Tag: frustration

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Getting Beyond Destructive Rage

In Temper Temper I explored the borderline between harnessing anger and becoming its victim. Let’s take a look at what’s behind the rage.

EXPECTING

Get frustrated often? Chances are expectations are behind it.

I put expectations into two categories: surface and background.

Surface expectations are the obvious triggers for anger and frustration. “Traffic shouldn’t be so slow.” “I should have gotten that promotion.” “Why can’t I ever win?” “How could I make that mistake?“

Learning to flow through surface frustrations is a HUGE step in mental game. Those who can let go and return to the moment are more likely to perform well and enjoy the experience.

Some coaches say letting off steam is okay in these moments. A loud clap. Vocalization. Just do something to go from a yellow zone back to green.

I can see that as a tool but more of a band aid. The greater tool is developing a practice of not needing demonstrations of anger.

DON’T GET ADDICTED

It’s important to learn to handle frustration early. Frustration has a tendency to become addictive. And misleading. It still feels like the anger has a connection to the surface expectation, but the reaction has actually become automatic and even exaggerated.

This is the opposite of the habit we want to develop. We want immunity from these triggers. The more well-formed the habit, the more practice it may take to overcome.

EXTERNAL EXPECTATIONS

As I wrote in Temper Temper, we can also be influenced by what we think others expect. This happens in sports a lot.

A player loses a point and freaks out, not because of what just happened but because that’s what he thinks he is supposed to do. If he doesn’t show his anger, the fans might think he doesn’t care enough.

He has unwittingly been lured into performing for them instead of himself.

The fans might actually think he doesn’t care, but they don’t matter. When it comes to performance, all that matters is you and your opponent, and your opponent can be inspired when you show chinks in your armor.

Instead, keep them guessing. Use your resistance to frustration as a weapon. Be composed, unshaken, unflappable, even serene. An opponent who persists no matter what happens can be a terrifying force. Be the one with the nothing rattles him reputation.

ASPIRING TO CALM

Back to those surface expectations. Maybe what’s behind them isn’t really an expectation. Maybe it’s an aspiration.

I can aspire to a quick commute – and take steps to arrange my life to have one. But if I get frustrated with heavy rush hour traffic, I’ve probably confused that aspiration for an expectation.

I can aspire to run five kilometers under 22 minutes, but if I get frustrated with a near-best time of 24 minutes, I have collapsed that aspiration into an expectation.

To reduce frustration, look at the situation as objectively as possible and untangle whether an aspiration is involved.

For instance, thinking “based on my practice, I have a 70% likelihood of hitting a strike in bowling. I really want to bowl a 300 at some point. 80% of the time, I got strikes this week. Should I be frustrated or encouraged?” gives a different way of looking at the situation.

Or, observing “wow, I’m impatient for my commute to not be like this. I am a little worried about being late for work.” might defuse your frustration.

BACKGROUND EXPECTATIONS

Sometimes it goes deeper than surface expectations. If you become frustrated five minutes into an activity, it’s not about the surface. If you overreact on a regular basis, it’s not about the surface.

There is some other unspoken expectation involved. Generally these have fear at their core. By understanding what might be driving the emotions, we are in a better position to manage them.

Developing a practice of being aware of surface expectations and aspirations allows you to put frustration into context and set aside more quickly. Doing the same with background expectations is a path to superior mental strength.

Let’s go back to the traffic jam. A driver might think she is annoyed at the traffic or the chaotic driving around her, but because she’s enraged within minutes of getting on the road each day, she wonders whether something else is at play. Maybe it’s habit, but maybe there’s something more.

She recognizes a few fears:

I’m afraid of losing my job. Getting stressed during my commute makes me perform worse. And if my commute makes me late, I might get fired.

This might be what’s going on in the background, and she has a bunch of ways of addressing it, including questioning the truth of those fears. Would she really get fired for arriving late? She can act on her fears before the commute by leaving earlier, giving herself more freedom to take her time. And she can act on it in the moment, seeing that the traffic is out of her control, but what is in her control is arriving safely and in as calm a mindset as possible.

