Everywhere we look this year, there is disappointment.
Weddings delayed, families separated – even children disappointed not to be in their classrooms.
COVID-19 has created an unprecedented platform of social isolation, compounded by personal, financial and career disappointment for many.
Whether or not we expect the disappointment doesn’t necessarily make it easier to bear.
Whether or not a second wave is obvious, whether landing that massive job was a long shot or we knew the budget didn’t quite have enough stretch in it for that elusive pay rise, we’ve invested emotionally in the longed-for outcome.
We can still feel its loss when it doesn’t come to fruition.
So, how do we go about picking ourselves back up from disappointment?
It all comes down to objectivity – the ability to see things unclouded by feelings. This might be a surprising statement for regular readers. I’m not saying ignore how you feel – quite the opposite.
As usual, the first step is to listen to yourself. In our society, we are urged to keep calm and carry on. We have translated that into ‘ignore your feelings’. Well, that’s OK, for a bit.
But feelings have a nasty habit of making a mess later if ignored. So, taking a little bit of time to notice, acknowledge and process how we feel lets us move through the emotion.
Many times over the past six months, COVID-19 has brought bitter disappointment for me: cancelled holidays; separation from loved ones; delayed work.
Each time, I’ve had to work hard to let myself experience my feelings, but not act on them. I have even shed a few tears of rage at this invisible, deadly persecutor who kept robbing me of the joy of the year.
But those important tears allow the cortisol that our brains produce under stress to exit the body. The feelings, once accounted for, pass.
It’s also important that we account for the significance of the disappointment.
Discounting its importance can have far-reaching consequences. If we consistently ignore our disappointments, we can start to believe that we don’t deserve the things we had hoped to achieve.
We can fail to notice if people around us are taking advantage of us – not giving us proper credit. We can become a doormat.
Once we can see the situation clearly, we can evaluate our options and create choice for ourselves
So, it’s important to account for disappointments carefully. They might be an indicator that we need to be proactive and bolder in the pursuit of our personal goals.
It can also be part of our instinct to hide our disappointments. If we let those closest to us know we had hoped to get a new job, we can be embarrassed if it doesn’t happen. We might fear being accused of counting our chickens before they’ve hatched.
But connecting with people who have our best interests at heart and can share our disappointments provides sustaining support.
If we’re lucky enough to have a friend who is an excellent listener, it can also give us the space to think through the options and start to notice upsides. They might even have some ideas and connections to help you expand your network and create even greater alternatives for yourself.
Which takes us to the next step – getting objective.
See the situation as it is. What we were working towards has changed. Maintaining the status quo is unlikely to magic the situation into something better. We need to notice the changed landscape, ask what it means and use that as information to help us decide what we want to do.
Once we can see the situation clearly, we can evaluate our options and create choice for ourselves. This stops us from becoming a victim of circumstances.
Don’t get me wrong, some disappointments come with radical ramifications far beyond those created by cancelled weekend plans. Being made redundant, for example, has the potential to create major fissures in someone’s neatly fashioned career path.
But I’m often struck by how frequently I meet a colleague who has been made redundant and hear them say, “I’m really glad that happened; it gave me the impetus I needed to move on.” You may be able to see bold moves that could otherwise remain hidden behind any initial humiliation or dread.
Becoming more objective also lets us see the whole field. The disappointment might feel like something terribly personal in the first instance.
We might create stories in our minds to make the disappointment somehow our fault or to shift the fault to someone else: we weren’t hard working enough for the pay rise; our bosses secretly prefer our colleagues and so were bound to pass us over for promotion.
Objective review of the situation makes it easier to see that the company performance is struggling, so pay rises are few and far between, or that the colleague who got the promotion had more relevant experience.
Then we can start to ask ourselves the useful questions: do we need to go and fill a gap? What can we learn from the disappointment? How do we use the information we have gained from our objectivity to help us grow from the situation?
Objectivity can also let us be more truthful with ourselves. Did your colleague get the pay rise because they actually did a better job than you?
If you’re really honest, have you been slacking off a bit? Did you really deserve it more than them? When we question ourselves to seek the truth rather than to shame ourselves, we increase the chance that we will achieve our goals.
Objectivity is therefore critical in helping us move from a fixed mindset about the disappointment (“these sorts of things always happen to me; I’m never going to get what I want”) to a growth mindset (“well, that was a shame, but no matter, I’ll keep applying for different roles; I know the right one is out there and it’s just a numbers game”).
We can be more optimistic in our outlook and increase our chances of success.
Disappointment, therefore, does not have to be bitter. When paired with objectivity, it can be a useful catalyst for change and creativity.
We might not get what we initially aimed for. We might only make progress towards it.
But progress beats disappointment any day of the week.
Amanda Bradley FCT is an executive coach at Liberty EQ
This article was taken from the December 2020/January 2021 issue of The Treasurer magazine.