How do you react to little frustrations?

My Word document kept freezing today. This happens randomly with some Microsoft Office programs on my laptop…I’ll be working away, when suddenly everything freezes and I have to resort to control-alt-delete, open Task Manager, and close the program.

This is really frustrating because I lose whatever changes I made to the document between the last time I saved it and when it froze. Not only that, it seems that once this issue starts happening, it freezes again and again for a period of time, then just as suddenly, returns to working well again! (Unless we are talking about PowerPoint - it almost ALWAYS freezes! Thank goodness for Canva….)

I didn’t have time for this inconvenience this morning. I was at my cabin trying to finish off some time-sensitive work before packing up and driving 5 hours to get home for meetings that start early tomorrow morning. So what did I do? 

I kept my cool (for the most part!).

I took a deep breath, shut my laptop down, did as much packing as I could, made a cup of tea, then tried again - making sure to save my document every 30 seconds so I could get it sent off. I was also ready to upload the document to Google Docs or Canva to finish it in either of those programs if needed. 

Success! Document sent, and packing done - just differently than I had planned.

Our lives are made up of little frustrations. If we allow ourselves to get all worked up, or to catastrophize each time we face these challenges, our effectiveness drastically declines. The key to avoiding over-reaction is your mindset. Being flexible and solutions-focused keeps you calm, allows you to find another path forward, and prevents you from feeling like the work is too heavy to bear.

How do you deal with little frustrations? Share an experience you’ve had in the comments.

(And if you know how to fix my Microsoft freezing issues, PLEASE leave a comment! Sharing is caring!) 😀

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