Sometimes despite our best efforts, our hard work and preparation, things do not turn out according to our plan or the way we wanted them to.
It can be the small things that don’t work out that cause us to be disappointed.
Other times they are more major.
What is more important however when our Plan A doesn’t pan out, is how we handle the disappointment.
How do we react and respond?
Do we try to find the silver lining? Do we exhibit resilience?
Do we keep a positive mindset despite the disappointment?
Or do we let our emotions get the better of us?
We can’t control other people and many circumstances in life we have little control over, unfortunately.
As we get older we experience more of life’s disappointments and learn these life lessons more fully.
…
This month, I was able to take a few days off from work to go on a short beach getaway with my kids.
It is not always the easiest to get time off with our work coverage issues.
That being said, I am always thinking in my mind that my kids are growing up way too fast and someday soon they may not want to spend as much time with me. Maybe not any time!
So I make the most of the time I have with them while I still can.
I also feel disappointed for them at times because with the Covid-19 pandemic they missed out on so much due to closures and cancellations.
My daughter’s elementary and middle school graduation was cancelled, along with a yearly class trip she was looking forward to, a Christmas band performance at the local mall, an important school dance, and the list goes on.
Our kids, having endured the Covid-19 pandemic and everything they had to miss out on, have already learned how to handle disappointments at a young age.
…
The day before we were leaving on the beach trip, there was a work crisis and I ended up having to work much later than planned. I got home late and didn’t get everything done that I needed to.
We were supposed to leave for the trip in the early morning but now I had to finish up what I didn’t get done from the night before.
While I was getting ready to finally leave around mid-day, the project manager for a home renovation project I have going on pulled up into my driveway behind me so now I was trapped.
I gently reminded him I was leaving on our trip shortly as I had advised previously.
He told me “Oh don’t worry. I just wanted to drop off some materials from the truck today so we have them here. It won’t take that long.”
Why is it that contractors never show up when you want them to, but when you don’t want them to, there they are!
But I disgress….
Well now that I was leaving even later then I was expecting to, I was hitting rush hour traffic. Just what I was trying to avoid. Ugh!
So we arrive just in time to have dinner and get settled in.
Unfortunately the weather was not in our favor during the duration of our stay.
And by that I mean it was overcast and rained most of time!
We had to find other rainy day activities to keep us occupied.
So much for our beach vacay we were looking forward to.
The day we had to check out and leave of course it was beautiful and sunny.
I was so disappointed. I really had to dig deep to keep my emotions in check.
But you know what?
My kids said they had a great time and they were so glad we went.
They even said they wanted to come back next year. They seemed happy!
I was very surprised.
They handled the disappointment better than I did. I was so proud of them.
The best way to handle life’s disappointments is to let yourself feel all the feels and acknowledge what you’re going through. You are entitled to your feelings. Do some inner reflection on the life lesson you’ve learned and make sure to take some time for self care.
Once you do this, then you will be able to release the disappointment, let it go, and move past it to make way for new dreams and goals.
Pushing your emotions down and pretending they doesn’t exist is not the way the go. The emotions will just resurface at a later point and may come back even stronger with a vengeance.
…
You can handle life’s disappointments and much like muscle memory, you can train yourself to exercise resilience and the staying power to not fall apart during these trying times.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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From The Good Men Project on Medium
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