Dealing with Disappointment, Letdown and ... - Personal Growth

Tips for Coping and Dealing with Disappointment

Disappointment is a negative emotion. It makes you lose hope and feel defeated and discouraged. You may also feel like a failure. Disappointment happens when you have high hopes and expectations on yourself, someone or something and it did not materialize. If you allow yourself to continue feeling disillusioned and disheartened you will give up, quit and won't try again.

This is one of the reasons why people refuse to set goals. They fear that they will fail. They may have failed once and it was such a letdown that they try to avoid feeling disappointed again.

Some people think that to avoid disappointment, they shouldn't have high hopes. What they don't understand is that if they expect little, they'll receive little. On top of that, they don't understand that hope alone is not enough. They must expect and believe that they can do what they set out to do. Then they must take massive, constructive and consistent actions.

Does that mean that they won't fail? It's a matter of perspective. If the outcome turns out differently, some people don't consider it as a failure but a feedback. They feel that they can use the experience to learn, make correction, move on and try another strategy.

People who think positive and are optimistic still do get frustrated or stymied every now and then when there are challenges, setbacks and obstacles. But they get up fast, think through, find solutions and take the next step.

To reduce the impact of defeat or setback, you must develop your mental strength. There is so much negativity and pessimism around that if you don't have the right state of mind you will be pulled by the force.

And make use of your mind to your advantage to avoid repeated disappointments and failures. Your mind is producing mental images and thoughts all the time. You visualize things during your waking hours but it's on automatic or out of your conscious awareness. Take deliberate action to relax your body and mind and create mental pictures of what you want to experience, do, feel and have. If you consistently do this, your mind will accept the mental images as true and you will gradually experience what you have been visualizing.

Dealing with Disappointment No. 1 - Accept It

Accept your setback or defeat as a stepping stone and another one of the steps on the path to success. Consider it as one of the experiences and events in your life that you have to face in moving towards a desired goal.

Dealing with Disappointment No. 2 - Reflect and Analyze

Analyze your situation and look for different ways of doing things. You may have to make changes to your personality, attitude or your habitual ways of solving problems. Change your direction, approach, habits and patterns of thoughts to enable you to produce different results. If you keep on thinking and doing the same things you will get the same outcome.

Dealing with Disappointment No. 3 - Review Your Goal

You may have set an unrealistic goal that was out of your reach. Examine it again and start planning a new and reasonable one. Do bear in mind that nothing is impossible if you can think of it or someone else has done it.

An example of being unrealistic is if you set out to become a millionaire in the next 12 months when you are now being employed and working 40 hours a week and earning forty thousand a year and you spend your spare time watching television.

Dealing with Disappointment No. 4 - Develop Right Thinking

Refuse to allow the setback to distort your evaluation and stop you from trying again. You may have missed out this time. But do not allow it to let you down and give up on yourself.

Right thinking will allow you to combat the feeling of disappointment and negativity surrounding you. With right thinking and taking proactive action, you will heal the pain of defeat and bad experiences. Keep on going and totally engage your body, your mind and with others and trust yourself that you will get there.

Dealing with Disappointment No. 5 - Cultivate Positive Expectancy

Cultivate an attitude of positive expectancy and put your hopes high on the future. Believe in yourself and keep visualizing and affirming a positive outcome. Don't use your past to cloud your mind. Consider previous mistakes as an experiment. Go out and set out your sail again with confidence.

Dealing with Disappointment No. 6 - Gather More Knowledge and Skills

Your lack of success may have been caused due to lack of knowledge, experience and skills. Increase your chances of getting better results through reading and learning from others who have succeeded. It may take hundreds or thousands of hours, efforts, preparation, study and practice to get it right. With persistence you will gain enough skills, increases your knowledge and obtain the result that you desire.

Dealing with Disappointment No. 7 - Mix with the Right People

If you are feeling dejected, go out and meet positive, optimistic and happy people. They have good vibes and energy and positive influence. Avoid those who are dissatisfied and embittered with life and people. They are going to disappoint you further with their sob stories. You don't need that or them.

Don't Quit

Don't quit when the tide is lowest
For it's just about to turn
Don't Quit over doubts and questions
For there's something you may learn
Don't quit when the night is darkest
For it's just a while 'til dawn
Don't quit when you've run the farthest
For the race is almost won
Don't quit when the hill is steepest
For your goal is almost nigh
Don't quit, for you're not a failure
Until you fail to try.

- Author unknown -

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