Learning how to deal with disappointments is a very important skill everyone needs in life because it’s something that everyone will get to experience at least once in life.
Disappointment is the sadness or displeasure caused by the nonfulfillment of one’s hopes or expectations. “This is according to Oxford Dictionary”.
Disappointment is not something that anyone wants or hopes for because it hurts to invest your time, emotions, and probably money on something or someone only to get nothing in return.
However, disappointments are as common as water in our daily lives. So, what should we do? Wake up expecting that what we invest in would not work because disappointment is bound to happen? Or, not apply caution or commitment to whatever we’re doing because disappointment is bound to happen? No! You cannot live your life expecting the worst things to happen but there’s a better way to deal with disappointments that would help you to avoid it or move on after you’ve experienced it.
Types Of Disappointments
First, let’s look at types of disappointments.
Self-disappointment is the sadness or displeasure that you feel because you couldn’t meet a goal that you set for yourself or a promise that you made to yourself. These could be exercise goals, diet goals, moral goals, religious goals, relationship goals, educational goals, amongst others.
Self-disappointments can cause discouragements that could affect your performance in other areas of your life.
Self-disappointments can also be seen as failure to some and this could have a bad effect on your journey to success.
2. Friendship Disappointments
This is a hurt that comes as a result of bad experiences with friends. It could be that they did something that you didn’t expect them to do or, they didn’t do something that you expected them to do.
Disappointments from friends have made some people decide that they would never have friends again or they would never be friends with a particular person, tribe, group, or race.
3. Society Disappointments
These are hurts and dissatisfactions that one experiences from organizations, institutions or government.
Disappointment from society can actually be discouraging. It could make people get into crime or begin to lose value for the laws of the society. The fact that crime increases in states where the government doesn’t keep to its promises is so true.
Disappointments from society lead people into frustration which in turn affects their performance in the society. For instance, if a government makes a promise to increase workers salaries and refuses to do that, it could affect the commitment of the workers.
4. Relationship Disappointments
Relationship disappointment is hurt or dissatisfaction that you get from someone that you’re related to. It could be by intimate relationship, marriage, or blood. I feel that this is the most painful type of disappointment because a relationship is a place you give your most and it really hurts to lose it all.
Relationship disappointment has so many dangerous effects. It has the power to take one’s life, affect one’s mental health or affect one’s attitude towards others if not properly dealt with.
How To Deal With Disappointment
Having discussed the types of disappointments, let’s look at how to deal with disappointments.
1. Understand that disappointments are natural and leave a space for it
I feel like we place disappointments higher than where they should be. Disappointments are part of life and shouldn’t be permitted to cause permanent damage. No one has a shield against disappointment.
Anyone can disappoint anyone because everyone is capable of disappointing simply because it is natural. Disappointment is as natural as being angry. Anyone can be angry and so can anyone be disappointing. Hence, always, always, and always leave that space to accommodate disappointments.
This will help you to not be taken by surprise when it happens and it will help you to maintain a better position that will empower you to deal with it when it comes.
Why is this saying that you shouldn’t trust anyone 100percent? Take this seriously. You’re not leaving a space for disappointments because the person is bad, you’re doing this because the person is human and not immortal.
Also, this understanding helps me to forgive people for whatever they do to me and move on like nothing happened because I understand that they are humans just like me and this has helped me to not write off someone or people that could be a lifesaver for me tomorrow just because of disappointment.
2. Empathize with the person that disappointed you before drawing a conclusion.
We often get carried away by another person’s disappointment against us such that we forget that we could also do the same thing to ourselves and others. Can you remember how many promises you made to yourself that you’ve kept? Give your offender the right to a fair hearing, try putting yourself in their shoes for a moment.
People react according to their different conditions. A person that is not in a good mood might not be as helpful as you want them to be at the moment. People can easily misbehave when they are hurt or not composed and you might not tell exactly what situation they were in as at the time they disappointed you. This is the reason why different people can have different testimonies about one person.
I’m aware that some people are just selfish and don’t care how much they hurt others, but, sometimes, there could be really reasonable reasons behind that disappointment.
Let’s not put too many demands on people by expecting them to get it right all of the time. Empathy will help you deal with disappointments easier than you could ever imagine.
3. Embrace the lesson and move on
The quickest way to deal with disappointments is to focus on the lessons. I know that this might be difficult because sometimes, hurt blinds us from seeing but trust me, the best way to get revenge is by succeeding. I told myself a long time ago that I will not give anyone the opportunity to hurt me and still give them the power to hold me down because I realized that, the longer you mourn disappointments is the longer you’ll remain down.
Lessons are a plus to your life because it makes you better. Appreciate the lessons, begin to think of how you’ll use those lessons for the next episode of your life, and move on. Whether you’ll continue with that person, job, business or not, the lessons learned will surely be an advantage to you and this will help you to deal properly with disappointments in a healthy way.
Also check out, ” 7 Ultimate Ways To Get Over A Heartbreak. “
Disappointments are a part of our everyday life. The good part of it is the lesson it always teaches. Leave space for disappointment, empathize with the person who is the source of the disappointment, find the lesson attached to it, and move on!