Tag: frustration

What is Frustration?


Well, what kind of a psychological animal is Frustration? Is it a cognitive and somatic ailment such as anxiety or a mental disorder such as depression? 

Those exposed to your expressing the frustration would like you to think that there is definitely something wrong with you.  But no, feeling frustrated because of legitimate agitating factors doesn’t mean that you are ill and need to seek medical attention. 

As the matter of fact Frustration is nothing more than a normal emotional reaction to opposition, restriction, obstacles – anything that we perceive to contradict with our will, goals, purpose, plans, schedules, etc.  It is sometimes referred to as problem-response behavior.  There is a problem and the frustration is the first-response signal.  

Sometimes we are frustrated with ourselves.  Procrastination and indecisiveness are the biggest causes of self-dissatisfaction for most people.  However, overachievers who reach top level positions in corporate finance and accounting, the CFOs, Controllers, VPs, Directors, especially in smaller companies, are unlikely candidates for lazy postponements.  And even if, for whatever reason, it happens to us, we are usually capable to control it and use the frustration with ourselves as a motivational tool.

No, our causes of frustration are primarily external.  When you have allocated your already extended working hours to 10 urgent tasks that must be tackled today, and then your Boss wanders into your office and you have to listen for 2 hours to his blubbering about his workout regimen, the time loss is beyond your control and the frustration is further intensified by your inability to throw him out.

When you give an urgent assignment to your employee, explaining its importance and value to the company’s big picture, and  an hour later come over to check the progress and provide further advice only to see her scrolling through boots on Zappos.com, the frustration makes your blood boil in your veins.

When you schedule a meeting with the VP of Sales to discuss the failure to meet volume targets for four months in a row and he is not there 30 minutes past the appointment, evil scenarios invade your frustrated mind.

So, feeling frustrated is natural.  However, the way we act while frustrated depends on our personality, self-awareness, self-control and our psychological makeup. 

The most frequent reactive mechanism is aggression.  Whether we immediately explode at the source of frustration, or wait until we are alone and transfer our anger on an inanimate object, or  get home and take it out on the innocent members of our families – it’s pretty much the same response.

In some cases frustrated people engage in a passive-aggressive behavior.  You’ve seen it many times over: a person puts on a sullen expression and starts procrastinating, obstructing, failing to meet the expectations, etc.  I am sure most of us not only observed it, but also had an episode or two ourselves.

It takes a lot of experience, self-control and tremendous will power to resist this behavioral patterns related to frustration and force yourself instead into constructive removal of the obstacle or resolution of the irritating circumstances.  And, unfortunately, even if we can function reasonably on the outside, it doesn’t mean that the psychological disturbance inside goes away.

In the next couple of posts I hope to share with you few coping devices that I have accumulated over the years myself as well as discuss the relation of frustration to anxiety and stress conditions.   

 

      


One CFO’s Personal Tools for Frustration Relief


So, my fellow CFO’s and Controllers, as promised in my previous post, here are the few tricks I use to privately release my frustration after calmly presenting the composed image to the rest of the world.  They are in no specific order.  I pick whichever feels right at a particular moment.

(1.)  Go to the washroom, enter a stall, close your eyes and start cursing.  Five minutes of swearing usually gives a tremendous relief.  The volume doesn’t really matter.  If raising your voice helps you personally and you are sure nobody is around, go ahead.  For me, however, loud whispering (the way actors whisper on stage, so that everyone can hear them), works the best.  The dirtier the better.  Just pretend that you are in a Martin Scorsese or Quentin Tarantino movie.  If you know other languages, use all of them.  Remember, don’t call the objects of your frustration by their names, but keep their faces in front of you mentally.

(2.) This release method is not my original.  It was shared with me by one of my European colleagues and she has learned it from someone else – I am sure it’s been passed on from one generation to another.  I can vouch that it works like a charm.  You have to create a “Page of Frustration.”  Draw some monster on it, something absolutely revolting.  Your artistic abilities make no difference.  You can ask a child to draw it for you.  The most important thing is to write the title and the destruction instructions on the page.  For example:  “Page of Frustration.  In case of emergency, throw it on the floor and stomp it to shreds.”     For some people “viciously crumple and tear it into small pieces” seems to be more appealing.  Whatever works! Make yourself a stack of copies and keep them in your desk.  Make sure that you don’t run out!

(3.) Another useful inventory for a chronically frustrated CFO or Controller is a favorite treat.  Don’t get me wrong – the last thing I want is for anybody to become a closet eater, consuming large quantities of food in search of unattainable solace.  No!!!  That’s not what I am talking about.  I am talking about very small quantities of very small treats, eaten at a very slow pace: three of Godiva chocolate pearls, or five gummy bears, 1/2 oz of trail mix, etc.  Separate them into these small portions in advance, keep only few in your office and consume only as a release remedy.  It works more as a meditative solution than as aggression liberation, but sometimes that’s all you need.

