How to Get Over Frustration and Find Your Way Back to Success

Welcome back to the show. This is Episode 30. In preparing for this episode, on the topic of frustration, I had to deal with some frustrations of my own. I kept feeling like time was not cooperating with me, I just never felt like it was the right time for me to press record. And as a result, the recording kept getting pushed back further and further. And as you can imagine, my feelings of frustration kept arising as time kept moving on. I'm pretty sure we all do this. But a lot of times we don't feel ourselves to have any power over our actions. And I am hoping that this episode on how to conquer your feelings of frustration changes that for you so that you can find your way back to feeling like a success again, there are so many options for feeling bigger, better, and stronger than our feelings of frustration, and I cannot wait to share them with you here. Let's go listen to the episode now. Hi, I'm Dr. Christine Li and I'm a psychologist and a procrastination coach. I've helped 1000s of people move past procrastination and overwhelm so they can begin working to their potential. In this podcast if you're going to learn a powerful strategies for getting your mind, body and energy to work together so that you can focus on what's really important, and accomplish the goals you want to achieve. When you start living within your full power, you're going to see how being productive can be easy, and how you can create success on demand. Welcome to the make time for success podcast. Hi, everyone. Its Dr. Christine Li here to talk to you today about the interesting topic of frustration. The title of the episode is how to get over frustration and find your way back to success. And I choose this topic of frustration. Because I think it's an important topic to address. I think it's a topic that we feel frustrated by I feel like it's a topic that we sometimes don't even want to go near, let alone really do a deep dive into. But I'm just someone who likes to look at things like this. I like to look at things. And situations where people tend to run from their feelings, they tend to run from the things they need to do, they just tend to run. I don't know why this is who I am. But I just think this stuff is fascinating. So long ago, when I was doing work with my psychotherapy clients, I started realizing that when people started to feel frustrated with themselves or with their work, they tended to slow down in their activity, or sometimes they even just stopped completely, they just abandoned ship, they decided they couldn't work anymore. And I got curious about that. And I think over the years, I've realized in working with people who procrastinate in particular, that so often most of the time, it's not the work itself, that is our biggest impediment. It's not the work at all we think it is we call it the work, we complain about the work. But instead of it being the work, it's actually our feelings about the work that are getting in the way. Now, if you know this already, you're already winning, because you already know that you can observe your feelings that they are not something that can take you over that you have power over your feelings and feelings are just part of your bodily system trying to help you out. But of course, many people do feel that their feelings are getting the best of them. And I think that's what leads to procrastination, and stress and overwhelm. So let's talk about this topic a little bit more. So first point that I have to share with you is something that I learned just about a week ago, because I just started reading the book, The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle a I don't know how to pronounce his last name, I think it's maybe toll t o LL. e. Again, the book is called the power of now. And what I learned from the author is that our emotions are the intersection point, the communication point between the mind and the body. And when I read that, I just thought, hmm, I've been a psychologist for over 20 years, but I've never really thought about the link between the mind, the emotions and the body in that particular way. So my eyes were open. And I thought I would put that in this episode, to help you understand my thoughts about how to overcome frustration. So now the second point is, if we can't tolerate our feelings of frustration, and using eckerd toys, idea about the emotions being the link between the mind and the body. If we can't tolerate the feelings of frustration, we can't make a smooth connection between what our mind wants to do. Oftentimes, that is to get our work done and our tasks done, and the action that we need to take to get that work and those tasks done. If we get stuck, and mired in our feelings of frustration and upset and overwhelm, then our mind could be instructing us all that it wants to, but our body will never comply. Because we're stuck in that middle space. We get caught, we get stuck, we feel stymied, we feel stagnant. And eventually, we stopped going anywhere, we've just come to a halt. And then what happens, all we can do all that's left is that we are stuck thinking about our feelings. And that kind of stinks, because that just makes us even more frustrated. The third point I have is that the feelings that frustration gives us the feelings that procrastination gives us look like this self criticism, feeling deflated. feeling exhausted and spent physically feeling and powerful. A word that I made up just for you. feeling isolated, socially, feeling directionless, feeling sad. And finally feeling unsure and uncertain of what is the next step. And, yes, I agree with you, because you're probably thinking that these feelings that are caused by our frustration, really are the worst, they're the pits. And by the way, I don't think people talk about this enough at all. I think people avoid talking about exactly how miserable It is to be stuck in procrastination, and frustration for extended periods of time. Some of you know, I've made it my mission to talk about just this very thing, a lot more to make it part of the open conversation between people. Because I believe that when we talk about the emotional factors that we're going through openly and fully, we don't have to feel powerless against them anymore. Especially when we're struggling. Instead of struggling, we can decide that we actually have options. And so now I'd like to talk a little bit about