Her fears might go another level deeper, to a firm belief that caring for her family is her top priority. Her thought process cascades from this priority to road rage so quickly that she doesn’t notice the irrational leaps our brains can take. Reactions and emotions get exaggerated at each step, leading to our hero shouting in anger at her fellow drivers mere moments after starting her commute.

Background expectations take some work to unearth, and often they are bundled with longstanding habitual thought patterns. It takes work to sort through it, but it’s worth it.

MANAGING EXPECTATIONS

High performers have high expectations for themselves, but if they let frustration and anger get in the way, they mute their potential.

Expectations can derail our most prized pursuits.

The path to an expert mindset includes developing skill at recognizing expectations when they show up and setting them aside before they impede our performance.

And like any important task, practice is essential for mastery and the creation of new, automatic and helpful responses.

In a way, knowing ourselves might be the biggest key to navigating through frustration.

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Making Friends with Chaos

Working with a lot of data analysts lately and seeing athletes redefine what’s possible has gotten me thinking about data, chaos and performance.

The Numbers Underneath

Some pursuits have a luxurious stream of data. Running an online business? The data feedback can be instant. Building a world class race car? The metrics are built into the car’s design for a constant flow of readings.

Some pursuits are numbingly consistent. Accounting data entry doesn’t often offer variation in performance or opportunities for peak performance.

But in most of our life, the data is more spare and varied, and our observations are often flawed.

The human brain tends to emphasize the negative. It can take several positives to equal the impact of one negative. Numbers can help us stay connected to reality.

Putting Numbers to Work

No matter how much data we have, the key is how we use it. In fact, we can separate ourselves from the vast majority of others by just paying attention to what’s working, noticing patterns, approaching improvement with intention.

Doing this gives us access to improvement and performing at the biggest moments. The book and film Moneyball were about this.

Four Patterns of Performance

Visualizing data can help unlock opportunities. If we had a set of a data points – like for instance competition statistics – we could see a more objective view of our performance than our brain will ever give us.

For instance, if we’re not approaching things intentionally, a year-long graph of our good, average and worst performances might look like this:

Messy Rut

Across our purple year, we have some peak moments but we are really inconsistent. It’s just as likely that we will have a lifetime best on any given day as an all-time low, and we are not improving over the course of the year

Let’s call this the messy rut. If we care about performance, we’re probably frustrated with these results.

Then there’s this graph:

In this gray year, we have fewer lows but also fewer highs. We’re consistent, but consistently average, and we’re not improving. If we care about getting better, this year might feel worse than a messy rut. This might be called stagnant mastery.

And yet it’s probably a better launching point. This graph shows mastery of this level. We don’t know what the ceiling of our skill is, but we’ve established a solid floor to our performances. We just don’t have horribly bad days.

And that’s not going to get us to the top. What we need is something different. Maybe it’s this:

Courageous Improvement

In our red year, we’re getting better. Average performances at the beginning of the year become our poor performances just a few months later. And the path is chaotic.

This is what it means to risk being great.

We’ve made our plan for improvement. We’re doing the work. And we’re putting ourselves out there. We’re getting some wins, but we know it’s going to come with some fails too.

The fails are part of the plan. We’re improving our results so that our target finish happens more often, whether that is making the cut, placing in the top 10 or winning. We are putting ourselves in the mix more often.

Let’s call this courageous improvement.

And then there is the blue year:


This graph looks great. No big fails, a steady feeling of things getting better. Near constant positive feedback. Sign me up!

Let’s wake up from that dream. Blue years are mostly fantasy, and fantasy isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

While a blue year might feel good, let’s take a closer look. If we’re competing against someone in a red year, we’re losing to them often. They are often putting up transcendent performances. We are top performers, grinding out good results and putting distance between those in ruts or stagnation, but we’re unlikely to win many year-end awards.

It’s not all bad. We are improving. We’re working as intentionally as someone in a red year. We’re logging wins, but probably winning means too much to us. Short-term results are clouding our vision of what our true potential is.

Let’s call this safe improvement.

We’re really talking about learning curves here. Are you even on a learning curve? If so, what kind are you choosing to be on?

You Can’t Win Them All

Not all our results SHOULD be first place. If so, we may be stagnating. This is how champions get dethroned. They scrap and battle to get to the top, then stop fighting as hard.

