Frustrated of not being successful enough?
“Our frustration is greater when we have much and want more than when we have nothing and want some. We are less dissatisfied when we lack many things than when we seem to lack but one thing” — Eric Hoffer
The frustration of not being successful enough is like a pandemic. It’s a grim reality. People always tend to feel that they aren’t there yet. There’s some kind of exhaustion that comes from not being where you are, but still, you are not where exactly you want to be.
Frustrations are very easy to find in today’s world. It’s easier for things to go badly than for them to go smoothly. The truth is that there are thousands of factors that exist to frustrate you. The economy, the system, unexpected pitfalls, disillusionment, and so on. It’s one thing to know what you want from life and how to get it. However, the journey is usually a different ball game entirely because things don’t always go the way you expect.
Things never go the way you expect them to. That’s both the joy and the frustration in life. I’m finding that as I get older, I don’t mind though. It’s the surprises that tickle me the most, the things you don’t see coming — Michael Stuhlbarg.
Life is unpredictable and never tired of endlessly churning out both pleasant and wicked surprises. Some, we appreciate and others we don’t because they can whirl around our plans for the worse. But then there is always a way around everything isn’t there?
As always, sit tight and read carefully through the inspiring quotes that this post has to offer. The best quotes, after all, are always the motivational quotes that stir up your spirit.
Try To Laugh Through It
“Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion. I myself prefer to laugh, since there is less cleaning to do afterward.” — Kurt Vonnegut
Not everyone indeed can find humor in the most mundane things, but learning how to laugh more is a lot better for your mental health in the long run. Frustrations tend to take a toll on us mentally and emotionally. Your drive and ambition plummet, you seem unsure about your dreams and the path you have taken, and doubts are the order of the day. The problem is that if you don’t find a way to laugh it off, you will project toxic feelings upon those around you, and even those who have absolutely nothing to do with your frustrations.
Bad days will happen but we can still find reasons to smile. Watch a comedy movie, visit that friend who always has funny quotes and amusing anecdotes to tell you. Watch the innocent gimmicks of kids. Read inspirational quotes that boost your spirit, and find something to do that makes you happy.
I’m not asking you to deflect your reality and not face whatever is making you frustrated, but if you don’t take a break to get yourself back in a good headspace, you’ll end up becoming a ticking time bomb. And when you explode, you will destroy a lot of things you might never be able to get back.
Frustrations Are a Part of Your Success Story
“Frustration although quite painful at times, is a very positive and essential part of success” — Bo Bennett.
Ever heard of Chris Gardner? Gardner was a man who thought his life had a sure path, but soon he found out that dreams have the power to change either due to circumstances or desire or both. But of course, there’s always a price to pay. Gardner struggled desperately with homelessness and making something out of himself while raising his son. He slept in offices and public bathrooms, queued at soup kitchens, while he worked hard at a stockbroker internship to fulfill his dreams of becoming financially independent.
Today Gardner owns a successful brokerage firm and his memoir became such an inspiring bestseller that filmmakers were motivated to make a movie starring Will Smith, based upon his life. Read his book and watch Will Smith’s applaudable powerhouse performance, and you’ll see that Gardner went through intense hardship. He was frustrated several times, and anyone would have been in his situation. But he was dogged, driven, and displayed a strong sense of tenacity through it all.
You have to understand that frustrations are a part of your success story. Everything you are going through currently has a way of aligning with your overall victory. Yes, indeed, you aren’t there yet, but you have come far and I can tell you with absolute and effortless conviction that there is no one, and I repeat no one, who attained a level of exponential success who hasn’t garnered a large share of hardships and frustrations. Deal with your frustrations however you can. Cry, scream, rant…. do anything. But come back and face them and overcome. Here is Phyllis Diller’s frustration recipe:
“My recipe for dealing with anger and frustration: set the kitchen timer for twenty minutes, cry, rant, rave, and at the sound of the bell, simmer down and go about business as usual.”
The road to success is challenging. Oftentimes you’ll need to be powered up and motivated by something bigger than yourself to stay consistent until the end. Its also riddled with thorns and thistles(frustrations) that could make you consider giving up and turning back. But then it’s not exactly advisable that you do that because life always eventually rewards those with a fighting spirit.
“Rest when you are weary. Refresh and renew yourself, your body, your mind, your spirit. Then get back to work.” — Ralph Marston.
