Frustration is inevitable, especially during a challenging or ambitious project. You will get angry, annoyed, and irritated at some point – and while a lot of advice might tell you to just push through or ignore it, that frustration can actually be used to your advantage.
This Weekend Workshop draws from the fields of psychology, affective science, and artistic improvisation to explore frustration as information rather than a setback. You’ll learn to recognise the signals that build up before you feel stuck, understand why different people respond to pressure in different ways, and use improvisation techniques to move from being reactive to creative instead.
Across the weekend, you’ll work with hands-on exercises designed to create just enough friction to notice your patterns without overwhelming you. You’ll pay attention to what happens in your mind, your body, and your interactions with others, and experiment with re-evaluating and adjusting in ways that make a surprisingly big difference. Together, we explore how pausing, reframing, and responding collectively can turn blockages into new pathways, ideas, or simply a clearer next step.
The goal isn’t to “toughen up.” It’s to build a kind of agility and resilience that’s flexible – the ability to stay grounded in uncertainty, move with it rather than against it, and keep going in a way that’s sustainable, honest, and actually helpful in real life.
What You’ll learn:
- How to notice the early triggers of frustration, in yourself and others, and use them as helpful information rather than a setback.
- How to pause and reset when things get frustrating, so you can think more clearly and respond with intention rather than reacting.
- How to work with friction in groups and turn tension or conflict into something constructive.
- How to use mistakes, blocks, and unexpected turns as starting points for new ideas and creative solutions.
- How to stay agile in uncertain situations by shifting from reactive to exploratory ways of thinking.
About the instructors
Dr. Hannaneh Yazdi is a researcher and educator with a background spanning psychology, affective science, and industry. She holds a PhD from the Department of Clinical Neuroscience at Karolinska Institutet, where her work explored frustration mechanisms, how people differ in their responses, and how individual differences affect our frustration experience. Hannaneh’s teaching bridges scientific insight with practical tools for navigating complexity and uncertainty, with the goal of helping individuals and teams understand and work more inclusively and productively with their emotional responses.
Klas Nevrin is a lecturer in improvisation at the Royal College of Music, as well as a professional musician, composer, and artistic researcher. His work focuses on collective creation, embodied awareness, and improvisation as a way of navigating uncertainty. Through projects such as AMIS (Artistic Co-creation Methods for Innovation and Sustainability), Klas explores how artistic methods can help groups listen, adapt, and generate new possibilities together.
This workshop connects to our course Entrepreneurial Mindset and pairs well with Artistic Entrepreneurship.
For a research perspective on emotions, motivation and setbacks, read Do Entrepreneurs Burn Out Too?
ELIGIBILITY & SELECTION
All students and alumni of SSES member universities are eligible to apply to this weekend workshop. We get many applications and unfortunately cannot accept everyone. The selection process is outlined below.
For this specific workshop, you as an attendee will be requested to present yourself and what motivates you to learn about frugal innovation by uploading a short personal video. We also ask that you share in what area you would like to identify opportunities for frugal innovation and why.
SELECTION PROCESS
- Application is reviewed
- Selection is made and a confirmation email is sent out
- Participants must confirm their seat in order to secure the spot
- If spots are not confirmed in time, the waitlist will be reviewed and new participants selected
