Dealing with Disappointment
Throughout our journey in life we grow through situations, experiences, and moments of significance. At the point of writing this, it’s the day after England’s football team lost the Euro 2024 final to Spain.
The whole nation today has had a sense of disappointment I’m sure, but I find myself wondering how people are dealing with it? How am I going to deal with it? Most of all, feeling a sense of immense pride as an Englishman towards our national team and what they have achieved, how are they going to deal with their own disappointment?
I have been reflecting with my journal and returned to an event I attended a number of years ago where Dr. John Andrews was speaking. He spoke so eloquently on Disappointment, and I remember one thing really impacted me…
“What joins disappointed to disappointing is our decision”
“Disappointed is experience disappointment is a choice”
The immense feeling the 30+ million England fans watching felt last night was one of being disappointed never mind the team, manager and all the staff. While our experience has drawn a number of emotions, ultimately, we still have a choice of how to respond.
We must not let our disappoint-eds become disappointments. Too often, we let this happen and actually it can change our future and change our life. If we let disappointments settle that quickly becomes bitterness, even hatred.
So how do we deal with that feeling in a positive way?
Three quick ways I try and remember when dealing with Disappointment:
1. Learn what you can from the experience
If you could, what would you “bottle” for the next time you have a similar experience? We can always learn every day from every situation and circumstance and take that forward. What did we do well? How did we react? How long did that last for? Did we use our network to help us through that situation? How well did we look after ourselves through that situation?
2. Use your lenses
What can we gain from looking at the situation, at the disappointment from a different perspective? Would that change how we felt? Would that even change the impact on our future perhaps? Sharing with others helps give us clarity, gets us insights from others that we might not have thought of before.
3. Look for the opportunities
What opportunities are there from our learning? Maybe we’ve created opportunities, maybe they presented themselves to us.
All of this helps create growth in our lives and release a bit more potential in us, releases into a more positive future.
SO, allow me to encourage you as you read this. Its ok to be disappointed but don’t let it define you, don’t let it take hold of who you are, instead use it to your advantage, learn from it, allow it to strengthen you, to increase your capacity and positively effect your future instead of becoming a negative decision that has a long impact.
Make a positive decision today, not to let your disappoint-ed become a disappointment.
Thank you so much for reading, we would love to hear from you if you have thoughts on dealing with disappointment and have found different tools work well for you why not share them?
We also have performance coaching capacity and if you or anyone you know are interested in coaching please get in touch for a free consultation.
Stay strong and stay safe
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