Over the past years, there have been occasions that left you disappointed. These include getting rejected in a job interview, failing a test, losing the lottery, deferring your graduation severally, canceling your wedding, and much more. Disappointment hits you because you are a smart creature that prides itself on being reasonable.
Therefore, you get crushed when you face disappointment, although sometime you may comfort yourself by saying that it’s, after all, not too bad. Why does a letdown hurt that much? How can you get over disappointment? The article will highlight 10 proven ways to beat the blues.
Why You Get Disappointed
Disappointment is inevitable. It really hurt pretty bad even when you convince yourself that you don’t care or the outcome was expected. Humans express sadness when they get disappointed. They feel powerless and may want to do nothing. That is why humans try to avoid disappointment and twist their thinking not to recognize it.
Usually, disappointment comes with finality, and as a result, it forces you to admit that you didn’t get whatever you wished to have. It may cause you to turn to anger instead of accepting the reality of what disappointed you.
Generally, disappointment hurts a person both mentally and physically. It makes you feel tired, numb, and heavy. The brain doesn’t respond the same way when you get psychological wounds as when you get a physical injury. It releases endorphins instantaneously to relieve your pain when you hurt your arm or leg but not when you get disappointed. So it might deal with your pain in a completely different way or even not deal with it at all.
10 Ways to Handle Disappointment
Disappointment can be really painful. People fear the pain it brings to the extent of changing their behavior in order not to experience it at all. However, over time, disappointment may stop being a problem in your life with practice. The following tips and tricks can help you get over the disappointment and wear a smile when it happens.
1. Acknowledge the Letdown
It’s best to allow yourself to feel disappointed or acknowledge that you just got let down. Hiding the reality of the situation will make things worse than it would be if you accepted them. Denying disappointment keeps you stuck in one place and unable to work on getting a solution to the problem that caused you to defer your graduation, fail your test or interview, and cancel your wedding.
Awareness is the first step toward getting over a letdown. Missing all the opportunities mentioned above really hurts; however, giving yourself time to mourn them can help you get it over quickly.
2. Don’t Hold On to Disappointment
People who write down their experiences are able to recover much faster than those who conceal and hold onto them much longer. They also enjoy better physical and mental health in the following months. Talented employees that get disappointed and get over missed promotion, failed interviews, or unemployment tends to get better employment opportunities in the subsequent months. Offloading the burden of disappointment lessens the feelings of hopelessness or pain after the event.
3. Don’t Dwell on the Situation
Things would be much better had you won the interview, got promoted, graduated, been wedded, or won the lottery. However, now that it didn’t turn out as imagined should not deter you from trying again or moving on. You don’t have to keep asking yourself questions such as, supposed it happened as expected, how would it be?
The truth is, dwelling on the disappointment will make it hard for you to get over it. It will interrupt your ability to focus and prevent you from thriving because you will keep asking yourself if you were a little luckier, studied a bit harder, or answered your interview questions more promptly.
4. Adopt a Self-compassionate Attitude
In most instances, the reason why things go wrong is beyond your control or is not your fault. For example, the employer might be looking for a candidate with a completely different skillset, or you failed to wed because your supposed fiancée was in love with someone else, or it was simply not meant to be.
Adopting a self-compassionate attitude regardless of what happened is important. Not judging yourself so harshly or holding yourself to extremely high standards can help you get over the disappointment quickly.
Additionally, you should avoid comparing yourself with others because this can damage your self-worth and hurt your confidence. You should realize your path is unique and different from others.
5. Forgive Yourself
Sometimes one gets disappointment because of their doings. You may have failed to revise, are unfaithful to your finance, are not a diligent worker, etc. Still, sometimes life throws certain obstacles and tasks at people randomly, making it hard to achieve what they hoped for. Life can also derail your focus from your targets or goals.
Therefore, when mistakes happen, forgive yourself and learn from them. This is better than holding a grudge over your own head or blaming your lecturer, ex, manager, HR, and the like. You can even give yourself some credit for what you have done right. Actually, focusing on the positives can help you keep on trying.
6. Put Things into a Proper Perspective
Some disappointments that you experienced in the past might seem trivial now. In fact, you might even ask yourself why you were so mad or worried about it. At the moment, that situation is not as awful as it seemed then.
With that in mind, you should ask yourself what the current disappointment will look like in a week, month or year. At that time, your sadness will have disappeared because possibly you worked hard to pass the test, graduated, got the job, were promoted, and were wedded. This one, too, will pass, and you get over it.
Since the world was not constructed with the odds in your favor, the reality is unfortunately unkind to you as it is to everyone. Therefore avoid judging the event harshly or like an utter disaster that can ruin your life entirely. Rather than that, consider the situation a mere inconvenience but not the end of the world.
7. Try to Find Something Positive about the Negative Situation
Finding anything positive in each disappointment can be helpful. This is important because the world doesn’t have white and black paint. Why then do you want it to define yours?
Although you may feel sad now because of such a letdown, try to look at your situation critically. In fact, you can view it as part of growing up. Indeed as long as the sun is shining, you should make it shine for you.
Therefore stop and evaluate your situation. Also, restructure your thoughts and try to use the situation, which is simply a bad moment but not a bad life.
8. Be Optimistic
Life is beautiful because it gives you another day to look forward to. Because of that, you shouldn’t allow a disappointing event to bring you down or hinder you from thinking about it again. Instead, keep trying because you might win big one day.
You should identify the next opportunity, pursue it and never look back or say that you’re unlucky. Being optimistic is an excellent way to get over your disappointment. Therefore, always look forward.
9. Vary Your Approach
Usually, people tend to see the bad parts of life when they face some inconveniences or feel stagnant. However, you can regain your strength when you start small and keep on reminding yourself about all the great things you achieved before the present failure.
Further, if what you have been pursuing doesn’t seem to work out, you can create a different game plan. View the different approaches as an opportunity to bring positivity and control to your life. For instance, you can retrain in order to get a promotion or a better job and establish new relationships if your present partner isn’t meeting your qualifications.
10. Find Humor in Every Situation
Finding humor in each disappointment can help you to see things clearly. Taking a deep breath and laughing can bring your joy back. However, this doesn’t mean that you should laugh at yourself because this can harm you emotionally.
Also, you shouldn’t trivialize your situation or emotional vulnerability. Instead, you should watch funny movies and shows, as well as surround yourself with happy friends because these initiatives will make you smile. It will also make it easier to handle your disappointment.
Conclusion
Disappointment is detestable because it brings complex emotions such as regret, sadness, despondency, and anger. Still, learning how to cope with the letdown is key in life because it makes it easier to cope, accept and move forward.
Have you faced failures and disappointment lately? You can share with us your experience in the comment section.
