Inspired Living for a Better Lifestyle

How to Deal with Disappointment

Something I am very interested in at the moment is the topic of disappointment. Unfortunately I cannot provide any interesting statistics or surveyed results relating to the term. But the obvious is obvious, we all feel it and we all know it. While the word and the emotion is surrounded with an empty, depressed sensation or feeling. I am intrigued by it because I would like to outline how refreshing it can be.
Constantly we are surrounded with forms of overwhelming and enthusiastic positivity and productivity that other emotions which appear less constructive to our own personal development are ignored or even forgotten. To the extent that when I use the words “Better Lifestyle” and “Disappointment” in the same sentence, I can almost guarantee that you do not see any notable connection between the two.

“Disappointment is the feeling of dissatisfaction that follows the failure of expectations to manifest. Similar to regret, it differs in that the individual feeling regret focuses primarily on personal choices contributing to a poor outcome, while the individual feeling disappointment focuses on outcome. It is a source of psychological stress. The study of disappointment—its causes, impact and the degree to which individual decisions are motivated by a desire to avoid it—is a focus in the field of decision analysis, as disappointment is one of two primary emotions involved in decision-making.”

I’m going to place an emphasis on the phrase “disappointment is one of two primary emotions involved in decision-making” and you will see where the connection can be found between “Better Lifestyle” and “Disappointment”. In order to have a Better Lifestyle, we need to actively choose to. Seeing that disappointment is often an outcome to making an attempt at positive change to our own lives, dealing with disappointment seems to be a great tool we can add to our Inspired Lifestyles. Choosing to deal with it leads to better living.

The outcome of not dealing with disappointment varies between everyone, often leading towards frustration, blame, depression or despair. While all of these are perfectly acceptable human emotions, and must be shared and experienced by all of us. The direct results of these emotions can lead to impulsive, excited or even risky decision making or actions. People often naturally react by trying to over resolve the situation or treat it as a hopeless cause. These actions often lead to more disappointment, and an obvious snowball effect.

There are three very important steps which I feel should be outlined. Ones which I appreciate during my own experiences of being disappointing and even depressed. I feel that by outlining these three points I can keep fresh in our minds a method which can be remembered to resolve rough and hurtful times in our own lives:

Accept the Situation as it has unfolded. Acceptance is a choice, and a choice that you can easily make. People believe that to accept means that they are not the ones in control, that they are being subject to a greater circumstance. These people will stubbornly deny and reject situations which are causing them grief. Others will ignore or forget, but not accept. I feel that during emotional highs and lows and when we are most susceptible to learning. Why should our own choice not to take our environment as it is presented to us effect our ability to learn and grow? Actively choose to accept your circumstances, evaluate them and learn from them.

Provide forgiveness to all factors of a disappointing moment in time, even if it is yourself that you need to forgive. Separate from acceptance, forgiveness truly takes strength and heart. People often forget that to forgive, they need to be thankful for what detail leads them to forgiveness. If you have a pet cat and it bites you out of playfulness, most people are quick to forgive and appreciative of the playfulness. There will always be something that we can be thankful for and be appreciative of, even the simple matter of a change in circumstances can often be a great thing. Forgiveness is often ofter looked or rejected by that fact that we naturally associate forgiveness with a resolve, or an inner peace. Forgiveness does not require a rainbow during a rainy day, but it does require our own strength and humanity.

Be patient and take all emotions in moderation. Often it is human nature to find resolve in making dramatic change. Whether it be vengeful or over productive. People are often unaware of their own natural tendencies to amplify their own solution to a crisis. Be sure to be patient with your own mind and your own emotions. It is a good idea to be aware of all of your ideas and emotions, be mindful that what you think is accurate but can be mislead. Once time has passed and we have found our own resolve, if the resolution or the solution is the right choice, this provides us with something beautiful in our own lives to reflect upon and build our own path back to a positive and productive thinking space.

This is my reflection of how we can inspire our own way of living and enhance our own environment by dealing with emotions naturally in effect at any time. I hope that by outlining why it is important to be mindful of our own emotions; we can enhance our ability to improve our own lifestyle with those emotions by considering how we choose to deal with them.

This is here to reflect upon inspired living.