How do you deal with disappointment? When you try and do something and it fails? When you don’t get that raise you were expecting? When you don’t get a new position? When you aren’t picked for the team?
There are so many things that happen in our lives, from childhood to adulthood, that cause disappointment. It is a thread that weaves throughout life. Most people don’t take disappointment well. In today’s society, where parents are often giving in to their children’s demands, where “no child is left behind” and therefore “everyone is a winner”; there is a group being brought up with a false sense of reality.
As we move from childhood to adulthood and face the world on our own, this group will be faced with a truth (not everyone wins) that doesn’t match what they were brought up learning (everyone is a winner.) Encouraging your child to do well, helping them to grow up learning that losing is as great a teacher as winning. (Winning with humility is an important trait to learn.) What we are teaching our children, and may have learned ourselves, is how not to deal with disappointment in a healthy way.
How do we deal with our disappointment? Get angry? Take it out on others? Use it as a tool for growth? A great thing to do is to take a look at why you are reacting and feeling the way you are. You didn’t get a raise? Did you even ask for it? Did you prepare for the possibility of either outcome; getting it or not getting it? Did you just assume it would be given to you? Were you the best person for it? Was the person who received it more qualified?
What can you learn from the outcome? Sometimes (most times?) we let emotion color our viewpoint. It is difficult to handle disappointment. It can be painful. It can make us angry. It can make us depressed. Emotions are a healthy thing to experience. Although, what we do with those emotions and how they manifest, can be a more important factor.
How do we turn our loss into a win? How do we let go of the anger that someone who wasn’t as good as we feel we are, got the job and we are still in the same position? How do we move from one emotional place to another? If you really feel that you should have had the position, maybe it is time to start looking elsewhere; where your skills will be more valued. Remember that hindsight is always 50/50. Sometimes things happen for what we feel is no reason at all or an unjust reason, only to discover down the line, why it happened. (Something better came along, another opportunity opened up, we met someone who became invaluable in our lives.) We are forced to work harder, to expand our knowledge base, which in effect helps us to be better at what we do.
Trying to find the silver lining isn’t something that comes naturally to a lot of us. Most of the times, we aren’t taught to look for it and we should be. Some of us are ‘happy go lucky’ by nature and feel things will turn out for the best. The majority of us aren’t. Part of this is not knowing how to take our disappointments and focus it in a productive manner to benefit ourselves. Not knowing how to take a loss and make it into a win. Failure isn’t fun. We don’t like it when we fail. We are often very hard on ourselves, even more so if someone in our lives has been hard on us when we failed.
Try stepping back from the situation. Take a breath. Then work through why you are reacting the way you are. Talk to someone you trust to give you an honest opinion of the situation and not simply agree with you. Someone who can help you see both sides of the situation if needed. Perhaps you are justified in your feelings and maybe you aren’t. Once you figure this out decide how you want to handle your reaction; if you want to use it to move you forward or if you are going to let it be a deterrent that stops you from moving forward. You are in control of your choices, your decisions, your path. You control the change that happens in your life. You may allow others to influence that behavior, but ultimately the choice is yours. What you do with that is completely up to you.
There are a lot of great mentors out there to learn from. They can help us be able to handle disappointments and turn it around. These are the people who can constantly encourage you; you can do it.
Just remember, it doesn’t matter your race, religion, age, sex, etc. Never stop reaching for the stars. Never stop working toward a better future. When you make it to your success, turn around and help the next person climb the ladder. Learn how to deal with disappointment in a healthy manner and turn it into a positive learning experience. Then pass along those lessons.