You need to go beyond setbacks to become adversity as an opportunity.

"I have been completely embarrassed in my life."

- Ms. Luo, 35, said.

It seems that they are one in the sky and one in the sky. Mr. Hua is a well-known book seller in Shanghai. He now publishes 200 to 300 books a year and has an annual income of several million yuan. Ms. Luo now owes nearly a million yuan in debt. Several creditors have been looking for her, and she is afraid to go out in a lover's house.

However, they have had similar experiences.

Ten years ago, Mr. Hua was one of the youngest associate professors at a prestigious university in Shanghai. He was recognized as an academic genius in the college, but he resolutely went to sea and borrowed 20 million yuan to do "big business." The business lost, he owed nearly 5 million yuan in debt. This sap woke him up, he no longer dreams of "big business", and turned to make a book that suits his small business. After six years of struggle, four years ago, he finally paid off 5 million yuan in debt and interest.

Five years ago, Ms. Luo was a small business owner in Guangzhou. She owned a luxury home, a famous car and a small processing factory. However, she believed in a business and lost more than 2 million yuan in a business. After realizing the luxury homes, cars and processing plants, she still has nearly 1 million yuan in debt. In desperation, she began to live in Tibet to Tibet, until today.

Losing 5 million yuan stood up, but lost 2 million yuan but went down. A loss of 5 million yuan that "I have not encountered any setbacks in my life", a loss of 2 million yuan said "I have completely crossed this life." what is this?

In this regard, Professor Xu Jinsheng, a well-known domestic psychologist, said: "This is because they have different setbacks. Mr. Hua, who has frustrated business, has surpassed the setbacks, and Ms. Liu, who has a low setback, has been swallowed up by setbacks."

Beyond setbacks: turning adversity into opportunity

The English abbreviation for frustration is AQ, which is the concept proposed by American professional training master Paul Stotts.

Before, people were already familiar with the two concepts of IQ and Emotional Intelligence. They became an important tool to measure people's quality. In 1997, Stotts first proposed a setback in the book "Frustration: Turning Frustration into Opportunity". In short, frustration is the ability of one to resolve and transcend frustration. In 2000, Stotts published the book "Frustration in Work". Since then, AQ has become an important concept in workplace training.

“So far, AQ is mainly a concept in workplace training.” Xu Jinsheng said, “However, AQ is not just a measure of a person’s ability to go beyond work frustration. It is also a measure of a person’s ability to surpass any setback. The same blow, AQ high people produce The frustration is low, even zero, and people with low AQ will have a strong sense of frustration, and even a small thing will cause the sky to fall."

The study also confirmed this. Sales data from US SBC Telecom shows that high AQ employees are 141% higher than low AQ employees. Other studies have also found that high AQ employees have significantly better productivity, creativity and communication skills than low AQ employees. Moreover, patients with high AQ recovered much faster after surgery than patients with low AQ.

"The difference between high AQ and low AQ is firstly, the first reaction in the face of setbacks. Low AQ people are prone to the feeling that 'the sky is falling down' when they encounter setbacks, but high AQ people will encounter challenges. "Excited." Xu Jinsheng said, "Secondly, the psychological mechanism of these two kinds of people is also the opposite. Low AQ is a coping mechanism, he will use various negative psychological defense mechanisms to escape setbacks. High AQ is a response mechanism, frustration It will inspire him to mobilize his own resources and energy, and finally resolve and surpass setbacks."

According to Stotts's theory, one can examine a person's AQ from four aspects: control, attribution, extension, and patience. Thus, Stotts called the AQ score CORE.

A measure of AQ: control

The so-called control, that is, how much you can control the situation. Stotts believes that our ability to control comes from our sense of control "I feel that I am in control of the situation." The high AQ has a high sense of control, and the low AQ has a low sense of control.

