Do You Want to Be Successful? Learn to Live with Frustration and?Setbacks

Being successful is largely a function of your person, not the circumstances.

I’m an entrepreneur. I work hard, play hard, and post on social media about my successes and the attractive people I meet in entrepreneurial high society.

Wait, no.

I’m an entrepreneur, I work hard, I struggle over and over again, and you normally don’t hear anything about those struggles outside my founding team, my family, and my inner circle of friends.

Oh, this guy is an entrepreneur, that’s different. I’m just a regular employee or a manager, so those struggles have nothing to do with my daily life.

Wait, no.

No matter your role, no matter what you are involved with, no journey is smooth all the time. Therefore, it’s easy to be frustrated all the time. But it’s easier to learn to live with frustrations.

Let’s look at some examples.

Sources of Frustration

1. Things that go?wrong

When people work, they make mistakes. That’s normal for human beings. However, these mistakes sometimes lead to things going badly wrong. And because mistakes might not be obvious from the moment they happen, lots of time might pass before people notice that things went wrong.

Boom. We botched it.

Endless frustration.

Yes, you botched it. Instead of being frustrated, get your act together and fix it, Tony. Don’t blame people for their mistakes, don’t air your frustration, just work together to fix things.

2. Things that you cannot?control

For me, the two biggest sources of frustration were COVID-19 and the start of the war in Ukraine in 2022. Those two events deteriorated our business environment and destroyed the sales pipeline that we had built so carefully.

Boom. From bright outlook to doomsday, in a second. Twice in a row.

Endless frustration.

We can be as frustrated as we want, it’s not going to change a thing. We have to live with those events which are outside our control. After the fall, you have to get up again and keep running. And remember that those guys in Ukraine cannot control things either and that they are most probably worse off than you are?—?without doing anything wrong.

3. Somebody changes the priorities

If you’re at the helm, changing the course of the ship to match the changing winds is a standard procedure.

If you’re on the receiving side, you might just hear “turn right 90 degrees”, just to hear “turn left 90 degrees” two hours later.

Hey, do those guys at the top know what they are doing?

Hey, how shall I be motivated if I am given contradicting instructions all the time?

Priorities change all the time, no matter if it’s due to the winds, your customers’ requests, or external factors. In every organization, some people are responsible for setting the priorities, while some other people are responsible for carrying out the work.

If you’re frustrated with carrying out work under changing priorities, you’re better off transitioning into a role where you are responsible for setting the priorities.

4. Somebody doesn’t?deliver

Almost no tasks can be delivered successfully by a one-man show. There aren’t any rockstar developers, sales gods, or marketing heroes. Like everybody else, including Elon Musk, they depend on the work of others to succeed.

And those others can make mistakes, deliver late, deliver bad quality, or not deliver at all.

Hey, how shall I deliver a quality result if those whom I depend on don’t deliver quality results?

No matter if you are a manager or a regular employee, you cannot control everything and everybody. What you can do though, is to identify time bottlenecks as early as possible, and keep reminding others that you need their work on time to complete your own work on time.

Maybe it also makes sense to look at your own work performance from others’ point of view. Are you a time bottleneck for some other people? If you are, you’re a possible source of frustration for others, and you should speed up the completion of those tasks others depend on.

5. Things go around in?circles

How often did you think that you were done with your work, only for it to circle back and hit your desk or inbox again?

Hey, can you just leave me alone for a second and focus on your own work?

Think twice. Most of the work that goes around in circles means that it’s unclear who has to do what. Instead of being frustrated, walk over to the colleague’s desk and have a clarifying chat, or pick up the phone if the person is not in the same location as you are.

Furthermore, from my experience, work going around in circles often leads to better solutions than doing it single-shot.

6. A vote doesn’t turn out in your?favor

In Switzerland, my home country, we cherish democracy. Even on the communal level, many decisions need a majority vote before they can be implemented.

A democratic voting system means that the majority wins, and the minority loses. It also means that you cannot always win?—?if you would, the system would be called an autocracy, and you would be a dictator.

Losing a vote is frustrating, especially when you spend lots of time and energy promoting your favorite solution. But hey, it’s part of life in a democracy. No reason to be frustrated. If the majority opts for a different solution than you do, you’ll need to accept it and make the best out of it. You’ll need to work with the winners to make the solution favored by the majority work for everyone. Besides being constructive, this attitude also keeps you humble that things don’t always turn out the way you want them.

The Path to Happiness

From the examples above, it becomes evident that there are many sources of frustration that you cannot or only partially control.

If you let those frustrations make you think that you are unsuccessful, think twice. Being successful is largely a function of your person, not the circumstances. In other words, there is enough possibility in every situation to either be happy or unhappy. If you choose the happy side, you will be more successful automatically.

And if success still takes more time and effort than you anticipated, and it finally materializes, remember the times of hardship to truly appreciate success.

Growing a company ?? in uncertain times ???? is like running a marathon?—?it demands grit, strategy, and resilience.

As a tech entrepreneur ??, active reserve officer ??, and father of three ??????, I share practical insights and experience on entrepreneurship and resilience in The Resilient Entrepreneur, my weekly newsletter.

When I’m not solving problems, I recharge and find inspiration in the breathtaking mountains ??? around Zermatt ????.

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