How to Deal with Disappointment
Ilana Friedman, Advanced Clinical Fellow
There are moments in life that we approach with much anticipation. Milestones like getting your first job, taking the bar exam, a big performance, or a wedding. A lot of times these milestones are everything we dreamed of, but sometimes they just fall flat. You don’t pass the test, you’re passed up for your dream job, or your wedding venue burns down. How do we deal with the disappointment that follows when our dreams don’t come true?
As much as we would all love to just deny the feelings of disappointment and sadness and shove them down…that is just delaying the inevitable. These feelings exist, they are real and valid, and they deserve to be acknowledged (and they will come out sooner or later, so why not just deal with them now?) So, acknowledge the feels! This can look like naming them (sadness, rage, disappointment, regret to name a few…), sitting with them, journaling about them, and talking about what you’re experiencing with your support system and/or therapist. When you work with feelings instead of pushing them away, you allow them to move through you, instead of getting stuck in them.
Be gentle with yourself. Give yourself some time to mourn the loss, lick your wounds, and process the feelings, but make sure not to get stuck in a space of rumination. Often, we can turn disappointments inward and get stuck in a pattern of self-blame. Use self-compassion to move out of self-blame and toward acceptance.
It can also be helpful to do some reality testing. Zoom out that lens and get some realistic perspective about the situation. It may feel like a botched performance was a total failure but, in all likelihood, it was way worse from the inside than it was perceived from the outside. If you’re like me (#RecoveringPerfectionist), your expectations of yourself are significantly higher than any human could ever achieve. Try to be gentle with yourself and remind yourself that your worst day is still amazing! Going forward, try to adjust your expectations to a more achievable and self-compassionate level.
Like all things, this too shall pass and there will come a time when you think of this disappointment and suddenly realize that the sting and intensity have gone out of it. You will be able to reframe it as a learning experience, or a speed bump, or maybe even the universe protecting you from something you only could see in hindsight. Disappointment is a part of this thing called life and, since we can’t avoid it, we can learn how to work with it and learn from it.