Even though variation in performance can be tough to stomach, that chaos can be a helpful sign that you’re taking risks toward breakthroughs.

Acclimatize

When climbers take on the highest mountains in the world, they don’t get to just arrive and make a push to the top. The air is too thin. Their bodies haven’t yet adjusted to extreme altitudes. They have to make small journeys to intermediate altitudes to build the ability to summit in deadly thin air.

It’s like that with extreme performance too. As we expand our capacity upward, we may have spikes of achievement, but we’re not quite ready to do it often. We have to acclimatize to that level of performance so it becomes more normal and sustainable.

This is where the blue graph becomes more real. Instead of being a year of constant improvement without disappointment, the blue graph often is a short period of consolidation when inconsistent new skills become fully part of our arsenal.

Higher Than The Summit

Here’s the trap – and the opportunity for greatness. If we stay in a mode of acclimatizing too long, we risk hitting a performance plateau. The blue graph fades into the gray graph or worse, the purple graph.

When we focus on getting used to doing incredible things, we might forget to imagine and reach for the next level of incredible things are. We might miss the higher summits we can aspire to.

We need chaos for the higher summits.

An ideal path navigates this tension between breakthroughs and normalizing what was previously impossible. Stay in breakthrough mode too long and you don’t gain the mastery needed to reach much higher. Stay in consistency mode too long and things get stale or worse, move backward.

The Off Season

The off season is used as a playground to explore this tension. Commit to red territory when there is more time for exploration and risk, then gain enough command of new skills to return to gray (stagnant mastery) or even better blue (safe improvement) by the beginning of the next season.

A Life Cycle of Chaos

In real life these graphs are not as clean. They transition from one to another. When we’re starting out, we have that beautiful and crazy upward trend of courageous improvement. Our passion for learning takes us quickly higher and higher, but our performance is hit or miss.

For most people, the graph turns into a messy rut when they plateau without intentional strategies for improvement.

This S-curve pattern is well-documented, especially in business.

To reach our potential, we want something more than a single S-curve. We want to go higher and higher. We do that by linking S-curves together.

As soon as we sense we are leveling off, we call on our old friend chaos again, trigger the next curve and give ourselves the chance at greatness.

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Temper Temper

Have you ever gotten so angry that it seems you’re not in control of your own actions? So infuriated that it seems like you’re watching someone else have a fit?

In college, I lost my temper because I was behind in a friendly tennis match. I threw my racket toward the nearest fence. Except I missed. It flew up and over the fence and into another court beyond the fence.

A friend relayed another story of an athlete so frustrated by his performance that he intentionally ran into a tree.

At a sports event recently, I witnessed an athlete get so upset by a mistake that he broke his own finger.

As gruesome and comical as these outbursts can be, they highlight how destructive a loss of emotional control can be. When our winning mindset breaks, so do other things.

Constructive vs. Destructive Rage

Loss of mental control can halt progress toward our goals. It can hinder our work output – or destroy it. If we, for instance, slam a coffee cup onto a desk and drench a laptop, there goes weeks of data analysis. Bye bye to the family photos. That presentation? You’re starting again from scratch. After you spend hours or days replacing the laptop and getting it set up like your old, java-scented one.

Sometimes it’s not just a computer. Rage can damage our reputation and relationships. While being fiery or intimidating might be considered a plus by some, you’re more likely to lose your job, spouse or friends unless you manage your angry outbursts.

There is some thought that anger can fuel higher levels of performance. Watching the pure testosterone of a football team or a military unit, we see groups getting pumped up on adrenalin as they prepare for battle.

There is also some thought that expressing anger can help release it. An athlete might give a quick clap of her hands to dissipate frustration in an effort to move on.

It’s a fine line. When we embrace rage, we sacrifice calm and presence. Instinctual problem solving might work, but complex problem solving may suffer. Gross motor skills might thrive in the rampage, but fine motor skills may become unavailable.