(4.) On my Front Page Raison d’etre, I talk about the therapeutic effects of writing.  And I maintain that committing your grievance to paper is the best form of releasing frustration, tension, stress and anxiety.   You can do it in different ways.  You can pour your heart out in a diary.  You can pretend to write a letter or an email to the source of your pain (without sending them out, of course) describing the situation, verbalizing your feelings, expressing your concerns.  Or you can go a step further towards more satisfying resolution.  You can write that email and send it to me.  Not only that I will become the receptacle of your turmoil, but I will give it even bigger audience by sharing it with other CFO’s, Controllers, etc.

The Frustrated CFO’s Means of Self-Therapy


Alt-J at Terminal 5 03/24/2013, photo by MZI was standing there at Terminal 5 yesterday, listening to Alt-J performing their 2012 Mercury Prize winning album An Awesome Wave live, cheering with the rest of the audience at the first notes of each song in recognition of their sublime quality.  And once again a familiar notion formed inside my head.  It happens to me every time I experience something that momentarily separates my  being from all the negative garbage in my life.  I think, "If I didn't keep on, I wouldn't have received this gift, I wouldn't have come to know these songs, I wouldn't be bobbing in rhythm right now."

I claw my way through the long stretches of hard life, full of frustration and disappointments, from one moment like this to another.  This is what forces me to continue – the hope that there is another wonder ahead.  And when they come, I use them as my self-therapy: I imprint the intimacy of the experience in my memory and let it carry me over the next hurdle. 

It's like mantra:  If I didn't endure I wouldn't have exited the Bullet train onto the platform of Shuzenji station and felt my rusty armor melting away; I wouldn't have seen that astonishing photo my daughter took a few months ago; I wouldn't have watched Radiohead, The Mars Volta, Tool do their on-stage magic;  I wouldn't have heard Andrew Bird's heavenly sounds in the Guggenheim and in the Riverside Church; I wouldn't have read new Egan, Carson, Cunningham; I wouldn't have stood in the middle of the Red Forest breathing the ancient clarity…  And I wouldn't have been at Terminal 5 yesterday.

So, here is my personal tip for everyone who, like me, is overwhelmed with frustration and prone to desperation: find something powerful that can make you forget about the dread, look for opportunities to experience it whenever you can, and hold on to the sensory memory of each occasion for as long as the shittiness of this life allows you.  And let's hope that the gaps between the moments of joy will not get any longer then they already are.

Acknowledgements:

I would like to thank my daughter for treating her mother as an equal and sharing all kinds of awesomeness.  And thank you very much, the dude from Bumblefuck, IL.

 

Job Search: Unemployment & Depression


At the end of February, The Ladders featured Debra Donston-Miller's article Depression is Making Unemployment Longer, which reiterated the well-known fact that unemployment walks hand in hand with depression and anxiety, and that, in turn, diminishes your ability to get employed. 

It's a vicious circle, you know.   A person looses his job – that's on its own is a hard blow to his ego.  Nevertheless, he gets right on all job boards – Monster, CareerBuilder, etc.  – posts his resume and applies to every single opening that matches his qualifications.  As time goes by, he keeps lowering his expectations – now applications go out to jobs with smaller titles and lower salaries.  Still, the response is not too hot.  

Nowadays, the statistical probability of converting applications into a recruiter's or hiring manager's interest is around 2% for high-level financial professionals – CFOs, Controllers, Financial Directors, etc.  The national numbers of people not being able to find employment in one, sometimes two, and more years are scary. 

While you are waiting for the sparks in the dark, your spirits get lower and lower.  You become listless, loose interest in everything – depression really kicks in.  The anxiety of not being able to support yourself when the savings and unemployment compensation run out gets overwhelming.  You swing between over-hype of appraising your possession for possible liquidation and inability to move a muscle.

Still, you force yourself to apply every day, you do your networking, ask people around.  Finally, quantity turns into quality: you've sent out 100 resumes and someone finally called you.   You've had a positive response after the phone interview and now you are going for a face-to-face appointment.  Anxiety floods you – the workspace environment, which you have not experienced for several months, seems so alien to you. 

You are prepared, though – you are a seasoned executive with superior qualifications, a likable person, well-spoken, know how to handle yourself.  The interview seems to go well, but there are so many candidates, and you might have said something wrong just because the depression and anxiety ate some of your confidence away.  Every day you wait for a call back, but nobody ever does; nobody even sends an email to let you know that you did not qualify – people don't do those sort of polite things anymore.