Fight hard and desperately for the life you crave. Tolerate your frustrations because there’s always a message from them. There’s always something new to learn if you are analyzing hard enough. Harnessing your strength and your resilience is the only way you can effectively combat your frustrations. In the words of Steve Maraboli,
“Life doesn’t get easier or more forgiving. We get stronger and more resilient.”
Life has never been easy and it will never be. But you can always find a way to make it work to your advantage. Oh and you can always pump your inner strength with love quotes and life quotes by the way.
The Place Of Unparalleled Focus
“To conquer frustration, one must remain intensely focused on the outcome, not the obstacles.” — T.F. Hodge
How focused are you? How focused are you? Are you gritty, determined, and hard-working? Or do you fall apart at the sight of every single obstacle? Focus is the art of intense concentration. When you have thorough and unparalleled focus, you don’t give in to distractions and you don’t also give in to your frustrations because your eyes remain squarely on the ultimate goal and vision.
When Zuckerberg was establishing Facebook, he faced lawsuit challenges at Harvard. But that didn’t deter him from focusing on his mission, and he even dropped out of Harvard to see it through to the end. Talk about unstoppable determination.
When he would attain exponential fame and success, Harvard conferred on him an honorary degree.
To have unparalleled focus, you need to love what you do or what your dreams are made of.
In Michelle Obama’s Memoir, Becoming, the former first lady confessed that although she was a great lawyer, she was doubtful about the career path she had deliberately chosen for herself. She had been a young professional with a car and a high-rise office at 25. She had put in the hard back-breaking work it took to become a lawyer, the enormous hours, passed the incredibly difficult bar exam, and arrived at her destination. And then…., the uncertainty came. In her blinding driving need to excel, she had forgotten to follow her passion.
“Our lives are a sum total of the choices we have made.” — Wayne Dyer.
Sometimes you aren’t successful enough because you don’t love what you are doing, enough. Most people don’t even know what their passion is, not to even talk of following it. This is where raw and brutal honesty comes in. Undertake some level of introspection. Search your soul deeply and you will find the truth.
Michelle Obama was eventually honest with herself. She gave up her law career to go into community-based work where she found more fulfillment. Did her new career path bring about frustrations? Yes, it did as well as a considerable depletion in her finances too. But she was better equipped for the frustrations because she had a newfound passion.
“The biggest competition is myself. I am not looking to follow others or pull them down. I’m planning to test my own boundaries” — Rain
Passion breeds focus. Your passion is what will give you drive and of course, unparalleled focus. So the question is what are you passionate about? What is that one thing that sets your soul and your heart on fire? Find it, be one hundred percent focused on it, and frustrations will find it impossible to gain your attention.
What is Your Level of Desperation?
In other words, how desperate are you?
“In life, you need either inspiration or desperation” — Tony Robbins
I believe that inspiration is usually birthed from desperation. Success doesn’t recognize who is more deserving, privileged, or talented. It recognizes who is hungrier. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Life will not give you what you ask for. It will give you what you work for and what you demand from it with your actions.
I once heard of a tale that involved two men. One day, each man was told his destiny. The first man was told he was destined to become a king. The second man was told he would amount to absolutely nothing in life. One man went away happy, the other retreated dejectedly, but with a burning determination not to amount to nothing. He would become something no matter how small.
The first man did nothing but celebrate his fortunate destiny for years. No work, no effort, no strategy, nothing. Wherever he went, he informed anyone who cared to listen that he would become a king. The second man powered by his desperate fears of failure decided there was no harm in becoming a farmer. Day and night, he tilled the soil and prayed for a bountiful harvest. It was amusing because this man had no family, friends, or anyone who would eat this produce, and yet he didn’t relent.
Mother nature rewarded his efforts. Years of bounteous harvest culminated into enormous food and fruits that he didn’t have anyone to give. One day he stumbled upon a village that suffered from famine. The hardship of the people had made them grossly hostile and unfriendly and so they weren’t hospitable towards a stranger. But before he left, a couple of them found out about this man’s huge food barn. They had no money to pay him for the food they desperately needed, and they had no king too. They offered him the kingship position in exchange for all the food he had. So in a twist of fate, life had handed him the destiny of the first man, who of course amounted to nothing. Don’t be deceived. Sometimes nothing is predestined. We can rewrite our lives and destinies and become the Masters of our fates. But learning how to do this requires desperation. Do you want to win? Be desperate. Do you want to get past your frustrations? Then be desperate enough to rise above them.
“A life of frustration is inevitable for any coach whose main enjoyment is winning” Chuck Noll.
