“Twelve Ways to Get Over Disappointment” by Joan Y. Edwards

At times it is difficult to get over disappointing news. You get frustrated with yourself. You are short-tempered with friends and family. You can’t see things clearly. Instead of a rosy situation, like you planned, it turned was a lousy, awful, humiliating, and embarrassing situation.  Instead of winning, you lost 55-0. Instead of getting the raise, you got fired. Instead of getting a job after 30 applications, you were turned down. You wish it hadn’t happened. You fill disappointed. Disappointment is anger, sadness, and resentment all dumped together at one time.

1. You think it didn’t really happen. You block it out.
2. You blame it on anyone and everyone that you have ever known.
3. You proclaim to the whole world that it’s not fair.
4. You tell the world that this particular experience wasn’t supposed to happen. The plans in your mind never wandered down this road of possibility.
5. You might even tell the world that you knew all the time that this was going to happen. You were afraid of this particular thing.

Twelve Ways to Get Over a Disappointment
1. Accept that it happened, exactly like it did.
2. Take a walk or do other exercise.
3. Accept that there’s nothing you can do to change the fact that it happened. Pray that God give you peace about it and show you what to do.
4. Be thankful that something worse didn’t happen. Be thankful for all the good things in your life. Realize that you did the best you could with the information, feelings, and knowledge you had.
5. Think through what you can do to prevent something similar from happening again. If another person’s decision, disappointed you, realize that you are not in charge of other people’s decisions. The only person you are in charge of is yourself. If your own behavior disappointed you,  realize that no one’s perfect. Educate, inspire, and empower yourself. Know that you can figure out a better way of handling this emotionally. Respect and honor yourself.
6. Accept that even with the best planning in the world, it could happen again. However, if it does, you will survive. You will be fine. If you resist it and are extremely afraid of this happening again, you are increasing the chances of the situation repeating itself. What you fear, you make appear.
7. Focus on what you want. Change fearful thoughts. Think about what you want.
8. Talk with someone who is a good listener. Someone who won’t escalate your anger. Someone who won’t blame you or lay out a million reasons why you were at fault. Talk with someone who will empower you to find your solutions. Someone who believes you can figure this out. Someone who might offer possibilities. Someone who will help you brainstorm possibilities. Focus on the solutions in your mind.
9. Visualize yourself being okay.
10. Write down the steps that will keep this from happening again.
11. Take positive action. Do something you feel will lead toward a solution. Do something that will help you prevent this from happening again.
12. Find humor in what happened. Watch a funny movie. Read a funny book. Write about it as if a famous comedian were telling the story. If you can’t find humor in the situation, go ahead and cry. Crying is healing. It will level your emotions. Then you will be able to think clearly.  When you can laugh about it, it means that you have let it go.

Other Resources:

Thank you for reading my blog. Please let me know what helps when you feel disappointed.

Celebrate where you are!
Never Give Up
Joan Y. Edwards

Copyright © 2012 Joan Y. Edwards and her licensors.