Now, you are loosing hope altogether: it is more and more difficult to make yourself even to look at the job listings.  It seems like staring at the television screen all day without seeing what's on is a better option…

You know what?  I am not going to tell you that it will get better.  I am not a fortune teller.  I don't know it, but neither do you.  Yes, it's fucking tough out there!  As I always say,  we live in a new economic reality.  The truth is that you may need to rethink your entire life.  But you cannot let the depression eating away your time.  FIGHT IT!  Do you know what happens with every single day you waste on giving in to nothingness? It disappears and you will never get it back. 

The Ladders' article quoted cognitive behavioral psychologist Deb Brown, who suggests creating a routine for yourself as one of the helpful tools.  My readers know how big I am on time-management and routines.  Whether you are fighting the unemployment depression or job frustration, scheduling your time and filling your day with meaningful tasks always helps.   And when you are unemployed, you have an opportunity to do things that you never had time for before: study Spanish with that Rosetta Stone pack you've got for your birthday two years ago; transfer all those home videos onto DVDs, get yourself fit.  

You don't really need more than two-three hours a day to look for new openings and apply.  Spend the rest of your free time (FREE TIME – when do we have it otherwise?) catching up on your life.  And don't be a prisoner of your schedule either – let go of it for a day, when you feel frustrated.

And listen, even if things with employment never get better and some drastic decisions will need to be made, at least you will not need to look back at the long stretch of a complete misery right before that.       

Who Is Your Favorite Avenger?


I cannot really call myself a comics fan just because I am familiar with the names and overall stories of the most famous characters.  That’s just popular culture saturation.  I know some real devotees, and those people can discuss different genres, know the names of artists, aware of obscure series, and dissect the aesthetics of comics with the same depth I apply to theater, cinema, or literature.  Yet, I do appreciate the idea of a superhero, a human with extraordinary abilities and skills.  In a sense, Ayn Rand‘s John Galt is a superhero.  Some of the stories written by comics’ authors are just as dark and prophetic.  And, I’ve seen the original drawings of the best creators: there is no question in my mind – it’s art. 

On the other hand, cinematic interpretations of graphic novels, the money-making machines of Marvel and DC Comics, rarely measure up to the original sources.  I don’t even remember when was the last time that I saw a comic-based movie on a big screen…  Until this summer’s release of Joss Whedon‘s The Avengers.

I’ve always had a weak spot for Joss Whedon’s creative powers.  His visions, both phantasmagorical and futuristic, yet so human, are among my guilty pleasures.  Amazingly, the man is capable of making all sorts of creatures sexy and soulful.  After all, he brought vampires with various personality traits into our lives way before the recent wave of the blood-sucking hype.  He is to current supernatural TV programming, what Nirvana is to contemporary Rock.  

Stephenie Meyer may list Shakespeare and Jane Austin as influences for her deplorable writing all she wants; and the story how the idea of love between a human girl and a vampire came to her in a dream on June 2, 2003 is a great PR ploy.  But isn’t it uncanny that Joss Whedon aired the last episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer series on May 20, 2003.  Maybe the young Mormon wife and mother was simply missing Buffy’s heat.

So, because it’s written and directed by Joss Whedon, I went to see The Avengers…   And it was very entertaining, exhilarating, sufficiently layered for those who want to look beneath the surface, and accessible to those who just want to have fun – in other words, it was very Joss Whedon.  I mean, who else would be able to take the Incredible Hulk and not only accentuate the character’s original traits, but make him even more tragic, brilliant, powerful, soulful… and funny?

Yeah, the Incredible Hulk  as interpreted by Joss Whedon – oh boy, do I relate to that character, or what?  I mean, “That’s my secret, captain.  I’m always angry,” – it’s like he went into my head and read it on my cerebral cortex.  Always angry, but in control most of the time.  Well, in my case, practically all the time, trying to channel the frustration through writing, cursing at the toilet bowl, or stomping on a piece of paper; only wishing that I could unleash the anger for real.

When I just started this blog, I took time to explain in several posts my take on frustration and its management.  In one of them, I nominated John McEnroe as the frustration release hero .  And, he definitely is that, but if I were to expand my search pool beyond mere humans… Joss Whedon’s Dr. Banner/Hulk definitely takes the first prize – reserved, humble, unstoppable when angered by bad guys, and with a sense of humor regardless of his physical/mental state. 

Watching him handling Loki’s arrogance was probably one of the most satisfying therapeutic experiences I’ve had in a long time.  For a hot second I felt avenged.  Oh, how I yearn for an ability to do that to some people!  In fact, I think it would work for me even better than Darth Vader’s management style.