By Paula Sgarbossa
Have you ever felt frustrated with your life? If you are reading this article then the answer is probably yes!
Well you aren’t alone! Actually it’s totally normal to get frustrated with parts your life – work, fitness, time, energy, family. It’s that sense of feeling stuck or fed up. It often stems from not feeling we are making progress in that area. We’ve all been there at some point. The best thing is once you take the time to work out what area of your life is causing you the distress then you are in a position of power to do something about it. You go from feeling overwhelmed or fed up with “your life” to identifying one area that you ‘can’ change and set up a plan to achieve it.
What are the steps of dealing with frustration:
- Identify the area you are most frustrated with – this is important because often we leave things until we are feeling overwhelmed by many of our daily commitments and this leaves us feeling helpless . If you can narrow down the one you would most like to make improvement in, then once you’re making progress it will boost your confidence and give you more mental energy to work on other areas. Success breeds success
- Don’t make the problem bigger than it really is. Aim to see that one problem as a project you are working on. What will be the benefits to you in making improvements in that area? How much happier will it make you to be progressing in that area? Why do you want that result? Having a clear ‘Why’ will make all the difference between whether you will stick with your plan when things get tough.
- What do you want the result to look like? What progress do you want to make along the journey? It’s important to have an idea in your mind what your progress will look like as well as what the end result looks like? Plus what it will look like a year later. Often we reach our goal then relax and let all our efforts go to waste and fall back into bad habits.
- Come up with a plan on how you will achieve your goals. What will keep you motivated along the way? What rewards can you give yourself for each stage of progress you make? What small forms of punishment can you add into that plan if you don’t take action? This could be not allowing yourself your daily coffee until you’ve done the work you set yourself for the week? Usually we will do more to avoid pain so coming up with little ways of punishing yourself for not following through will do more to motivate you to take action!
- Set yourself reminders for why you want to achieve this goal? This could be visual or audio reminders on your phone, computer or around your home. Notes, pictures, phrases of motivation. They will help keep you on track when you face setbacks or challenges.
If you are willing to take some time to think about these steps and put them into practise you will be surprised by how making some progress towards your goals can energise you! You start to feel proud of yourself and that makes any struggle worthwhile. We never feel more alive than we are making progress in our lives. It’s what we were designed to do. To move forward, grow as people, take on challenges and learn both from our mistakes and our wins. It all starts with that first step.
What challenge can you take on?
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