GOODlife Magazine March 2017

growing? To say it a different way, running from frustration might ruin our chance to learn
in the frustration. That’s a truth not easy to embrace.
“Running from frustration might ruin our
chance to learn in the frustration.”
Here’s what I’ve experienced personally, and I’m guessing many of you have, as well. When
we are facing frustration, choosing to grow through it rather than go from it is typically our
best initial choice. I say initial because eventually most of us will move on from our current
workplaces, but if there is an opportunity for us to grow first, leaving absolutely will remove
it. What’s more, the opportunity may never resurface.
When I find myself frustrated at work, here are the decisions I try to consider:
1. Decide who’s responsible for the frustration.
If I’m the cause of my own frustration, then running doesn’t help in any way. Why? Because
everywhere I go, there I am. If we pause long enough in any frustration, we will typically find we
are part of the problem. Not necessarily all, but part. It might be our attitude. It might be our lack of
hunger to grow in our role. It might be our pride, or maybe our emotional intelligence. Whatever it is, we must own our slice
of the frustration pie.
That said, if we can conclude the frustration is outside of our locus of control, then we need to wrestle with some other
emotions and decisions.
2. Decide to stay…longer than you want.
When there is a situation that is causing frustration, I’ve learned (at times the hard way), that patience in the situation is always
the most prudent initial response. When we decide we are going to stay, no matter for how long, we must correspondingly
decide that our staying will need to outlast our natural inclination for going. Staying in anything difficult isn’t easy, hence our
propensity for going. But when we decide to stay for longer than we want, we position ourselves for deeper growth.
I believe the longer we stay, the more we can grow. Sure, there’s a point of diminishing returns, but often that is further away
than we want to believe.
3. Decide what needs to grow before you eventually go.
Odds are you will go eventually, but when that time comes, hopefully, you will be choosing to run to something, not
away from something. While you are sitting in the frustration, decide how and where you can grow in it — specifically.
Where specifically can you learn. What specifically needs to mature in you. Here’s a hint: Your frustration. What’s causing your
frustration is probably linked to the opportunity for your growth.
If we aren’t actively working to grow, then we might as well go. But if we can determine what areas of our life need to be
improved, our frustration is a great tool to be leveraged in the growth.
4. Decide to go when you can’t grow.
“What’s causing your frustration is probably
linked to the opportunity for your growth.”
Gavin Adams is the Lead
Pastor of Woodstock
City Church, a campus
location of North
Point Ministries, and a
student of leadership,
communication, church,
and faith.
There will be times when our need to go supersedes our need to grow. This happens most obviously when we recognize there
is no more room for growth in the current context. Not that we are fully grown in all areas of our life, but that in our current
workplace context, we have learned what we can learn in and through the frustration.
Think of this like a point of diminishing returns. When our growth work begins to return void, the returns on our efforts are
most likely diminishing.
Going is inevitable, but going before growing sabotages our improvement opportunities.
The easiest way to think about it is to never run from something, only to something. If we only run to things, we help ensure
our frustrations aren’t driving us away from opportunities to grow.
march 2017 15