Living with Disappointment

In her Beginnings Workshop article in the March 2005 issue of Exchange, "Living With Disappointment:  How to Choose Powerful Outcomes in the Face of Unmet Expectations,"  Parker Anderson offers these steps to move toward choosing powerfully in the face of unmet expectations:

• Get over “getting over it” — There is absolutely nothing that you need to do to “just get over” the disappointment.  Allow the disappointment to just be;  and use it as an opportunity to learn about yourself, your desires, and your expectations.  Ask questions, such as “Why am I disappointed?” or “What was the expectation that I had or expected?”  When you hear your own silent voice or the voices of others echo the refrain “just get over it” gently acknowledge that it is meant to be helpful and that it is just one more contribution to your moving toward excellence.
• Face it your way — Disappointments are uniquely personal, so create an atmosphere that will allow you to nurture your own needs.  Some may like to be still, while others may want to talk.  The caution here is to make sure that your silence is not supporting a pity party or that your sharing is not a veiled attempt to make others wrong.  In either case there is the possibility of playing victim and that is not helpful....
• Look for the good — So often, we can look at our disappointments as being a personal failure, a loss, a missed opportunity.  On the contrary, they often provide us with a perfect opportunity to grow and develop.  Our disappointments give us a chance to examine our personal contributions. We get to explore whether there is something more we could have done differently, or maybe even to learn that there is nothing that we should or could have done differently.  Our task is to look for the good even inside of being disappointed.
• Create a new culture — Disappointments will come and disappointments will go, and more than likely they will come back again.  The question is not so much what to do when we are living with disappointments, but more how do we choose to live otherwise.  We can break the cycle of living inside of a culture of disappointment.  It becomes up to us to create a new culture.  We can create a culture of joy and harmony for our lives and the lives of others as we move toward choosing powerful outcomes when our expectations are not met.
  
  
  
  

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  Beginnings Workshop: Nurturing Optimism Parker Anderson's article "Living with Disappointment," is one of four articles in the Beginnings Workshop hands on training resource, "Nurturing Optimism."  This week, "Nurturing Optimism" along with 76 other Beginnings Workshop publications are on sale Click Here!
  

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