Handling Disappointment

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Life is complicating when a series of disappointments are present. For most people disappointment appears in their life more often than satisfaction. The way disappointments are handled can have a great bearing on how it is viewed. People have different ways of dealing with disappointment. Some react negatively by sulking or blaming others while others are more positive in trying to understand the reasons behind the disappointment.

On the internet, Wikipedia.org defines disappointment as the feeling of dissatisfaction that follows the failure of expectations or hopes to manifest. Similar to regret, it differs in that a person feeling regret focuses primarily on the personal choices that contributed to a poor outcome, while a person feeling disappointment focuses on the outcome itself. It is also a source of psychological stress. Disappointment is a subjective response related to the anticipated rewards. The psychological results of disappointment vary greatly among individuals; while some recover quickly, others mire in frustration or blame or become depressed.

One way of dealing with disappointment is sulking because it is an easy attitude to adopt. People who sulk commonly adopt the attitude – “Why does everything always happen to me?” Unfortunately it is not productive. Sulking or feeling sorry for themselves will offer discourage other people from lending support. For the sulker it is easier to sit back and sulk rather than making a positive move towards self-help. Feeling sorry for oneself, however, does nothing to lessen the pain of disappointment. It may in fact increase the pain. This does not pave the way to make future disappointments easier to bear.

Another negative and non-productive way to cope with disappointment is to blame others. This all common attitude of pointing the finger at someone will only lead to anger, resentment and unhappiness. When a people is disappointed in another person’s performance, it does not mean that the performer is at fault. Perhaps, the person had too high expectations as to what the performer could actually accomplish.

A positive way to handle disappointment is try to understand the reasons behind the disappointment. It is more productive to analyse the cause of disappointment and then deal with the situation. Sometimes, understanding alone can help reduce the pain of disappointment and help prevent  further disappointment. Also, it helps to remember one does not have to achieve the goals in a given situation but expect some reasonably.

Another positive way to react to disappointment is to use it as a chance for growth. This certainly is not easy but it is the only inevitable part of life. In a situation when one does not get promoted, disappointment should be dealt with by looking at other options.

Disappointments are unwelcome, but regular visitors to everyone’s life. Continues handling of disappointment in a negative manner can lead to negative view itself. Learning not to expect perfection in an imperfect world is one positive way to handle disappointment.  

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