Bailey’s Hi-5 – Wednesday Wisdom: 5 Ways to Deal with Disappointment

Sorry to bum you out, but there’s no magic trick, meditation app or fancy new diet that will eliminate disappointment. And while most of us will accept it as one of those universal facts of life, not everyone deals with it the same way. Some people can work through disappointment and move on quickly, while others struggle to get past it.

Here are 5 expert-recommended coping techniques as well as ways you can stay positive through it all

1. Feel all the feels. The worst thing you can do is try to shut down your feelings. It’s really uncomfortable to sit with awful emotions such as disappointment, but simply acknowledging that you are sad and disappointed –without judging yourself for having these feelings, will help you shift faster than if you suppress them.
2. Don’t take it personally. When things don’t go as expected, we have a tendency to blame ourselves. And while it’s normal to replay negative thoughts in your mind, telling yourself that you aren’t smart enough or deserving of success isn’t going to do any good. Back to point 1 – Feel it, allow yourself to wallow in them, but don’t allow those toxic thought patterns to become the norm. Feelings aren’t facts.  So allow yourself the time to feel and then tell yourself: ‘I am deserving, and with some perseverance I will find the solution,’ or ‘My efforts will lead to success.’ Shifting our mind-set will help us build resilience and drive us toward positive action.
3. Figure out the lesson: While you might not see disappointment as a good thing, you can get some good out of it. Try to look at the experience from a fresh perspective and treat it as a possible life lesson. For example, you may discover that that dream job was not so dreamy after all. You might discover that your love interest simply had different expectations and maybe you dodged that proverbial bullet.
4. Manage Expectations: Is it possible that you were disappointed because you had unrealistically high expectations? Setting expectations helps guide and motivate us to achieve our goals, but we must also understand that some expectations may not always reflect reality. It is why we need to be realistic and flexible. But that doesn’t mean you should set your expectations too low either. You also don’t want to fall into the trap of saying: “I don’t want to get too excited. Here’s the reality: You cannot control your feelings, so allow yourself to get excited, but remind yourself that you can handle it if something hard happens.
5. Count your blessings: Of course, it always seems easier to focus on the things that are going wrong, instead of all the stuff that went right. So if you’ve been hit with some disappointing news, try to think about the parts of your life that you’re grateful for, those that make you happy. You can keep a running gratitude list to help you redirect your thoughts when things don’t go the way you had hoped they would.