preparing us for fight or flight.
But what happens after that split second internal reaction?
We Tend to Focus on What’s Not Going Our Way
If we keep focusing on the thing that happened or is happening that’s not going as planned or desired, we become angry. Or resentful. Or disengaged. Whatever it is, it makes us feel helpless, hopeless, overwhelmed, stuck, discouraged, and stressed.
And sometimes we carry that stress with us all the time, everywhere. It colors our world.
When we’re frustrated we only see the obstacles; the things that are wrong, in our way, or not going well. We keep thinking about the thing that we don’t like. And we keep talking about it. Without even realizing it, we give it life. We give it OUR life. Giving up our thoughts, energy, time, days, and years to it, leading to physical and mental health issues down the line.
And the sad part? The thing we’re so frustrated about probably won’t change.
So how do we stop? How do we turn this frustration into something that moves us forward? Keeps us going? Fuels us? How can we turn frustration into motivation? Is it even possible?
Yes. And it requires some work.
Here’s an approach that you can practice, broken down for you:
1. Notice Your “Self”
Tune in.
What physical sensations are you experiencing? Do a quick scan of your body. Are you feeling hot and flushed? Is your heart rate intensifying? Are your armpits sweating? Fists clenching? Notice it.
What are you doing? Are you starting to talk very quickly? Are you shouting? Complaining? Are you withdrawn? Pacing the floor? About to type an angry email to staff? Cursing? Silent? Calling an all-hands meeting? Digging into the data even more? Procrastinating? Venting to a friend? Notice it.
What’s going through your head? This might be tough. A lot of the time when we’re in this state, our brain feels foggy and we’re not even clear what the heck we’re thinking. You might be able to get a sense of the thoughts if you just hear yourself vent out loud (even if to yourself). So pay close attention to what may be crossing your mind. Articulate with words. “Why the fudge does this keep happening? I’m sick and tired of always being the one to carry this team. When will other people step up?”
Sometimes if it’s unclear what you’re thinking, you may be able to uncover it if you look into what believe or value. These tend to show up as ‘should's’: “They should communicate when things aren’t going as planned. Everyone should finish their work on time. People shouldn’t have to check other people’s work. We should be nice.” Whatever it is, notice it.
What are you really feeling? Is it frustration? Anger? Sadness? Resentment? Irritability? Shame? Anxiety? Guilt? Humiliation? Jealousy? Self-consciousness? Vulnerability?
It’s important to use what neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett calls “emotional granularity” in understanding what we’re feeling in order to gain a clearer awareness of what we’re truly experiencing so that we can better regulate (and create) our emotions. We mostly go through life without the vocabulary we need to properly understand and describe what we're feeling so we bulk-label it with words like angry, sad, happy or scared. It's critical that we explore our emotions a bit deeper and get more granular: If we're afraid, is it anxiety we're feeling? Worry? Overwhelm? Imposter syndrome? If we're angry, is it because we're feeling protective? Resentful? Are we furious or envious?
Using a wheel of emotions like the amazing one below by Abby Vanmuijen is a great way to help you discover, understand, and build that emotional granularity.
2. Don’t Make Yourself Wrong
I keep bringing this up and will continue to do so until my last breath. It is so important that you accept whatever is going on for you -- what you’re feeling or experiencing. Don't judge it. It’s not good or bad, positive or negative. Your emotions are valid. They’re trying to tell you something based on your past experiences so you can protect yourself. They may not be helping you anymore and that’s ok for now. Acknowledge them. Don’t resist them.
If you make yourself wrong, make yourself feel bad for whatever it is you’re feeling or thinking, then THAT too will become an additional thing that can hold you back, strip you of power, and keep you stuck.
It is what it is. You felt it. You thought it. You experienced it. Let it be.
And if you’re still feeling it, that’s ok too. Let whatever emotions flooding your system just flow through you. If you need to be with them for a while, be with them.
Acknowledge your current state so that you can move from here, wherever here is.
3. Acknowledge What’s Happening
Now that you acknowledged what's happening inside of you and not making yourself wrong for it, it's time to accept what’s going on outside of you. I know this can be hard, especially when you feel so justified in how you’re feeling. Ask yourself, what’s really happening? What are the observable, neutral, and objective facts? Separate what’s actually happening (content) from the meaning you’re giving to it (context).
When you filter out all the thoughts and emotions around what happened, you usually end up with a very bland statement: "The work was not finished by the deadline. The campaign missed our goal by 76%. He told someone else over Slack that I was stupid. The process is not being followed by the entire team. She did not tell me the truth about what happened."