In my own experience, adding a bit of intensity helps me tap into focus and access a higher game. Sometimes that intensity can take the form of anger, as in “there’s no f’ing way this skill is beyond me. I’m. Doing. It. NOW.” If I go beyond that, my performance suffers. I get caught in feedback loop of frustration and loss of confidence, and I need to reset. It takes an intentional effort to step away from the feedback loop of rage.

Temper as Proof of Commitment

This past year I’ve been playing a lot of disc golf and watching videos of the best in the world as they compete. It’s wonderful to watch the sport’s athletes make incredible and imaginative plays.

It’s not so wonderful to watch the athletes get angry. From local recreational play to the world championships, there is an undercurrent of unhappiness among players, borne of frustration. It’s the same frustration traditional golfers feel as they hit golf balls with clubs.

Sometimes it feels like people feel an expectation to be upset by mistakes, as though not being visibly frustrated is evidence that you don’t care. At the pro level, this can become a caricature. An outsider like me can understand disappointment when missing a shot within one’s wheelhouse. Often, the pros will throw a temper tantrum after barely missing a low percentage attempt.

It’s here where I see an opportunity for a mindset shift. What if the proof of commitment was brushing off imperfection? What if the most intimidating presence was the unbreakable, inscrutable genius?

We need a world-class and fully planned-out mindset strategy to get to that point. Frustration will inevitably tempt us. Our challenge is to be practiced in navigating it, so we find our desired experience.

Enjoyment in the Territory of Eternal Frustration

I gave up traditional golf as a teenager because the frustration was so unpleasant, and I gave up competing in disc golf many years ago for similar reasons.

I am approaching the game differently now, and as I watch disc golfers play, I wish they could find some of the calm I am feeling.

I wish the same for social change activists fighting against right wing extremism, confronting hundreds of setbacks for every victory, knowing that they may not even see the big win for another generation. That’s a lot of frustration to swallow, a lot of temper to manage. And it matters a lot more to the world than a missed disc golf putt.

Tempering Temper

So how do we not run into trees or break our fingers or fling tennis rackets dangerously close to fellow members of our communities?

Practice.

It’s that simple. And it’s as complex as you’re thinking it is.

Here are three starting points:

1. Focus on What Matters
Whenever we focus on the result, we risk focusing on things out of our control. Whenever we focus on the past, we reduce our ability to impact what’s happening right now.

One way around this is to maintain focus on the process. It’s not about saving America’s national treasures from greedy business people. It’s about meeting one more person who knows that Yosemite is a far more valuable asset than any oil well will ever be.

Another way is to maintain focus on the experience. If you are miserable playing a sport, why play? If you are miserable and a genius at a sport, how will winning change that misery?

How would you like the experience of playing to be? Find a way to cultivate that in service of performance. If you know you have an 80% chance of success with an action and that you did everything needed to reach that 80% probability, you’ll still fail 20% of the time. In this moment, temper is not going to increase your success rate, so why not find a different way to enjoy the experience?

2. Be a Refocusing Expert
Setbacks are inevitable when reaching for a goal, especially for those pursuing incredible, seemingly impossible goals. If you waste time losing temper in those setbacks, you are delaying the achievement of your goal.

We are emotional beings, so you’ll never hear me say “don’t feel frustrated.” I feel frustrated often. I want to see people get faster at recovery. Be resilient. Feel the pain, and become practiced at moving on.

Meditation/mindfulness is an excellent approach to managing rage. And confusion. And distraction. And disconnection.

No need to sign up for 10-day silent retreats or even set aside more than a few minutes of time. Just try sitting without devices or interaction for as long as you’d like. 1 minute. 5 minutes. 30. One’s endurance for mindfulness builds with practice, just like with any form of training. David Johnson’s podcast Beyond The Thoughts is a great starting point. Short recordings from an interesting and human point of view.

As you gain more skill at mindfulness, you will be more nimble at noticing your emotions and what is triggering them. You will feel more freedom to act rather than react.

3. Team Up
Whether it’s working with a coach like me to strengthen your mental game or surrounding yourself with friends who keep you accountable to your mindset, teaming up with others is a powerful strategy. When we are enraged, we’re not often our best coach. We’re busy raging. Working with others and designing how you’d like them to support your mental game can bring help you snap out of the reactive moment and snap back into your desired approach.