A few days ago I got really frustrated. I was mad at a lot of different things. Ironically looking back I wasn’t mad at people, but with their actions. My kids set me off. They were just acting like normal, so I allowed them to set me off. I was mad that I had not been able to accomplish anything I had wanted and had hoped for.
The hard thing about all this is that I set myself up for this to happen. I almost plan for this to happen on a regular basis because of how I make choices and set goals.
First of all I didn’t outwardly tell my wife and kids what I was trying to accomplish when I allowed myself to get really mad. I could have said “hey I am trying to clean these toys up really fast and I would like to eat dinner while it is hot, not when it gets cold.” If I had said these things out loud rather than just thinking them I would have had some help from my wife at least. The kids still probably would have acted like little children and done what they did but they would have probably helped a bit by not working against me.
I also didn’t tell myself specifically what I had been trying to accomplish and decide what I had to do to do it. I had only a vague idea of what would be nice. I didn’t know exactly what that was, or how I would get that.
Overall I was letting vagueness be my destination and when I wasn’t able to reach that I got overwhelmed by not being able to reach it. Again. I can look back and see that I do this to myself again and again. So then I had the small momentary frustration of the toys and dinner that sparked my anger which was fueled by the lack of reaching that vague destination of happiness I had been hoping for.
Comically (I guess tragically) I set myself up for this type of thing to happen repeatedly. These are my steps to failure:
- I set some type of vagueness as my goal.
- Initially I set out and feel good about progress.
- Then I lose sight of the vague destination and get depressed, tired, frustrated, or angry and I act surprised by this!
- Lastly some small thing external to myself comes along and I lose control feeling like it is the small thing that did it to me, but in reality I do it to myself. I sow the seeds for my own failure.
Why don’t we sow the seeds for our own success?
Here are some viable steps towards reaching success:
- Set a firm goal, or destination.
- Figure out what I need to do to reach it, focusing on the work and effort I must put in to make it happen rather than daydreaming about it magically appearing.
- Go and make it happen.
- If I fail then I can look back and figure out what else I need to add to the process so that success can be reached.
- That’s it.
No more frustration please, I will move that out of my life and in it’s place put happiness and success.
What do you do to avoid these type of self defeating cycles?
