[form] "REBT Toolbox" Your Name please: [text,r_name,30] Email: [text,r_email,30] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Low Frustration Tolerance One result of your unfortunate Activating Experience can be your feeling of frustration with what is going on. An important focus of thinking or self-talk involves low frustration tolerance (LFT). LFT describes your needless upsetness about life's difficulties. It involves questions like, "How much is too much? or "When do I say 'uncle'?" Are you able to tolerate a great deal of frustration or do you push yourself over the edge by what you tell yourself about everyday hassles? If your frustration tolerance is low, you may whine and scream about difficulties and let them block you from reaching your goals. LFT encourages you to give up in the face of hindrances. It gets in the way of your satisfying your desires, particular your long-term goals, by helping you to evaluate immediate frustration as "too much," "too hard," and "harder than it should be." Then you quit. Typical LFT statements "I can't stand it!" "It's more than I can bear!" "I'm at the end of my rope!" "It's intolerable!" "It's too much!" "It must not be this bad!" If LFT is a problem for you, here's how you can overcome it. Refresh your memory about your Activating Experience. Complete the following sentence. What I can't stand about this frustration is... [textarea,cant stand this,3,70] EXAMPLE: "What I can't stand about this frustration is that finishing this report takes too long - as it shouldn't!" "What I can't stand about this interview is my interviewers taking up too much of my time and then not giving me a job." Begin Disputing and Replacing the "I can't stand it" statements with more self-helping philosophies. Thus, you can say, "I really don't like this hassle but I can stand it." "I hate writing this paper but I'll finish it soon." "It's uncomfortable but it won't kill me." The truth is that you can stand practically any difficulty - unless, of course, it kills you. If it kills you, then you won't be very happy at all! But you rarely will die from a hassle, and you can almost always make yourself happy in some ways in spite of it. One way to increase your frustration tolerance is to talk or think differently about your situation and how you react to it. You can tell yourself something like this: I really don't like this because I feel frustrated and distinctly want things to be different. But even though I don't like it and feel very frustrated, I can stand it. I don't like to be uncomfortable, but it won't shatter me. Being uncomfortable is something that I often have to experience in order to get the things I want and to make the changes I desire. Think about your Activating Experience and your Goals. In order to reach your Goals you will probably encounter some real frustration. Good things rarely come easy. What are the difficult things you had better do in order to reach your Goal? In order to reach my Goal, I will do some difficult and uncomfortable things, including... [textarea,the difficult things I will do,3,70] EXAMPLE: "Talking to strangers to make more social contacts." "Going for more job interviews until I actually get a job." You identified some of the difficult, frustrating or uncomfortable things that you are willing to do in order to reach your Goal. Now, identifying the ways that your life will be better if you reach your Goal. When I reach my Goal, my life will be better because... [textarea,my life will be better because,3,70] EXAMPLE: By making more social contacts, I will find some interesting people to talk to and do things with." "By going for more job interviews, I will finally get a job and have much more money to spend." Achieving your goal makes your doing the difficult task at hand worth it. Concentrate on the result you want rather than on your frustration in achieving it and you will have higher frustration tolerance and accomplish a good deal! ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Questions or Comments? [textarea,questions or comments,3,70] [checkbox,send copy,checked] To receive a copy of your work here. Uncheck it if you have printed off a hardcopy for yourself. [submit,SEND this Entry][reset,Start Over again] [/form]