Overcoming disappointment is a painful and long process that goes, like any process, through different phases through which we advance from pain to acceptance of the situation, integration of the experience and reconstruction and search for a positive solution.
Disappointment occurs when, in a certain situation, something happens that we do not expect or want. In the following Psychology-Online article, we will tell you how to overcome disappointment with a series of tips that will help you face any situation in your life and move forward. Above all, it will be important to accept the situation, not create expectations and practice emotional self-management.
How to handle disappointment
Disappointment is a disappointment that frustrates the expectations we had regarding a specific situation. The painful consequence of this disappointment is that we close our hearts and remain hurt or sad, with the negative effects that this causes on our physical, emotional and psychological health.
On occasions in which our frustrating behavior is directed outwards, we will similarly cause pain in third parties, whether they are the ones who caused our disappointment or others on whom we unload our pain.
For all this, to avoid all the damage that we can cause to ourselves or others as a result of disappointment, it will be essential that we get to work to heal this wound and, with this, avoid the negative consequences that poor emotional management can cause.
Accept the situation
Experiencing a disappointment constitutes a greater or lesser wound that closes our hearts, making us unable to analyze the situation that occurred soberly. Disappointment arises as a result of an incongruence between what happens and what we expected to happen in a certain situation. This experience makes it difficult for us, in principle, to accept what happened and overcome it.
Thus, as occurs with other painful processes, one of the ways to overcome disappointment is to accept the situation and go through a necessary duel for not meeting our expectations. In this article you will find information about what the . Later, if the process happens in a constructive way, this will lead us to accept the unwanted situation.
Become aware of the danger of having expectations
Once we accept what happened, we regain, in part, control of the situation, so we can analyze what happened more objectively. At this moment, to overcome disappointment, it will be important to become aware of the danger of creating certain expectations with respect to the situations in our lives or with respect to the people who are part of them.
The danger of generating these expectations, almost always unconsciously, lies in the fact that they enslave us, ourselves and everyone involved, to the fulfillment of them. The goal of expectations is to be met, otherwise the disappointment that their non-fulfillment generates is unpleasantly painful.
So that, The existence of an expectation subjects us to its obligatory fulfillmentwith all the personal pressure and towards others that all this entails in order for these expectations to take place as expected.
Practice positive emotional self-management
Emotional self-management, with sobriety, empathy, and deep compassion, allows adequate emotional and psychological functioning of human beings, and is essential to overcome disappointment in love, family, etc. To achieve this, in this article, we show you.
As occurs in other negative emotional situations, disappointment arises as a consequence of inefficient emotional management by the person. Practicing positive emotional self-management will help a person overcome life’s disappointments and not fall into them so easily in future situations.
Accept that not everything is in our hands
Emotional self-management involves aspects such as the ability to manage emotions that arise in conflictive situations. One of the conclusions that adequate emotional self-management leads us to is the acceptance that not all aspects of our life are in our hands.
Therefore, another key to avoiding disappointment is to accept this fact, since allows us to free ourselves to us and to others of false expectations and resume relationships in a much more respectful and conciliatory way.
Learn to respect the decisions of others
Not everything depends on us, so to overcome disappointment we must respect the decisions of others, even though they do not fit with what we want. Doing so assumes a significant degree of maturity through which we can understand that each of us has our own experiences and, therefore, we find ourselves in different moments that lead us to make different decisions
Reaching this point entails a high degree of compassion, a fundamental value to guarantee fraternal and peaceful coexistence. In this article, we give you different keys to achieve .
Learn from negative experience
As occurs in any personal crisis, the important thing is that at the end of the experience we achieve integrate vital learning that makes us better people, happier, more helpful and kind to our neighbors.
So what to do when you’re disappointed? The important thing is to adopt the perspective that Every setback in life is a great opportunity of personal growth, no matter how hard the battle is, the final result will be enriching on a personal level and will also benefit our entire environment.
Live purely and authentically as children do
When psychology talks about emotional self-management, in reality a series of traits have been categorized that, if we look carefully, correspond to the characteristics that, naturally, occur in boys and girls.
They live happily, without expectations, with a great feeling of conciliarity and empathy. The sobriety and wisdom that comes innately from our little ones should be a daily example to overcome disappointmentsface problems and live our lives.
This article is merely informative, at Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.
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Bibliography
- Lipovetsky, G., & Richard, B. (2008). The society of deception (Vol. 127). Barcelona: Anagram.
- Preston, J. (2016). You can overcome depression. Spain, 13-19.