If all you want is success and wins, then you must be ready for a life of frustrations. They will come in different shades, flavors, and colors. They will be more intense when success and victory are just around the corner. They will be heavy. They will weigh you down. They will remind you endlessly of your limitations. They will provoke doubts and unleash fears. And you will feel some level of fatigue. And in these crucial times, you must remember the wise words of Dale Carnegie:
“Our fatigue is often caused not by work, but by worry, frustration, and resentment.”
Besides passion, the next best thing that will get you through the era of frustrations is your desperation. So I ask again: How desperate are you?
Intentionality Matters Too
“No one can construct for you the bridge upon which precisely you must cross the stream of life, no one but yourself alone.” — Friedrich Nietzsche.
Are you truly intentional about that goal? If your answer is yes, why are you letting frustrations gradually take preeminent control of you? We have already established that it’s okay to be weary and tired, occasionally. But at some point, you have to get up again and be ferociously intentional about your goal. You can’t sit in a spot wishing for things to happen to you or wishing that your desires just magically appear. You won’t get any rewards for that.
“We need a backbone. Not a wishbone” — Joyce Meyer.
They are real truths that embody our reality. Seven years after graduating from Exeter University with a BA in French and Classics, J.K Rowling considered herself a failure. Her marriage had fallen into the cracks, and she was unemployed with a daughter. Her mother was dead, and all she could see ahead was uncertainty. It would have been easy to give in to frustration. To begin the “why me” wail. But Rowling described this wilderness period in her life as liberating. She was at her lowest of lows and there was nowhere else to go but up. And that’s what she did. She climbed steadily to the top by implementing her ideas of Harry Potter into a novel. Even when the first novel was going to be published, Rowling was rejected by twelve publishing houses, and the editor who agreed to publish her, even sympathetically advised her to get a day job because after all how much could she really make from writing children’s books?
But the first book did so well, an auction was held by publishing houses in America to determine who would win the rights to publish the book. It was the beginning of a new life. Years down the line, Rowling achieved groundbreaking success with the Harry Potter series becoming the bestselling book series in history.
Now imagine if she had not been intentional about her writing. If she had accepted that she was a failure and simply became content with scrapping through life. Rowling had no big illusions or imaginations about her life or what she wanted it to be, but she was intentional. Intentionality leads to consistency and courage. And these are the elements that lead you to persevere through your frustrations.
Problems are Advantageous
“We are continually faced by great opportunities disguised as insoluble problems” — Lee Iacocca
Most people have a living goal to be happy. So when they aren’t successful enough, it seems like their happiness is being interfered with. But happiness is not a destination. Happiness comes from true fulfillment. You gain fulfillment by solving problems. Frustrations come from problems, and life will throw two hundred and one problems at you. Learning how to effectively overcome them adds to your confidence and your self-worth, and of course to your overall happiness. ,
Stephen King is one of the most accomplished writers of all time. But King suffered a lot from poverty right from childhood to adulthood. He wasn’t lazy, but his breakthrough didn’t come until he was a married man who wrote the novel, Carrie. Immersed in troubles, beaten down by constant lack and want, uncertain about his futuristic prospects, King had tossed his first manuscript in the trash can, believing it was a loser novel. His wife however was able to encourage him to finish it. The book changed his life forever.
Perhaps if he had lived a life cushioned by comfort, he would never have developed into a bold imaginative thinker and a world-class writer. What I am saying in essence is that your frustrations matter. Your frustrations build you up. They etch lifetime scars on your soul so that you can always remember the brutal journey that culminated in your success. You must not resent them. It’s a training process and no training process is easy. When frustrations interfere in your success journey, remember that they are part of the bigger picture. Problems and frustrations are a part of life. Acceptance is usually the beginning of any real progress.
The Power of Affirmative Thinking
“ I felt like it was time to set up my future, so I set a goal. My goal was independence.” — Beyonce Knowles
It is pertinent that you understand the power of affirmative thinking. These are true words of wisdom because the mind is powerful in every sense of the word. The mind projects. The mind determines whether you become a thriving pulsating soul powered by your core beliefs or not. Affirmative thinking stems simply from two things – self-belief and hope. During arduous days of frustrations, affirmative thinking can motivate you and help you believe that things will be better. It’s just like Emanuel Cleaver says;
“Hope fills the holes of frustration in my heart.”
You will pass through a lot of frustrations. It is inevitable. Yet you must never entertain the thought of giving up.