All executives periodically experience frustrations, pressures and setbacks. While it can be difficult to not react to these, they're a normal part of your role. The only real question is how you handle stress and how you respond when challenges arise. Some people get sidetracked more easily than others. You can learn to identify your feelings of frustration and tension and take proactive actions to shift into a more positive state. WHAT HOLDS YOU BACK? Ask yourself these questions: Focus on the issue that seems to be the cause of your irritation or impatience. Ask yourself, "Is this within my power to change?" Now ask yourself, "Do I want to put energy into changing it?" If you answer yes to both questions, then commit right now to changing it and make a plan for it to happen. If you answer no to either question, you have no other healthy choice but to let it go. If you can't control something or you don't have a commitment or a plan to change something you can control, the only healthy alternative is complete, total, unconditional acceptance of the issue as it currently exists. The moment of acceptance puts you in harmony with yourself. Acceptance acts as the springboard to help you see other actions you can take to address issues within your control. Take these actions to manage pressures and frustrations:

1. Separate things you can control from things you can't. Stress comes from confusing one for the other. Consciously and consistently making the distinction between the two frees up your valuable energy to focus on issues you can control. There are many things you can't control; for example, you can't control the emotions you feel in the moment, nor can you control other people's emotions. But you can control how you act on your emotions and how you react to others' emotions.  
2. Recognize and shift any intimidating or reactive tendencies. People will pick up on the nuances of your communication—the tone of your voice and the messages beneath the words. They'll manage around your emotions if your emotions have a big presence, which often creates distrust, dampens motivation and ultimately undermines your credibility.  
3. Let yourself feel your emotions. If you are feeling bottled up, stressed, with flat energy, you may be blocking the expression of emotions that need to be felt. Use your body to help you identify feelings by finding the area of your body that is holding the emotion. Then give the emotion your attention. Stay with it, exaggerate it, act it out until it either dissipates or leads you to a deeper truth. This will help you make a shift so that you are not at the mercy of your frustration or tension.  
4. Examine your choices. If you are repeatedly having your buttons pushed, ask yourself how you keep making choices that sustain this pattern. Assume you can take actions, either proactively or in response to other people or circumstances that would change your situation. What are those actions? There are always multiple ways to respond to every interaction or issue. Give yourself as many as you can, then choose the one that's consistent with what you want to have happen.  
5. Be accountable for your emotions. When you are feeling angry, sad or fearful, ask yourself how you can choose ease and confidence instead.  
6. Role model the behavior you want your team members to emulate. Your attitude and leadership style is a significant role model for success. If you're sharp and impatient, your direct reports will begin to behave that way with their teams. Be aware of how you manage your emotions and model how you'd like everyone in your organization to behave, especially when under stress.

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