How To Work Your Way Out Of Life Frustration.
Start by getting out of your own head.
You’re frustrated because you keep waiting for the blooming of flowers of which you have yet to sow the seeds. ― Steve Maraboli
The problem is you don’t want to act outside your head.
How often do you listen to that little voice inside your head?
You know the one — that little narrator that talks to you all day long?
That voice can be great at times, it can even be a lifesaver!
But it can also be toxic.
When you think of how things should go in your head and it doesn’t pan out with reality, what happens? You get disappointed and frustrated.
Most problems and frustrations will feel occur as a result of not wanting to leave outside our heads.
Frustration is the gap between expectation and reality. That gap is what happens inside of your head.
When expectation doesn’t meet reality
We spend most of the time living in our heads. We fantasize how things should play out. How things could be different if something wasn’t missing.
Living in your head isn’t the problem. Not getting out of it to work with what is on ground is.
A friend of mine once did an online class during this COVID period and he turned out frustrated about it. He told me since most people are at home and they need something to learn, what if I teach people how to do this and get people interested. By this, I can make lots of money.
How many participants are you aiming at I asked? 200, he replied. The next day, he sent out his newsletter about the event hoping people will flush in to register like water pouring down from victoria falls. To his surprise, only 5 people registered for the whole course. He turned out frustrated.
The truth was, he was living in his head.
If the map doesn’t agree with the ground, the map is wrong- Gordon Livingston
When you live in our head, everything is always good and rosy. There is no much bad spot in it. That’s because the picture we create in our head isn’t real.
Imagination and reality aren’t the same.
Learn to see reality for what it is.
Reality can be far more vicious than Russian Roulette. Nassim Taleb.
To see reality for what it truly is, you need to learn to master your emotional self.
Like everyone, you think you are rational, but you are not. Rationality is not a power you are born with but one you acquire through training and practice.
Our emotions tend to narrow the mind, making us focus on one or two ideas that satisfy our immediate desire for power or attention. Ideas that usually backfire writes Robert Greene.
Once you understand that you are not all that rational, you will learn to checkmate your emotions most of all the time.
The Law of Irrationality
You like to imagine yourself in control of your fate, consciously planning the course of your life as best you can. But you are largely unaware of how deeply your emotions dominate you. They make you veer toward ideas that soothe your ego.
They make you look for evidence that confirms what you already want to believe. They make you see what you want to see, depending on your mood, and this disconnect from reality is the source of the bad decisions and negative patterns that haunt your life.
Rationality is the ability to counteract these emotional effects, to think instead of reacting, to open your mind to what is really happening, as opposed to what you are feeling. It does not come naturally; it is a power we must cultivate, but in doing so we realize our greatest potential. Robert Greene.
When you learn to see reality for what it is, you set yourself free from the shackles of disappointment and frustration. Because by these, most your judgement won’t be cloud or based on emotions.
“Stop trying to control how you feel, and instead take control of what you can do” Russ Harris.
Purpose and realism are what you need.
The lies people keep telling themselves is why they find it difficult to face their own reality and work out of the frustration they are feeling.
It’s why they remain in a toxic relationship.
It’s why an addict will keep telling you he is not an addict even when he knows he’s drowning himself.
We do not need to be rational and scientific when it comes to details of our daily life. Only in those that can harm us and threaten our survival. Nassim Taleb.
Disappointment comes not from having expectations but not letting go of those expectations.
Reality in a few words is “not holding on to expectations.”
When you live in your head, it’s hard to let go of the expectations there and that’s why most people find it difficult to live outside it.
I once wrote an article on marketing. I said to myself medium is going to go crazy on this one. And, by the way, that publication that has always been rejecting my write up will accept this one. I was so happy that I will be published in a big publication. That article not only got rejected by three publications but turned out to be one of my lowest viewed article to date.
That’s me living in my head.
The truth was I wasn’t working with reality. I was after the outcome. I was after how I was going to go viral and gain lots of followers. When what I needed was to improve my writing skills. Learn how to pitch my work better to editors and even learn how to tell a story with my work. Rather, I was living in my head.
This reminds me of a quote from Ryan Holiday book Ego is the Enemy when he said:
Ego tells us what we want to hear and when we want to hear it. What human require in our ascent is purpose and realism. Purpose you could say, is like passion with boundaries. Realism is detachment and perspective.
To stop living in your head, you need to be real with yourself. And that means seeing reality for what it really is through different perspectives even when you don’t like the outcome.
Goethe was right when he said:
What matters to an active man is to do the right thing; whether the right thing comes to pass should not bother him.