Even in the face of major setbacks, people with high sense of control still believe that they can control the situation. When others think that "the general trend has gone", people with high sense of control can always see positive and self-contained places through various negative factors, and never give up. However, when people with low sense of control have a lot of resources, it is easy to feel that "the trend has gone."

A professor at Peking University, when the students and him are beating, he will raise his head and do nothing, and pass the "great". After knowing his habit, most of the students no longer took the initiative to fight with the teacher.

However, a female student does not do this. At the beginning, after she was recruited, the professor would raise his head and pass it "highly". But the female student did not give up, she was short, she would turn around, trotting a few steps, blocking in front of the professor, shouting "X teacher, hello!" As soon as I see the female student, the professor will take the initiative to call "××, hello!"

This is a contest of control. The average student believes that the professor is in control of the situation. Therefore, when the professor ignored himself, this small frustration knocked down the vast majority of students. But this female student is different. She believes that she can control the situation like a professor. She believes that there must be a special reason behind the behavior of teaching "eccentric". For the time being, she didn't know what the reason was, but she was convinced that no one was really born to be so weird and unreasonable. As long as she persisted, she could control the situation, and the facts proved this.

The teacher ignored himself, which was a small setback. But the loss of 5 million yuan, for those who do not have any family, it is a major setback. However, the former Mr. Hua, who was mentioned in the sea, did not regard such a thing as a “frustration”. The reason was because of his deep sense of control. At the age of 35, he was convinced that he could The melody of life is firmly in his own hands, so the loss of 5 million yuan did not make him panic.

Stotts believes that this sense of control is mainly from the subconscious, and the relationship with his personal experience is not particularly large. For example, before Mr. Hua lost 5 million yuan, he did not have the experience in the mall. He only believed in his own heart and believed that he could control the situation. And Ms. Luo, although much more experience than Mr. Hua, has not helped her to generate enough control.

Indicator 2 for measuring AQ: Attribution

Frustration has occurred, and we have to analyze the causes of setbacks. This is attribution.

People with low AQ tend to be negatively attributed. Either they are external attribution, attribute the frustration to external factors such as others, the environment, and think that they have no responsibility; or they are negative self-attribution and believe that they should be responsible for setbacks, but at the same time they believe that the situation cannot be reversed. It is easy to feel hurt and helpless.

On the contrary, people with high AQ will take the initiative to take responsibility first, and in any case tend to think that they should be responsible for setbacks. At the same time, they will be positively motivated, that is, they believe that they can improve the situation.

Stotts concluded that people with high AQ will have such a positive sense of responsibility: I think I should be responsible for improving this situation.

Frustration events must have external and internal causes, but external attribution often does not help, because what we can best control is ourselves. The one we can change most is ourselves. Although self-attributing people may put too much pressure on themselves, this pressure will help him find his weaknesses and then improve. The external attribution person will say "this is not my fault" after the setback, and then give up the self-improvement efforts.

Amei, 27, feels that she can't hold on. Three years ago, she decided to become a good sales manager. But from then until today, no company has hired her as a sales manager for more than a year. Most of the time, she was dismissed by the company just after the trial period. Now, she almost completely lost confidence in herself.

The reason why Amei is caught in the current situation is closely related to her attribution. The first time she was dismissed by the company, it caused a major psychological blow to her. Although I know deep inside that I am still lacking as a sales manager, she dare not do this self-attribution. Her solution is to escape. Since she was fired by this company, she went to another company to apply for a sales manager. After being dismissed by another company, she went to the third company to apply for a sales manager. She has never given up her "sales manager dream", but she has never seriously taken a self-attribution to these repeated setbacks.

Every setback is an opportunity because it exposes its shortcomings and weaknesses. People who perform self-attribution will improve themselves. In this way, setbacks have become a kind of wealth in life.

For example, after losing 5 million yuan, Mr. Hua understands that he is not suitable for "big business." As an associate professor of the sea, he understands that his strengths are still cultural. Therefore, he gave up the "big business dream" and changed the book to "small business." After such self-attribution, the huge setbacks became a turning point in his life, which ultimately led to his current success.

