8 Ways Extremely Successful People Use To Deal With Frustration at Work

Learning how to deal with frustration at work is perhaps one of the most important abilities we should have, especially in this time of chaos and uncertainty.

The reason is simple: the main causes for frustration won’t go away any time soon. On the contrary, in our chaotic world, where increasing task complexity and workload, and work-related stress are getting crazier than ever, the causes for frustration will actually increase and continue to have an impact on our happiness, motivation and engagement.

Frustration in the workplace is the result of a myriad of things that accumulate over time. Some of the causes of frustration include ineffective communication, micromanagement, job insecurity, boredom, lack of meaningful work interactions, bad bosses, lack of feedback, low level of collaboration, hierarchies, lack of goals, unclear organizational purpose, lot of processes and rules that create thinking inside the box behaviors, and even a stupid computer that doesn't want to work (watch the video). Yes, that’s a lot of things (and there might be way more!).

Frustration can be, well, very frustrating. It decreases our energy and motivation, creates and perpetuates lack of focus that results in inattention to the important things we should be working on, slows down creativity to the point where new-idea production is severely hindered, and puts people in a bad mood, preventing them from effectively working and collaborating with others.

According to Mark Royal and Tom Agnew authors of "The Enemy of Engagement: Put an End to Workplace Frustration – and Get the Most from Your Employees", about 20% or more of the total workforce of a typical company is made up of frustrated employees. The economic, productivity and innovation loses are just too important to ignore. However, too many companies are either ignoring the problem or moving too slow in addressing it.

I wanted to share with you some of the ways extremely successful people, perhaps some of the greatest minds of all times, use to deal with frustration in their lives.

1. They ask for feedback

Frustration at work very often stems from things that don’t go the way we expect them to go. For example, a project that didn’t have the expected outcomes, an interaction with a colleague who doesn’t want to help us, a boss who demands more and offers less support, etc. However, when we engage in a project and continue to work without ever asking people from feedback, things are not very likely to end up in success. It’s simple: anything we do in our workplaces has a relation with something else. And getting feedback is the best way to ensure that we minimize risks and increase the probability of success.

Elon Musk, one of the most successful entrepreneurs, says “I think it's very important to have a feedback loop, where you're constantly thinking about what you've done and how you could be doing it better”. Ask for as much feedback as you can, as often as possible. It will be time-consuming in the short run, but very effective to avoid frustration in the long-run. 

2. They learn from everything

The most successful people learn from every single experience they deal with. They don’t run away from hard situations, but instead face them with total openness and preparation for learning. Extremely successful people learn from bad and good bosses, from bad and good experiences, from failures and successes. The most important underlying premise here is that in order to deal with frustrating situations, we just have to think of them as opportunities to make us better and more valuable.

Do you have a bad boss? Do you have a bad job? Well, you could quit. But in the meantime, just see the other side of the coin, the one that benefits you. Henry Ford said “life is a series of experiences, each one of which makes us bigger, even though sometimes it is hard to realize this. For the world was built to develop character, and we must learn that the setbacks and grieves which we endure help us in our marching onward”.

3. They reframe the negative and failures

Connected to “learning from everything” as explained above, one of the most powerful ways to deal with frustration is reframing what is negative and frustrating and turning it into a beneficial opportunity for you. How to do it?

1. Find a meaning in the frustrating situation: what can you learn from it? How can it make you better? How can it benefit you?
2. Learn from failures: you can run away from your failures and the bad job or the bad boss, but you will be missing a great opportunity to increase your abilities and skills. Just face reality with an open-minded attitude.
3. Reframe your goals: if you fail, rethink about the goals you had set at the onset. Don’t get frustrated by not having achieved them, instead, think of what you actually achieved and redefine what’s left.

“When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves” said Viktor Frankl.

4. They find strength amid the challenges

Many people deal with frustration by running away from work or life challenges. It’s true that sometimes it’s helpful to understand and accept the things that are beyond our influence and be ok with that.