There are no villains. No heroes. No victims. There is no story. Just what’s happening. Only the ‘what’s-so’. No emotions. No judgments. No interpretations.
Download this free guide to help you separate content from context >
I’m not suggesting that you not feel anything. On the contrary. See and feel it all (like you did in the previous steps) and now separate all that from what’s happening or has happened. Your power, your ability to step out of frustration and into motivation is in that space between your thoughts and feelings, and what’s actually happening.
So see it for what it is, totally stripped down. Don’t resist it either, because it still exists independent of whatever you think. Acknowledge it.
4. Turn your Why’s, When’s and Who’s into What’s and How’s
Here’s the thing, when we’re frustrated, it’s all about us - not about anyone or anything else.
We’re frustrated because the world isn’t unfolding or happening in the way we think it should. Something we don’t want is happening. People are showing up in ways we don’t like. We’re showing up in ways we don’t like.
We’re resisting.
And what you resist, persists.
Funny how no matter how hard we try, we can’t wish it all away.
Most of the time, we’re trying to wish it away with our words without realizing it. The language we use to think, describe and talk about things has a huge impact on our life experiences. Using words like 'but' can keep us focused on what’s not going our way and hold us back, creating a total 'but-mindset' (i.e. “I want to get a better job, but there’s so much competition out there”).
Asking certain questions can also keep us stuck and frustrated.
When we ask 'Why', 'When” or 'Who' questions, we tend to blame something outside of ourselves, putting responsibility for change on that external thing:
"Why do they keep gossiping?"
"When will the other team ever start performing?"
"Who was supposed to do the background research?"
These are deficit-based questions, which naturally focus on what’s wrong, lacking, or missing instead of what’s possible. They’re problem-focused, not solution-focused. And they automatically and subconsciously suck out any and all motivation.
John G. Miller in his book, "QBQ! The Question Behind the Question," calls this victim thinking, where the undertone is usually “poor me”. More specifically:
'Why' questions lead to “poor me” thinking.
'When' questions lead to procrastination.
'Who' questions lead to blaming someone or something outside of ourselves.
All of these types of questions create the kind of context that takes power away from you and puts it somewhere else. Someone else is responsible for change or action. You're essentially assigning yourself the role of an "NPC" or a non-player character that happens to be in the background of life. Life happens to non-player characters. They passively exist.
But you're not an NPC. You are an active participant of life.
So change the question.
Rephrase it with a 'How' or 'What' to put the power back into your hands. Something happened that you didn’t like - ok, what are you going to do about it? Ask:
"How can I approach the situation?"
"What can I do to influence the other team’s performance?"
"How can we move forward from this loss?"
"What can I learn about what just happened?"
Powerful, isn't it? Simply changing 'why’s', 'when’s', and 'who’s' to 'what’s' and 'how’'s changes how you see the event. You even feel strong, liberated, and motivated saying it. Phrasing questions this way changes your perception of whatever is happening and gives you back the power to DO something about it.
'What' and 'How' questions focus on solutions and possibilities; they’re strengths-based questions that create a more empowering context, greater motivation, and more effective solutions.
You can still feel the feels AND move forward. Soon enough, you experience less stress and anxiety, more resilience, and better outcomes.
5. Observe, Reflect and Iterate
Change, especially lasting and sustainable change, takes time and effort – and it’s not a matter of just time passing. Sustainable change involves consistently holding up the mirror to ourselves observing and reflecting; seeing and thinking about what we feel, think, and do. Noticing it. Observing and understanding how it impacts us and those around us. How it influences outcomes.
Growth begins and ends with awareness. We notice things, understand things, change things, only to notice new things.
It’s a cycle that best occurs within the context of patience and kindness.
Observe: Without judgment, gather information about yourself, your actions, their consequences, and their impact on others. How did it go with the first 4 steps? What do you notice now? Separate what happened from your interpretation about what happened.
Reflect: Analyze what you observed. Understand it. How did things go? How did they work out for you? What are you feeling now? What insights can you gain from it? What have you learned? What would you keep doing and what would you change? Think about how it aligns with your values, what you want to experience, and where you want to be.
Iterate: Now make a change. Use the insights from your reflection to modify how you see things, how you approach them, how you want to feel about them and/or what you're going to do. This is where you experiment with new ways of seeing, thinking, being and doing.
Repeat.
And remember to be kind and patient with yourself. Change is hard.
The world may seem unfair. Stuff will happen that totally stinks. We will feel crappy and stuck sometimes. That’s ok. We’re alive, so there’s a 100% guarantee that things will happen that won’t go our way. It’s a given. The more we remember that, the more we can focus on what we can do about it and turn our frustrations into motivation.
