Feeling Like a Fraud

What was your predominant mood like this past week?

If you were to ask me what mine was, I'd have no hesitation in telling you.

Frustration.

If any of you are like me and have to deal with the vagaries of a website that sometimes seems to have a mind of its own, you'll know what I mean.

If not, I suggest you look at the faces of those sportsmen and women who come somewhere other than first and, when asked how they feel, shake their heads and say "disappointed", "crushed", or just plain "gutted".

The word "frustration" comes from the Latin "frustratus" meaning "without effect" or "in vain". Not surprisingly, the word is linked to our word "fraud". For everyone who feels frustrated either feels a fraud or feels defrauded.

On our Facilitation Skills courses at ManageTrainLearn, we acknowledge that frustration is a very real condition that people feel when they are trying to achieve something important and worthwhile and don't get there when they want.

That's why we train people to turn frustration around and convert it from a potentially destructive emotion to a creative one. We do it with the following 7 techniques.

1. in acknowledging your frustration, acknowledge also the rockets of desire that shoot up to remind you of what you want.

2. learn how to live in a state of non-accomplishment by saying to yourself, "I'd prefer to be where I want, but if it takes longer, so be it."

3. ratchet the missed goal down by a notch or two; get there in several manageable steps rather than one big one.

4. forget the path you're on and the hole you're in and go and do something else where you'll succeed; that way you won't feel like a failure and you'll keep things in perspective.

5. stop stressing over reaching the goal in the original timespan you set yourself. Instead, let it take as long as it takes.

6. remember that nobody is taking score of your successes and failures except possibly you.

7. think about the greats of history such as Churchill, Gandhi, and Lincoln who were all frustrated in their goals before they triumphed, and remind yourself that, if they can overcome frustration, so can you.

Looking at my off-colour website during my frustration, I reminded myself of these 7 techniques and put my frustration in its rightful place. Sure enough, by the end of the week, things had righted themselves and we were back on course, a bit bloodied, but certainly not bowed.