How to Raise Your Tolerance For Frustration

How to Raise Your Tolerance For Frustration

The CEO walked into the meeting with the bank
officials requesting a line of credit of 2 billion
dollars. He had the assets to justify the loan and
the company had a past history of repaying all their loans.

His application was rejected because the CEO lost his
temper at a question the bank president asked.

Emotion

Anger is NOT caused by the words or actions of others,
but how we REACT to those words or actions.

We are all angry once in a while based on an accumulation
of things refusing to occur the way we EXPECT.

Angry people do not have strategies to suppress their anger during important meetings. They are unaware anger deletes their ability to think rationally and organize their responses to others.

Anger is an internal emotion high jacking our logic and reasoning. Anger convinces us we are right and others are intentionally sabotaging our goals.

The Cause of Anger

1. “Do it my way, or it’s the highway.” This is often an
irrational (emotional high jack) of our left hemisphere’s
thinking skills of logic and reason. It leave our brain to run on an “irrational perception of reality”.

2. “You must do it my way or no way.” This is based on a
“Low Frustration Point” and mindset.

3. All anger is directed at a person or event outside
ourselves. The first step is to question our expectation of others to discover if our sense of reality is realistic or unrealistic.

4. Distorted Thinking and faulty self-perception is the basis of most feelings of anger. There is an entire area of psychology called Cognitive Therapy devoted to it.

Fight or Flight

When we feel threatened by individuals and circumstances,
our Amygdala (Limbic emotional system of the brain) overcomes our prefrontal cortex, the reasoning structure of our brain.

The result is anger and lashing out, not thinking of the
reaction of others. We are irrational and lose the power to empathize with others.

Fight or flight causes major changes to our mind and body by increasing our blood pressure and releasing adrenaline into our bloodstream. We cannot clearly evaluate the situation. We think either defend or attack, not negotiation.

Dehumanizing

When anger takes over, others are seen as the “enemy” to
be destroyed and conquered. We forget they have their own
needs and objectives. They are no longer ‘human’, but biting insects meant to be destroyed.

Change Your Mental Imagery

When we are angry our Sympathetic Nervous System is in control and flashes mental movies of violence and aggression. The first step to peace and relaxation is the replacement of these pictures to new ones emphasizing calm and peaceful mental scenes.

If you activate your left brain by humming the B.I.N.G.O.
song (Google: Bingo Song) your right brain stops exciting
you with negativity movies of Fight-or-Flight.

After two-minutes of Bingo relaxation, your Parasympathetic Nervous System (acetylcholine) takes over and your reason and logic return.

It seems obvious when you are using your Pre-Frontal Cortex
of reason, logic and organization, yet in anger we forget
others have the right to their beliefs, perceptions and
objectives.

Anger is a loss of left-brain reasoning, with dominance
of your Amygdala (right-brain) emotional thinking of “me, me, and me”.
Now see in your mind’s eye the CEO negotiating with the
Banker with a smile on his face and answering questions using his reason, logic and humor. That’s a winning strategy.

Endword

Impulsive words and actions are the basis of a need for
immediate gratification at the expense of the feelings of
others.

Anger is our irrational perception of reality, together with a low threshold for frustration. We cannot FORCE others to think the way we do through anger. When we attempt to use angry during negotiation, we fail and lose
the argument.

Would it help you to read and remember three (3) books,
articles and reports in the time others can hardly finish
even one?

Ask us about SpeedLearning and how to 3x your
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See ya,

copyright © 2008
H. Bernard Wechsler
www.speedlearning.org
hbw@speedlearning.org
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