Disappointment is a regular occurrence for many people. It happens to everyone. You’re expectations take control and you think something good is going to happen and WHAMO! It doesn’t. Or it does but it’s not nearly as good as you thought it would be. Kind of like any Harrison Ford movie in the past 15 year. You know Harrison, you like Harrison; he had a great track record for the 80′s and early nineties. Then he starts making crap like Six Days, Seven Nights or Random Hearts or worse Hollywood Homicide. And you fall for it every time he makes a movie, because you remember all the good stuff he made. Maybe every couple of years he sneaks in an acceptable film like What Lies Beneath or the barely passable but not horrible Firewall. Basically, its mediocre crap, but you want to believe.
At some point you need to lower your expectations which will lower your disappointment. Harrison’s got a new Indiana Jones movie coming out May 25th called Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. It’s no secret I’m a big Indiana Jones fan. But thanks to the past decade of crap from Harry, I’ve lowered my expectations. I don’t think this will be the best Indy movie yet. I’m thinking it’ll be a hell of an advertisement for Viagra, Metamucil and Icy-hot patches (my personal favorite). If I go in expecting a film as good as “Raiders of the Lost Ark” I will most likely walk out disappointed.
So we need to lower our expectations. Obviously, I hope it’s a great movie. But I won’t walk into it thinking it’s great.
If it’s bad, meh.
If it’s good, I’ll be pleasantly surprised.
So here are a few tips on dealing with disappointment.
1. Look at your expectations. Are they realistic? Are they grounded in reality or some dream world where everything happens perfectly to maximize your happiness? Wild and unrealistic expectations will always lead to disappointment. Make sure your dreams and goals are just out of reach so you can push yourself to improve and occasional reach beyond your grasp. But don’t put your goals so far out of reach that they’ll never see the light of day. The carrot needs to be in view otherwise the horse won’t move at all.
2. Be Flexible. Constantly change and adapt your goals to your progress. If your goals are easily obtainable, you’ll get bored. If they’re out of this world, you’ll give up. See where you are. Are you progressing? Is the progress fast or slow? Too fast, push the goal further way. Too slow, readjust your definition of success so you just might make it to the finish line.
3. And when disappointment happens, understand that it is not the end of the world. You may have missed out on an opportunity this time, but another will come along. And next time you’ll have the knowledge of the previous failure to help guide you.
No one likes to be disappointed, but it happens. So I send this to Harrison Ford (I know you’re reading!). Please make the new Indian Jones movie spectacular, the best yet.
As for me, I’m not going to think about it. I’ll take lowered expectations and a pleasant surprise over high expectations and disappointment every time.
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Thank you for the tips. I get disappointed right away so this is a good one for me. Live Love Life – Jojo