New Psycho-Cybernetics by Maxwell Maltz

Author:Maxwell Maltz
Language: eng
Format: mobi, pdf
ISBN: 9781101660805
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2002-12-02T18:30:00+00:00

Frustration

Frustration is an emotional feeling that develops whenever some important goal cannot be realized or when some strong desire is thwarted. All of us must necessarily suffer some frustration by the very fact of being human and therefore imperfect, incomplete, unfinished. As we grow older we should learn that all desires cannot be satisfied immediately. We also learn that our “doing” can never be as good as our intentions. We also learn to accept the fact that perfection is neither necessary nor required, and that approximations are good enough for all practical purposes. We learn to tolerate a certain amount of frustration without becoming upset about it.

It is only when a frustrating experience brings excessive emotional feelings of deep dissatisfaction and futility that it becomes a symptom of failure.

Chronic frustration usually means that the goals we have set for ourselves are unrealistic, or that the image we have of ourselves is inadequate, or both.

Practical Goals versus Perfectionistic Goals. To his friends, Jim S. was a successful man. He had risen from stock clerk to vice-president of his company. His golf score was in the low eighties. He had a beautiful wife and two children who loved him. Nevertheless, he felt chronically frustrated because none of these measured up to his unrealistic goals. He himself was not perfect in every particular, but he should be. He should be chairman of the board by now. He should be shooting in the low seventies. He should be such a perfect husband and father that his wife would never find cause to disagree with him and his children never misbehave. Hitting the bull’s-eye was not good enough. He had to hit the infinitesimal speck in the center of the bull’s-eye. “You should use the same technique in all your affairs that pro golfer Jackie Burke recommends in putting,” I told him. “That is not to feel that you have to pinpoint the ball right to the cup itself on a long putt, but to aim at an area the size of a washtub. This takes off the strain, relaxes you, enables you to perform better. If it’s good enough for the professionals, it should be good enough for you.”

His Self-Fulfilling Prophecy Made Failure Certain. Harry N. was somewhat different. He had won none of the external symbols of success. Yet he had had many opportunities, all of which he muffed. Three times he had been on the verge of landing the job he wanted and each time “something happened”; something was always defeating him just when success seemed within his grasp. Twice he had been disappointed in love affairs.

His self-image was that of an unworthy, incompetent, inferior person who had no right to succeed or to enjoy the better things in life, and unwittingly he tried to be true to that role. He felt he was not the sort of person to be successful and always managed to do something to make this self-fulfilling prophecy come true.

Frustration as a Way of Solving Problems Does Not Work.

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