However, there is no such opportunity for people who perform external attribution. For them, every setback is just a setback. The more frustrations happen, the more frustration they have in their hearts. Like Amei, if she immediately self-attributes after she is dismissed for the first time, or perfect herself to continue to be a "sales manager's dream", or give up this dream and change to work that is more suitable for her, it will not be repeated one after another. Suffered from the blow.

Indicator 3 for measuring AQ: extension

Extend, that is, will you automatically extend the consequences of a setback to other aspects. People with high AQ are rarely generalized, and they control the consequences of setbacks to a specific extent. They know that a setback is just a setback.

On the contrary, people with low AQ encounter a setback event, and it is easy to have the feeling that “the sky is falling down” and feel that everything is terrible. In this way, the frustration incident spreads like plague to all aspects of his life and work, letting him deny everything because of a setback.

Many people will take home frustrations home. In the company, they are angry with colleagues or leaders. After returning home, they vent their anger in their hearts to their partners or children. As a result, they have made a mess at home, and the frustration at work has also "extended". at home. In the end, they don't think about why they are like this, but they sigh and sigh, how can everything be a mess.

Those who have extended habits will also completely deny themselves because of setbacks on the one hand. As mentioned above, Amei, every time she is dismissed, she will have a great sense of failure. She will feel that she is facing her father and she will also lack confidence in the face of the opposite sex. But in fact, she is a beautiful and attractive girl who likes her a lot of opposite sex. But because of the unsatisfactory work, she completely denied herself. This is an extreme "extension."

On the contrary, like Mr. Hua, the loss of 5 million yuan has hardly had any significant impact on his life. He still laughs as always, and still enjoys life as always, still convinced that he is a charming man, a responsible husband, and a good friend. In other words, he strictly controlled the negative impact of the loss of 5 million yuan in the field of work, and did not let it extend into life.

Zhang Haidi's words are typical of low extension. "People are like a machine. People with disabilities are just like some parts are damaged. They can't destroy the whole machine. The parts that can be used are still valuable."

The habit of extension is very common among middle school students. Many middle school students doubt their ability to learn because of one or two exam failures. This is because they have extended the frustration of one or two exam failures.

Stotts believes that this generalization habit is the fundamental source of low AQ. People with low AQ, not only can not surpass setbacks, but also make the setbacks like the plague, extend to other aspects of life, and finally make a collapse. And those with high AQ, not only can they surpass setbacks, but also strictly control the frustration on specific setbacks, so as not to have any influence on their other aspects.

Measuring AQ's indicator four: endurance

Endurance means "How long will the adversity last? How long will the cause of adversity last?" Stotts believes that high endurance is the most obvious feature of high AQ people. They will "see the cause of adversity and adversity as temporary... ...this attitude will make your energy stronger, more optimistic and maintain the possibility of taking action."

Stotts believes that endurance is the most important measure of AQ. His formula for evaluating AQ is: CORE=C+O+R+2E. This undoubtedly shows his emphasis on patience.

However, the endurance that Stotts said is not blindly enduring. Some people will endure as their own philosophy of life, just because they fear to offend others. This endurance is not what Stotts advocates. The endurance that Stotts refers to is the patience of wisdom, and it is a kind of patience based on insight. High AQ people have higher endurance, just because even if they face further difficulties, high AQ people can always see positive factors. They are convinced that they can tide over the difficulties and control the situation. The current patience is only dawn. The darkness before. Their endurance is based on hope and optimism.

Edison has experienced thousands of failures in inventing batteries, and his amazing endurance is closely related to his understanding of the battery.

On the contrary, people with low AQ will see negative places even when they are very favorable, and they will have excessive fears. Finally, they will have the idea of ​​“how to use them,” and it is easy to give up.