Frustration

We all get frustrated.

All of us.

There isn't a person living who doesn't find some irritation in life not going exactly their way. It's a fact of living, of life, of being human.

Like errors: those are facts of life too.

Mistakes. Screw-ups. Whatever you want to call them.

How do you handle your frustration?

When you're at the gym and your lift goes bad, or your hand slips off the pull-up bar, or your box jump didn't count because you didn't open your hip fully enough? What happens next?

Maybe you swear at yourself. There probably isn't a gym around that hasn't heard the cry "F***!" in the middle of a workout. (In fact, we shudder to think what the walls of most gyms have heard.)

But frustrations of our own making are one thing.

How about when the origin of your frustration is actually something or somebody else? Like maybe somebody grabbed your medicine ball instead of theirs?

• Or they're jumping with your rope and you've got to grab a new one in the middle of the workout.

• Or they're really slow with their push-ups and you feel like they're holding up the warm-up?

What do you do then? Do you yell at them? Or mutter under your breath? Stomp your foot. Glare. Or say nothing and then bitch about them later to your friends?

Or do you simply find a workaround?

Grab a new ball, a new rope, do some extra push-ups while you're waiting.

Breathe and realize no one is dying because of the mistake.

Lots of people fighting battles with bigger stakes than this, like hunger, or cancer, or the Taliban.

What you do when you're frustrated says more about you than the situation or anybody else. And it holds the key to greater success.

Use your frustration smartly and productively and you'll have greater accomplishments. 

Use it poorly and you'll feel only temporary relief from the pain of living.

You can honk your horn loud and long. Or you can find a way around that traffic jam, or at least turn up the radio and sing until the traffic starts moving again.