By definition, disappointing situations bring sadness or displeasure caused by the non-fulfillment of one's hopes or expectations.
It's imperative to outgrow those situations.
The expectation is probably the keyword here. Some might say expect nothing. Too nihilist point of view: is not the perspective taken here.
Are you going to lower yours, to avoid disappointment? Is not a good idea: it would be settling for less. Do you really think you deserve to just settle for less than what you want, dream, or aim for?
Are you going to eliminate expectations, to eradicate the possibility of having disappointments? You’re braver than that.
Maybe the ideal would be to outgrow the feeling of disappointment and come out of it, not colder nor numbed, but stronger, wiser and with more emotional intelligence.
How to do that? These 3 clues are here to point in the direction of outgrowing disappointment. Faster.
#Clue 1 - Accept the feeling of dispappointment
Something failed your expectations: you get disappointed.
Allow yourself to feel disappointed.
Just accept things for what they are at the present moment.
Do you feel sad? Don’t pretend you aren’t.
Say it to yourself: I’m feeling disappointed because… And identify the reason.
Accepting is the first thing to do.
Only by acknowledging it is when you will be able and in emotional condition to move forward from that state.
If you numb it or bottle it down: it will still be there anyway and the frustrations will come out as rage, when something triggers it.
So accept it, sit with the feeling, have some "tea for two", talk to it and say it matters, feel it in your body: take a deep breath and let that go out through your feet.
Grounding (being on bare feet) helps, journaling is precious.
Then you will be in a position to analyze what went wrong and think about what you can do to have a different outcome, more aligned with the expectation.
#Clue 2: Eliminating expectation is not an option
Eliminating expectations is not an option.
How else are you going to transform a dream into reality? You have to conceive it and expect it to become into reality.
Here on “Body&Soul”, we are firm believers in Silva’s Method 5 steps to achieve a goal:
Step 1 – Desire: you have to desire “the thing”
Step 2 - Belief: you have to believe it can happen.
Step 3 – Expectancy: ·you have to expect it to happen.
Step 4 – Positive; you have to formulate it in a positive way ( for exemple, you don’t wish for someone to be fired in order to have some position: you formulate that you have the desire to be promoted to ****, that you wish)
Step 5 – Visualize the Accomplished Goal: imagine, and teach your body how to feel, as if you‘ve already achieved your outcome. Is a way of making sure that your energy vibration matches your thoughts and intentions. Without doubts or fear: the pure feeling of joy as you “see”.
# Quiting is only an option if the goal, for some reason, doesn’t interest you any more.
But in this case, you have “homework to do”. Because if you have spent vital energy on a goal that doesn't interest you anymore: it can just be that you just wasted time. You have to learn something from it.
You should probably ask yourself:
- “Why was this goal made a goal: was it my wish or other people’s wish that I accepted as mine, without considering my inner aims?”
- “Was this goal compatible with my core values or did I have to sacrífice the self?”
In this case, you must learn something about yourself, about what you truly like or not, and about your boundaries, which probably were not well defined.
The only way we should pause a little in the past is to learn whatever lesson it brought with the challenging moment, that brought disappointment.
Your major interest is to avoid putting so much energy into something, just to find out to be a disappointment and also, to get to a conclusion that is not that important for you, after all.
# Disappointment is part of life
It’s part of life. You can get disappointed at people, disappointed at situations, disappointed at yourself.
The context where you have more power: is over yourself.
You’re going to quit on everyone, on all situations, yourself? Living?
Nop.
We’re bulls here: we pull to rise.
We’re gonna fail. And fail once more. And fail again: until we get it right.
“You will lose, you will embarrass yourself, your will suffer at something” but you have to fall forward, as Denzel Washington would say in his famous speech.
This is a powerful way to see it from another perspective.
# Clue 3: Outgrow disapointment and see it from another perspective
Things are what they are.
But your perspective of it doesn't have to be tight: you can change it. It only depends on what point of view you are seeing things.
Take a step back, take the hawk’s point of view and see the bigger picture.
- Is the goal still important? It doesn’t matter if it’s realistic or not (if we were sticking to “realistic” there would be no planes, no travels to the moon, no boats, no light bulbs… the list goes on).
The question is: do you still want it? You have to know if the goal is still important to you. Make sure that you spend your life energy on something that really matters to you.
- Do you need to readjust the goal? Maybe break it into smaller goals, find the right partners to help you achieve them, readjust timing frames, acquire specific skills to achieve them: what do you need to adjust there?
- Do you need to change your attitude or value that is important to achieve your goal and doesn’t conflict with your core values?
- Don’t take it personally: if a person is a reason for your feelings of disappointment, don’t take it personally.
People sometimes don’t do better because they don’t know better. But you must make sure that you share the same goal(s).
How else someone is going to work on n something if the “something” is not the same for both?
Honest conversation and real communication are fundamental – saying what you mean and actively listening to what is being said, to make sure both parties are aligned. Or not.
- Is it the strategy that needs to be readjusted? If you want to go from Rome to Hawaii you have to take a plane or a boat: a car won’t take you there.
Re-evaluate if the strategy you are using is compatible with the goal you are intending to achieve and that you are partnering with people that will actually help you achieve your goals.
Keep in mind that the best partnerships are the win-win ones, where both gain: that’s how you’ll be both effectively committed to a certain result.
… Summing up
The thing with disappointments is that we associate them with error, failure, mistakes, and damage.
But is much more than that.
If we face it as a life experience that builds up more resilience in us, that helped us have well-defined boundaries but also made us better human beings: we transform hardship into something powerful.
It wasn’t just pain, we didn’t just endure it: we transmuted it into something valuable.
The important is not to let ourselves be stuck at that moment.
When we get stuck, is some sort of self-sabotage, we become our own blockage: we have to get of our own way and stop being our own obstacle.
The leverage of pos-disappointment happens when we outgrow it. And we do it by learning from the fall we took, rising up, and focusing energy on what we do now that will build what is going to be ahead.
With faith and the confidence that no matter what: we can handle it.
Getting Better Every Day
Inspiring Hugs
From Body&Soul!
Hey! I'm Eunice Veloso and you'll find more about me on my About Page
"In nature, nothing is lost, nothing is created, everything is transformed"
Antoine Lavoisier, 1789
The Law of the Conservation of Mass
