If you’ve ever been disappointed, you’re not alone!

I haven’t found anyone yet who hasn’t experienced disappointment from time to time. And it feels like a fall … a fall from success, grace, or ease in living your life. All you have to do is not live up to your expectations to know disappointment intimately.

Then there are the times when you’re going merrily along, and someone else doesn’t live up to your expectations! They say the wrong thing to an important customer, they decide not to fulfill a promise, they don’t finish what they said they would do, or they give you feedback as if you were completely ignorant.

Having had some recent disappointments, I thought through my favorite ways to overcome disappointing outcomes, and realized that that’s the first way!

1. Recognize that disappointment is an outcome not a statement about your ability. This is not how it’s always going to be, it’s just how it is right now. What specifically is disappointing? What happened? Don’t resist, react, or retaliate!

2. Deal with it. Whether it’s feedback, failure, or missed opportunities, what do you need to do so this doesn’t happen again? Disappointment allows you to shift your expectation into upping the ante on your communication, actions, and the ability to think on your feet.

3. Put it behind you. You can’t run yesterday’s race no matter how much you want a “do-over”. You can only run today. Bring your full attention to be here now. The only mistake would be to allow disappointment to prevent you from running today! Get back out on the track of life and keep going.

The hardest part may be when you think someone is disappointed in you! Involve these same 3 practices quickly before you resist, react or retaliate! In addition apply the following as a little prevention therapy.

• Carefully consider what you promise to do.

• Know that life is a journey. Sometimes you’re hot and sometimes you’re not!

• Understand that it’s very human to think you should have known better.

Disappointment stops you so you can look into both what you know and what you don’t know. It can be a doorway to unlock knowledge and skills, a doorway to discover what could be new and relevant.

There are times when something is insignificant and disappointing. You probably move through those times quickly. But there are also times when an event is both significant and disappointing. Those are the greatest teaching moments, if you sit with it, no matter how painful. To pretend you could have done something different from what you did, prolongs the agony, and keeps you locked in the disappointment instead of the teaching.

I’ll end this post as I began it. You’re not alone.

My love goes with you as you work with this Uplifting Moment.