Extremely successful people don’t run away from the challenges, they actually run towards them. They are brave and confident that, even if they don’t have the skills to face the adversities and difficulties, they will be prepared to be polished and shaped by the outcome and make themselves better. Michael Jordan said “I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed”.

Some people live through a situation and get frustrated by it. But if you want to increase your chances for success, find strength amid the challenges and make yourself more suited to those challenges.

5. They build powerful relationships

Research shows that one of the top 3 sources of happiness is meaningful relationships. We spend an average of 47 hours per week at work, which means that some of those relationships will be created in there. In addition to that, 60.6% respondents of a Conference Board survey indicated that people at work are the ones who make the most impact in the work environment.

One basic source of frustration, demotivation and disengagement is the lack of good relationships at work. Extremely successful people build powerful relationships. This is not about having a lot of friends or hanging out together at the happy hour. Instead, it is about meaningful connections with your peers, bosses and subordinates, to foster more collaboration and synergies, to collectively find good ideas and opportunities, and help each other when you need it the most. To build powerful relationships you have to begin by creating an environment of trust, respect, diversity, open-mindedness and effective communication.

6. They have the highest levels of self-awareness

Sometimes frustration comes from our inability to determine our current or potential capacities and strengths to deal with situations that might end up becoming frustrating. For example, if you are assigned to a new task and you just dive in without assessing your current/potential strengths to do it, you might end up frustrated if the complexity of the task overshadows your existing abilities to deal with it. The worst case scenario is that your anxiety would increase and the end result wouldn’t be any good, neither for you on a personal level or for the successful completion of the task.

Great minds and successful individuals have high levels of self-awareness. They work very hard in determining what motivates and inspires them, what their talents and strengths are and the gaps they have to fill in other to increase their capacities. Daniel Goleman says “If your emotional abilities aren't in hand, if you don't have self-awareness, if you are not able to manage your distressing emotions, if you can't have empathy and have effective relationships, then no matter how smart you are, you are not going to get very far”. Look into yourself as objectively as you can, assess your talents, strengths and gaps, in order to avoid frustrations.

7. They accept and let go

Even though the most successful people run towards the challenges in order to learn from them and find opportunities where everybody else sees problems, they also know when to accept and let go.

The basic idea here is that there are things that are way beyond our control and influence, and there’s nothing we can do to change them (at least in the short term). Frustration is very often sustained by us getting our hands in things that we can’t control, but then feeling frustrated that we don’t control them. Well, in some cases, it is just better to accept those things as they are, and let go of our need to control it.

For example, I know of colleague at work who is very diligent with her work, but always grumpy. When I met her, I was very frustrated at her all-day-frowned-face and her grumpiness. A few times I tried to get closer and find the reasons behind it. I got nothing and became even more frustrated. After a while, I just learned to accept the fact that I won’t know why, neither change her behavior. I’m ok with it, I let go my desire to control her behavior and we just learned how to get along with each other, accepting what is. Hermann Hesse said “some of us think holding on makes us strong, but sometimes it is letting go.” Avoid increased and painful frustration by accepting and letting go.

8. They celebrate each small success

Frustration arises almost every day when we are unable to think about the things that we are doing well and successfully. In order to remain inspired and motivated, and decrease the possibility of frustration, it is fundamental to celebrate the small successes that we achieve on a daily basis. The process of planning our goals and celebrating successes is very interesting: we plan our goals keeping the big picture in mind, thinking the things we want to achieve in the long term. That helps us put in perspective the little mistakes and failures that normally happen. It’s important to put failures in the big context of our life so that we can understand that they are not such a big deal, as we might think.

However, with successes is a different story. We need to celebrate them, no matter how small they are. We need to give us a pat in the back and reinforce the positive behaviors and actions that lead that small success. Think about it this way: if we did something that led to a successful outcome, wouldn’t we want to do more of that? Extremely successful people know about this and put it in action everyday of their lives. Mia Hamm, the successful soccer player, once said “celebrate what you’ve accomplished, but raise the bar a little higher each time you succeed”. 

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