Dealing with low frustration tolerance

Low frustration tolerance is tantamount to setting a low bar for how much boredom or frustration you're willing to accept in order to reach your goals -- in other words, giving up too soon when the going gets tough.  Low frustration tolerance is that little voice in the back of your head that shouts:

"Things must be the way I want them to be - 

otherwise life will be intolerable."

Most of us can relate to this.  Certainly, we've all wanted to give up when a project goes "into the weeds" or we're not accomplishing our goals as quickly as we'd like.

But low frustration tolerance is linked with procrastination, depression, anger, anxiety, and, of course, giving up before we reach our goals -- especially when those goals are excellent and far reaching and difficult.

Unless you're reaching for mediocre, it's worth making a concerted effort in working toward higher frustration tolerance.  And the good news is that this effort is pretty straight forward (if slightly uncomfortable... but that's the point).

Most advice on how to increase your ability to tolerate frustration centers around two interlinked strategies:

• Gradual exposure to slightly greater levels of frustration -- and realizing it didn't kill you -- can strengthen your frustration tolerance "muscle"
• Reframing your irrational beliefs about the level of discomfort associated with frustration.  For example, change your self-talk from "This is impossible and I can not stand working on it another minute" could be swapped for "This is really uncomfortable & I don't like it, but I can stand this bad feeling."  If you're helping your kid on this, have them practice reframing statements out loud.  More to try: "This is not the end of the world," or "I don't like this, but I can deal with it," or "This is annoying or a pain in the butt, but it's bearable."

Below are many links from around the internet on strategies for building your ability to tolerate those daily frustrations:

• Ideas for helping your child deal with low frustration tolerance
• http://www.testandcalc.com/Self_Defeating_Beliefs/bel4.asp
• http://www.selfgrowth.com/articles/mental_toughness_high_frustration_tolerance
• How to Conquer your Frustrations by William J. Knaus - free ebook

Practice make us stronger and this is never more true then when we're practicing tolerating daily frustrations.  Luckily, there are hundreds of little opportunities every day to practice.