People can't always live up to our expectations. In fact, they often don't. But how we react to that disappointment is entirely in our control. As adults, when faced disappointment, we're often told to "get over it." The implication is that let downs are a fact of life that we shouldn't waste any time or attention on.
However, there are very few things more upsetting to people than real, heartfelt disappointment. And there's litterally no escape from it. No matter who you are or where you live, disappointment will always find you - it's a shared human experience. But we don't all respond to disappointment in the same way.
For some people, disappointment is emotional quicksand that drags them down ad swallows them, leaving them with little interest or energy to move forward.
For others, disappointment serves as a great teacher - one that brings insight and new wisdom that propels them forward. Robert Kiyosaki, an author and motivational speaker, says: "The size of your sucess is measured by the strength of your desire, the size of your dream, and how you handle disappointment along the way."
I couldn't agree more. Your response to disappointment is one of the critical factors to finding success and accomplishment in this life. It also plays a key role in setting your emotional temperature and influencing your overall well-being.
WHY YOU FEEL DISAPPOINTED
Disappointment is defined by Merriam-Webster as "a failure to meet the expectation or hope of." In short, it's your emotional reaction to not getting what you want or expect. It often involves a breach of trust or a broken promise from someone close to you. Sometimes it only causes you miner annoyance, but other times you may feel like it's the end of the world.
We experience this human feeling of disappointment from both people and from products. It may be the behavior of a friend or colleague that leaves you disappointed, or perhaps an item you bought at the store doesn't meet your expectations. However, I want to focus on the disappointment that we experience from other people.
The fundamental cause of disappointment can always be traced back to your expectations. You can't feel let down without having assumed that people will behave or respond in a certain way.
If you find yourself constantly disppointed by a particular person, here's the key to eliminating or minimizing your disappointment: Simply stop expecting something different from them. Change your expectations... because their behavior likely won't. As the saying goes (attributed to Benjamin Franklin and Rita Mae Brown, among others), insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results.
As I see it, particular people - or types of people are the sources of most of our disappointment. Each source produces its own specific brand of emotional and mental pain. These are the six:
*Yourself *Your spouse or significant other
*Your friend *Your child
*Your parent *Other people(athelte, actor,
politicians, etc.)
We've all experienced disappointment in our lives from at least one of these six people. And the amount of emotional pain you feel is directly tied to how close the relationships is with that person. For example, being disappointed by the actions of a famous person you admire isn't nearly as upsetting as feeling let down by your significant other.
Take the recent battery case of singers Chris Brown and Rihanna. Brown's behavior surely disappointed his fans but in a less painful, personal way than it likely saddened his close friends and family. The more personal the disappointment is to you, the more painful and unsettling it becomes.
Here's another example: let's say a co-worker cancels a lunch date with you. The disappointment you feel may be much less than if it was your dear frined or spouse who broke the date. But regardless of where it comes from, we all must deal with disappointment in our lives.
DEALING WITH DISAPPOINTMENT
When things don't turn out as you had hoped, it often brings with it tremendous emotional turmoil. Feeling hurt and angry is a normal reaction, particularly when someone close to you is the cause. It often takes time to work through this situation.
However, you need to be proactive about calming yourself and regaining your emotional grip. As an Aid, I've taken the liberty of slightly altering the famous "Stop, Drop and Roll" fire - extinguishing technique many of us learned as children. Here is a 3 - step process you may want to try when disappointment rears it's ugly head and you find yourself feeling raw and out of control.
1. Stop - The first thing you should do is stop, take a deep cleansing breath, let it out very slowly and calm yourself. I suggest you repeat this 4-5 times. Deep breathing will help to stimulate the production of endorphins, reduce your stress level, relax your body, lower your blood pressure, reduce your heart rate and calm your mind.
2. Drop - Make a conscious, determined decision to drop all your negative and counter-productive thinking immediately. Disappointment carries with it a plethora of unproductive thoughts and highly charged feelings, which only serve to fuel the emotional fire. Eliminating the doom-and-gloom thinking, which disappointment triggers, will help prevent it from spiraling into frustration, panic or depression.
3. Roll - Roll with the punches and accept this experience as a teachable moment. Focus on what you can learn from this painful disappointment. Reframing it in this way will help you put a positive spin on this negative situation.
The purpose of this process is to lesson the pain of disappointment by extinquishing the emotional fire created in your mind. It provides a coping strategy that can be used immediately when you're facing the reality of unmet expectations. It's designed to help you deflect the inevitable anger, irritation or sadness you might feel, instead moving you toward a calm, positive state of mind.
At the end of day, our lives are shaped by how we respond to the world around us. I choose to view disappointment as a great teacher in the classroom of life. And, as a result, I always learn something from the agony of disappointment.
If you choose to reframe disappointment in this manner, as well, you just might find that silver lining that's always hiding behind the dark cloud.
COMMENTS
My personal views on this subject. I have been disappointed so many times by so many people that it would be hard for me to count or even remember. I would like to think that i have forgiven and forgot about the majority of them. But the one that stands out the most and is hard for me to forget is the disappointment that my ex-husband and he also as my ex-best friend had done to me. If someone had told me 20 years ago that he would do the things he has done to me, i would have said, "no he would not because he really loves me". Well it happened and i am so disappointed in the way his character turned out as a human being toward me and our daughter. I learned the techinques of calming myself but unfortunately i still suffered three heartattacks from his actions and his behavior.
