Strive to improve your frustration tolerance each day. It is the human condition to both want and rigidly demand that we get what we want on our terms. For most people this demanding only occurs with a few goals but when it does, it is quite handicapping. The demands we often make are for our important goals to be accomplished quickly and easily. When this does not happen, we tend to quit and feel depressed and miserable. We also have frustration tolerance problems about others. We demand that others act nicely, fairly, and intelligently and then jump to the conclusion we cannot stand to bear dealing with them when they do not. Unhealthy anger and interpersonal tension is the result.
Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy teaches that to have greater of happiness and well-being you had better develop high frustration tolerance beliefs. See that it is fine to want your goals to be accomplished quickly and easily but sadly this will often not occur and when it does not it is tolerable. If you hold this belief, you will display high frustration tolerance and persist at your goals. Likewise, see that you may want others to act intelligently, nicely, fairly, and respectfully but sadly sometimes or even often people will not act this way and you can accept and bear this too. Keep your value that others respond as you wish but see that you cannot control others and fallible humans will sometimes act unfairly and obnoxiously. The good news is that you can control the beliefs you hold about their behavior. When others act obnoxiously, you can tolerate their behavior until you can find a way to successfully persuade, educate, or incentivize them to act otherwise. If you give up your demand that humans not act in a manner you dislike you are likely to be better able to find creative ways to get them to act as you desire.
Although you are fallible human, you do have the option and the capacity to surrender rigid beliefs instead of experiencing the pain and self-defeating behavior that characterizes low frustration tolerance. To do this you had better strive to cling to flexible, high frustration tolerance beliefs. This will be a lifelong battle because as a fallible human who easily jump from wanting to demanding that your good ideas be a part of reality. Nevertheless, I encourage you to fight this tendency towards rigid thinking on a daily basis in order to increase your frustration tolerance for pursuing your personal goals and your interpersonal goals.
Rehearse this belief:
I want what I want on my terms BUT I see that there is no law of the universe that supports my belief. I can withstand the internal discomfort of changing from within to accommodate reality as it is rather than as I demand it to be. This is not resignation. I will still try to get what I want but I will do so gracefully with high frustration tolerance as I do see I can stand to tolerate life and other people as they currently exist.
Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy teaches that to have greater of happiness and well-being you had better develop high frustration tolerance beliefs. See that it is fine to want your goals to be accomplished quickly and easily but sadly this will often not occur and when it does not it is tolerable. If you hold this belief, you will display high frustration tolerance and persist at your goals. Likewise, see that you may want others to act intelligently, nicely, fairly, and respectfully but sadly sometimes or even often people will not act this way and you can accept and bear this too. Keep your value that others respond as you wish but see that you cannot control others and fallible humans will sometimes act unfairly and obnoxiously. The good news is that you can control the beliefs you hold about their behavior. When others act obnoxiously, you can tolerate their behavior until you can find a way to successfully persuade, educate, or incentivize them to act otherwise. If you give up your demand that humans not act in a manner you dislike you are likely to be better able to find creative ways to get them to act as you desire.
Although you are fallible human, you do have the option and the capacity to surrender rigid beliefs instead of experiencing the pain and self-defeating behavior that characterizes low frustration tolerance. To do this you had better strive to cling to flexible, high frustration tolerance beliefs. This will be a lifelong battle because as a fallible human who easily jump from wanting to demanding that your good ideas be a part of reality. Nevertheless, I encourage you to fight this tendency towards rigid thinking on a daily basis in order to increase your frustration tolerance for pursuing your personal goals and your interpersonal goals.
Rehearse this belief:
I want what I want on my terms BUT I see that there is no law of the universe that supports my belief. I can withstand the internal discomfort of changing from within to accommodate reality as it is rather than as I demand it to be. This is not resignation. I will still try to get what I want but I will do so gracefully with high frustration tolerance as I do see I can stand to tolerate life and other people as they currently exist.
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