The Frustration Bank 🏦 💳

How to manage your workplace angst.

Let’s face it: sometime work can be frustrating AF. Not just work, but LIFE. For really valid reasons.

I thought I’d share something that really helps me when navigating situations with people or relationships I find difficult, and that is this: the idea that each of us has a certain frustration tolerance, and that we are in control of how we manage that.

Think of it as having a certain number of frustration tolerance “credits” that you can spend as you choose on various activities. But once your balance of credits has been spent - you’re heading for meltdown territory. Your goal is to evaluate how to get the most value out of the choices presented to you without going through all of your credits.

Let’s say you’re planning your weekend. Your kid has been invited to a friend’s birthday party. Your sister wants you to attend your niece’s graduation party. You’ve worked a full work week and you’re already tired - and you don’t have the capacity for both. It’s mathematically not possible for you to cram these both into your weekend without losing your freaking sh*t.

To bring this back to the workplace, you could easily replace these examples with things like “Doing another design change for free” and “answering a work Slack on the weekend.”

If you ignore the frustration cost of your choices - you head to meltdown territory. And you end up doing yourself and your relationships more harm than good. Think: getting into a cringey public text fight with your colleague over Slack.

The reason I love this framework so much is that it sidesteps the notion of “setting boundaries” or “pushing back” and shifts the conversation to one of capacity. It makes “saying no” about math - not about disappointing others. This in turn feels neutral and not as scary. There’s no reason to push yourself too far once you realize it actually works against the relationships you’re trying to nurture.

It also makes it easier to forgive yourself when you do accidentally exceed your capacity. Sometimes a high-credit item catches you by surprise. (Like when the vendor called to tell you the shipment’s going to be delayed by 3 weeks).

By the way, shifting the conversation to “capacity available” is also a great way to gain control of a work situation where changes are spiraling out of control. I’ll cover that in a different newsletter.

I hope this idea helped you today, and please feel free to reply and let me know your thoughts! (If you’re viewing this via email, you can also just reply to the email, I’ll still get it.)

XOXO,
Cathy