It doesn’t matter your age, gender, where you live, your race, how much money you make, we all will face disappointments in life and as a result, you will need a resilient mindset to navigate these waters. Life is made up of big and small disappointments but how do you handle them? How do you take disappointment, like a champ, or like it’s the end of the world? Well today in this write-up, I am going to share with you three ways that you can handle disappointment and turn it into that catalyst for change and wonderful things to come in your life. Welcome to Kids and Teens blog, your one-stop shop for personal and spiritual development with real-life practical solutions for everyday challenges. If you’re new to our blog be sure to subscribe so that you can stay informed on our blog post weekly. But right now let’s get into exploring these three tips to dealing with disappointment with a resilient mindset.
Confront Reality:
“Failures and disappointments are part of life. If you don’t fail, you don’t learn. If you don’t learn you will never change”.
The first step when it comes to overcoming disappointment is to confront reality. We live in a world where we tend to overlook a lot of things that happen to us, we sometimes say, “oh its fine don’t worry about it, and we don’t confront the situation or challenge as it is. Sometimes when disappointments hit us, and they hit us hard, and it doesn’t matter if you didn’t make the football team, if you failed that critical examination, or a relationship ended. These disappointments come in different sizes depending on their importance to us, and they do matter to us. At that moment they feel life-crushing and most people even start questioning how they will be able to continue with their lives as usual before the unfortunate incidence. Our first step here is that you confront that reality of what just happened with a resilient attitude, accept that you did not make the team or you failed the examination. Ensure you deal with the emotions that the disappointments will bring like anger, feeling sad, and a host of others but do not dwell in them. When you confront reality you address those emotions because we all need time to address those emotions and not shove them off, because if we do, they tend to come back later. As a result, our advice for you is to be sad, angry, whatever that emotion is for just a moment not more than a day, yes not more than one day.
“Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger”
-Ephesians 4:26
A teenager once shared her experience of going through a bad end of her relationship with her best friend. She admitted she was so sad and went to cry on her mother’s shoulder that was a great source of support for her trying to console her until about a few hours into her crying episode she narrated how her mother told her the crying stops now get over it. At that moment according to her, she thought her mother was not being nice. And she thought that was so harsh and so mean and that her mother just did not understand her pain. However, she concluded that her mother’s action forced her to realize that, she has a life to live and as a result, she can’t cry about the lost relationship forever. So in this step of confronting reality feel those emotions. Feel that sadness, that disappointment, that anger, and then realize that you will have to get over it.
Know The Why:
“Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently”.
Henry Ford – Founder Ford Motors
We are going to look at step number two which is to look at the why of your disappointment. Most times people say “oh I learned more from failure than I ever did from success.” And that is true but they leave out the how. How did they learn from their failure or disappointment? What did they do that helped them pick valuable lessons from an unfortunate incident? I know just like me when young people hear about learning from disappointments or failures, the question is always – exactly how is this failure supposed to help me grow? Well, it’s in this step of figuring out why we failed or why we experienced this disappointment.
“I have missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I have lost almost 300 games. 26 times I have been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed”.
– Michael Jordan
Did I not practice enough to make the school play? To make the football team? Did I not study enough to pass the examination? Did I maybe not treat my relationship with the care that is needed? Did I have a lack of responsibility; was this my fault for any reason? And this might seem a little harsh but this really helps us get down to how am I going to be better and how am I going to avoid this disappointment in the future? How well we answer the above questions will trigger our learning process and our ability to learn from the unfortunate incident. I know some of you are sitting there and you are saying to yourself, “hey it wasn’t my fault!” I was not selected for the school football team or whatever the case may have been. I completely understand, but looking at the why and realizing that it was not you but it was solely the decision of the other person and I had nothing to do with it. That also will help you get over the situation even faster and realize this isn’t about me and there is nothing wrong with me.
Take Responsibility:
“Disappointments or falling down is an accident, staying down is a choice”.
The third and probably the most important step when dealing with disappointment is to take responsibility for your own life. A friend once shared her experience after listening to a speech from one of her favorite actors in a video and it changed her life. In the video, the actor said “it might not be our fault but it sure is our responsibility”. Yes, it is not my fault that I had a poor relationship or that I grew up in poverty, those are not your fault but it is your responsibility to take charge of your life and ensure you do everything within your abilities not to repeat the actions that resulted in the unfortunate situation you now find yourself. So that is what takes our disappointments from being I just can’t get over this to it is my responsibility to get over this and to find happiness again or change things I do not like or things that do not contribute to the desired result I want to see.
“My great concern is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with your failure”.
Abraham Lincoln – 16th President of The United States of America
So this really helps us to not develop a loser’s mindset or limp. People that develop the loser’s mindset or limp just start to tag on these little limps (Failures, disappointments) in all that they do, just like when an athlete gets off the field and they are limping as a result of an injury. These group of people don’t ever recover from these disappointments, they go through life with this limp of oh man I really could have been something great if this thing did not happen to me. I would have been more successful if my parents were educated and rich or I would have performed better in my academics if my parents were wealthy and could afford to buy all the study materials I needed. So this step is all about taking responsibility and making sure that our life is a factor of what we want it to be and we are not being defined by these disappointments that come our way. So it is important you know how you handle these disappointments, how you face these disappointments, makes all the difference in your life.
“Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not: nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not: the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent”.
Calvin Coolidge – 30th President of The United States of America