what you can do, what are your options, because there are some little ninja tricks that you can learn right away for combating the feelings that frustration and procrastination tend to bring. So the main thing that I want you to remember as the ninja trick is to do the opposite, do the exact opposite thing or take the exact opposite action of what you were doing when you were becoming frustrated. That's the main idea, but I'm going to give you some more detail now. So if you're self criticizing, you could decide that you're going to talk to yourself with words in a way that is uplifting, you're gonna lift yourself up by changing your language. If you're feeling deflated, you're going to decide to look at yourself in a more positive light, you're going to decide that you're not so bad. If you're feeling exhausted and spent, you're gonna find Find a way to reset, you're gonna maybe do some deep breathing, take a pause or take a walk around the neighborhood. If you're feeling on powerful, you're going to remind yourself that this is just a story that you have fallen victim to. This is not the real you. In fact, the real you is more powerful than you may ever really know. You're so massively powerful. Please don't forget that ever. If you're feeling isolated, I recommend that you connect with at least one person who can see your true talents and brilliance. And who can stay with you until you feel a little bit better until you get your first steps taken or your first sentences written. If you're feeling directionless. The good news is you can make a quick plan for yourself. All you need to do is decide when you're going to get started, what action you need to take and make it a small one, so that you don't frustrate yourself even more. And then the third thing you need to do is decide when that task is going to be done. What will that look like. So you're going to decide a starting point, you're going to decide your small action step. And you're going to decide what the result is going to look like when you're done. If you're feeling sad, what you could do is you could talk about your feelings with someone who knows how to support you. Remind yourself that even your sadness is temporary. It's just an emotion, instructing you on how to cope. And that you can find your next action step. Even in times of sadness, you do not have to wait until your emotions lift or improve. before deciding that you can change your point of view. If you're feeling unsure and uncertain about what the next step might be, remind yourself why you began this project or activity in the first place. Although you might be struggling now, there was probably a really good, sane and doable reason that you figured you could start this thing in the first place. Now I am quite sure I forgotten a thing or two on this list of things you can do to counter your procrastination. But that's okay. Because the other tip I have for you is to know that you don't need to be perfect. And you don't have to include everything in the universe to be done, you could just decide you're done. So that was two tips. So let yourself begin. let yourself get through the middle part of the activity and then let yourself finish. Allow yourself to cruise through the feelings that might come and threatened to interrupt you those feelings of frustration, sadness, or those feelings that you're just not good enough. Guide yourself kindly through your activities. Again, beginning middle. And that's all you need to do. Use your greatest mental clarity the whole way through. You'll be amazed when you realize eventually that when you get into these habits of not procrastinating and not falling victim to your frustration that you actually don't feel frustrated as much anymore. That's a big win. By the way. Our biggest resistance is our resistance. So drop the fight drop the resistance, ease into the process of working and living and being active and find the success you've been waiting for and wanting all this time. So let me know what you do with these tips come over to Instagram and find me at procrastination coach. That's my handle at procrastination coach and send me a direct message. With your biggest wins. Let me know how you're going to conquer your feelings of procrastination and your impulse to start procrastinating. I want to end by quoting Eckhart Tolle a however you pronounce his last name. He says in chapter one, you are not your mind. He says this. You may not yet be able to bring your unconscious mind activity into awareness as thoughts, but it will always be reflected in the body as an emotion. And of this you can become aware to watch an emotion in this way is basically the same as listening to or watching a thought which I described earlier. The only difference is that while a thought is in your head, an emotion has a strong physical component and so is primarily felt in the body. You can then allow the emotion to be there. Without being controlled by it, you no longer are the emotion. You are the watcher, the observing presence. If you practice this, all that is unconscious and you will be brought into the light of consciousness. So I quote, this beautiful work of Eckhart Tolle a to help you to remember that you are more than your feelings, we can use our feelings to instruct us, we can observe our feelings, and we can let them pass we don't have to be controlled by them anymore. I hope this episode is of use to you. And I hope that you use the information I shared and the tips with joy and with power. And with purpose. I'll see you next week on the podcast. And thank you so much for listening. It's been giving me so much joy to create these shows for you. And I'm glad that I'm getting so much feedback that the content has been useful. So I'll see you soon. Thank you for listening to this episode of The make time for success podcast. If you enjoyed what you heard, you can subscribe to make sure you get notified of upcoming episodes. You can also visit our website make time for success podcast.com for past episodes, show notes and all the resources we mentioned on the show. Feel free to connect with me over on Instagram too. You can find me there under the name procrastination coach. Send me a DM and let me know what your thoughts are about the episodes you've been listening to. And let me know any topics that you might like me to talk about on the show. I'd love to hear all about how you're making time for success. Talk to you soon.