Disappointment is a normal human emotion that we all experience every now and then. When you feel disappointed, there’s usually an underlying cause where your expectations don’t match the reality of what happened.
You feel disappointed when someone betrayed you when you thought they never would, or when you don’t match your own expectations.
It’s normal, but it can be such an infuriating and overwhelming emotion to handle, which is why it’s important to learn how to manage your disappointment. In this article, we’ll be discussing everything you need to know about how to deal with disappointment.
How Do I Stop Feeling Disappointed?
The best way you can stop feeling disappointed is to control your emotions rather than letting them control you. Given that it’s easier said than done, but this feeling isn’t the end of the world.
It might feel like it when your disappointment becomes too heavy to bear, but disappointment can be managed and controlled.
Disappointment also comes from high expectations for others and yourself so by altering even some of your expectations and giving yourself a reality check, you’re less likely to become disappointed in the events that happen to you.
11 Helpful Ways To Deal With Disappointment
1. Feel your emotions
You can’t deal with your disappointment in the right way if you don’t face it. You need to let yourself feel your emotions in order to move past it, which is the entire concept behind self-acceptance.
As heavy as it might feel, running away from it won’t do you any good as it will likely turn to repressed emotions.
2. Manage your expectations
It’s okay to have expectations, but you need to manage and assess whether they’re realistic expectations or not.
Otherwise, your unrealistic expectations will put others or yourself on a pedestal and that’s never a healthy thing to live on. You will always live a disappointed life if your expectations are too absurd.
3. Learn from the experience
Despite how challenging difficult emotions are, they exist to teach you something in your life. When it comes to disappointment, you can always learn from that painful experience and use it to become better.
Even if a friend betrays you, it’s still a grateful experience because you have more awareness of what to do the next time around.
4. Appreciate what you have
Even if the odds worked against you, gratitude still exists for a reason. Instead of focusing on your disappointment because things didn’t turn out the way you expect, you can still appreciate everything you have around you.
This means appreciating your loved ones and yourself for trying your best today.
5. Be open to failure
It’s okay to fear failure and making mistakes, but that shouldn’t be what your whole life should be about. If you constantly run away from failure, you’ll never experience knowledge and growth.
Failures and mistakes change you into someone better, to avoid repeating the same mistakes over and over again.
6. Confront your disappointment
If you’re having trouble letting go of your disappointment, confronting the person behind your disappointment is the best way you can deal with your feelings properly.
It helps you release some of the difficult feelings you’re having towards the person who has disappointed you significantly.
7. Find an outlet for your emotions
We all have different ways of coping with difficult emotions like disappointment such as meditation, journaling, exercising, or talking with friends.
Whatever it is, find a healthy way of coping with what you’re feeling without incorporating self-destructive habits. You need to realize that self-destructive habits won’t get you anywhere but making your disappointment feel bigger than it already feels.
8. Find a different perspective
Oftentimes, our disappointment can come from a different perspective, one that we’re not open to in the moment. If someone disappointed you, open yourself to the idea that there’s a piece in the puzzle that you’re not understanding.
Maybe a friend was dealing with something difficult or maybe there are just some things beyond your control.
9. Avoid self-pity
It’s so easy to dwell in self-pity when we’re feeling bad because of a difficult emotion, but self-pity isn’t going to get you anywhere.
In fact, it will likely cause you to feel much worse than you already do about your disappointment.
10. Realize everything happens for a reason
Even if you didn’t get the outcome you wanted, realize that there’s always a reason for why things happen.
You might not understand it at the time, but the reason will give you a new perspective when you’re ready.
11. Project your disappointment into something healthy
We often try to bury our disappointment with distractions like video games and social media but while that’s normal, it’s not the healthiest way of coping.
Instead, use your disappointment to move forward in life and being a better version of yourself.
Overcoming Disappointment
You can overcome your disappointment when you learn to manage your own expectations into more realistic ones. If your expectations are inclined towards perfection, you need to realize that nobody will ever live up to that expectation, even yourself.
The more you expect that standard around everyone around you and yourself, the more you’re giving them a reason to disappoint you.
Managing and overcoming your disappointment is also possible when you learn to face your difficult feelings, instead of doing everything to shut them off and numb them. Repressed feelings are very dangerous and they do more harm than good, especially in the long run.
Final Thoughts
I hope this article was able to shed insight into everything you needed to know on the helpful ways to deal with disappointment.
It’s not an easy emotion to manage, but you’re going to have to learn to deal with it, one way or another.
Otherwise, disappointment can project itself in darker ways in your life if you keep burying it within yourself.
You need to let go of your expectations for perfection and learn to manage your disappointment if you want to get past this difficult emotion.
