Building a career in sales is a recipe for frustration. Combine high ambition, half your compensation being tied up in many things outside of your control,.
Sales is also stressful, but frustration is different than stress.
Most importantly, all jobs come with a level of frustration - just being human can get you there. So by exploring how we feel when we’re frustrated, we can cultivate empathy for our prospects and clients who come to us with frustration about their situations. Because no matter your role, you will experience frustration in the workplace. .
Frustration is just a feeling, and feelings are indicators we can embrace. There are no negative feelings.
You have to feel the emotion and complete the cycle. If you try to shut it down, or rush through it, you’re just ensuring it pops back up. Your body stores these emotions until you’re safe and capable of experiencing them again.
And it’s not just the lack of completion, frustration seeps out in your nonverbal communications. According to studies, up to XX% of communication is nonverbal - your posture, your face, your movements, your gestures. Even if you’re able to reset yourself and control your verbal communication during client calls, that unresolved emotion will be present.
Frustration is also a difficult emotion to convert into “fuel” for action. Anger, or even sadness, on the other hand can cause a spark or catalyst for action, while frustration just leaves you throwing your hands up and feeling like it’s all pointless. Not exactly the type of emotion that conducive to an action-based profession like sales.
I recently read a book which had a very practical explanation for how to work through frustration, one that I put into successful practice immediately.
When you feel frustration, chances are it’s misalignment in one of three areas:
1 - is it your goal?
2 - is it the amount, and kind, of effort?
3 - is it your expectations?
I wrote extensively about goal setting in my book IGST. Setting the right type of goal is SO important, because it will subconsciously dictate the actions we take. Have the incorrect destination plugged into your GPS and who knows where you’ll end up in your confusion. Frustration LOVES lack of control, it follows it like an old friend. Is your goal entirely within your control?
Effort can also unintentionally throw flames on the fire. Many of us, when feeling internal or external resistance or friction have learned to just “push harder” - push through the feeling, discomfort, clown objection, whatever feels like resistance to momentum.
But that just makes things worse over time. In the moment, you might be able to push through, and you might need to. But over time, this unresolved stress compounds - in the body, the mind, the spirit - until it seeps out of you and eventually can disable you altogether.
I like to focus my energy in self-development of my craft on skills which are portable. That is, skills that translate to my personal life, other career field potentials, and hobbies. The ability to reframe frustration and “complete the cycle” to prevent it from building up could help you not only exceed in work, but might save your marriage or help you run that marathon. Focusing on your demo won’t have the same effect.
So, next time you’re feeling frustration, first just feel it for about 90 seconds. Then, ask yourself if it’s your goal, effort, or expectations which are at the root. Your future self will thank you.