How do you score on the FT (Frustration Tolerance) Index?

It’s been a trying time, for many of us. No flights; no information; not knowing (or think that we are knowing) how/when things are going to turn out as we wish … Hundreds of thousands of people have been subjected to the same or similar constraints; and yet we will all have reacted in varying ways.

Some of us may have felt angry at the unwanted interruption to their plans; others disappointed that they could not do what they had planned; some will have not spent too much time thinking or dwelling on their feelings about the situation, but will have opted for instant action in an attempt to get to their destination.

Our response in a given situation will depend on a number of factors – age, experience; understanding and learning, just to name but a few of the variables interplaying in any given situation.

However, one collective factor that may have played a significant part in how we determined our individual responses might be our unique levels of ‘frustration tolerance’ (FT). This is, essentially, the degree to which we can, or choose to, manage levels of frustration effectively, before resorting to ‘acting out’ our feelings. You may have heard many other terms to describe this notion of regulating our own behaviour – for example being ‘centred’; ‘grounded’; ‘congruent’; ‘patient’; ‘in control’… However the essence is the same – we all react in varying degrees to the frustration we all inevitably feel when we perceive that something is not going our way.

Some people may appear to go on the offensive – shouting the odds, demanding responses and action; at the other extreme some may appear to ‘give up’ and look to others to take responsibility for the situation. Both extremes are indicative of low levels of frustration tolerance (LFT) The reactions of most of us will probably fall somewhere between the two extremes depending on our instinctual responses, as tempered by our social learning experiences to date. For example someone who has found themselves in this, or a similar situation previously, will have accrued some ideas of how to deal with it most effectively.

Almost all of us can learn how to deal with any given situation, if we are aware of our realistic choices; individual strengths and collective abilities when part of a crowd.

However, it is nearly always the positive thoughts, feelings and ensuing actions we take that help us to make progress in problematic situations. It is the constructive thought processes and re-evaluation of instinctual negative emotions that allows us to develop high levels of frustration toleration (HFT) and so solve our problems most effectively.