Avoiding Disappointment: Treat Your Life Like An Experiment

In Neuro Linguistic Programming, we say, “You either get what you want, or you learn more about how to get what you want”.

When things don’t work out how I wished they would, I find that it feels better to treat a given situation like an experiment from which I gathered more information, than a failure that resulted in disappointment.

This simple reframing helps improve my mood when I’m feeling down about a rejection, mistake, or blown opportunity.

Rather than seeing a social misstep as a life and death catastrophe (it never actually is), I treat it with the detachment of Thomas Edison in his pursuit of inventing the light bulb. Everyone has heard his famous quote by now: “I have not failed”, he scoffed, “I’ve just found 10,000 ways that don’t work".

You’re guaranteed to have a better outcome the next time you’re faced with a similar situation (if you learn from your mistakes).

You’ve identified and eliminated a technique that doesn’t produce your desired result. You’re that much closer to finding a technique that does.

Disappointments hurt. You heart stings, your throat tightens. You feel a heavy weight in the center of your chest.

The hardest part of feeling let down by situations or people in life, is that disappointments, like deaths, ants, and Mormon missionaries, tend to travel in groups of more than one.

You’ll hit patches in life where nothing seems to be going right. The dog gets sick, you get dumped, and get a flat tire all in the same day. Then it starts raining and you lock your keys in the house.

In such instances, the natural response is to want to give up. Who could blame you? There’s been many times I’ve felt beaten to the brink of totally giving up. Lucky for me, I seem to be incredibly mentally strong. Also, I don’t know who would take care of my dogs if I crawled under a rock and gave up. So I keep going. You should too.

It’s a Robert Frost quote, that became an ad campaign for sneakers and athletic gear. I love that it’s been commercialized, because now it plays non-stop on the televisions at my gym, the one place I’m guaranteed to be when I am at my lowest point.

There’s no giving up. The only way out is through. Keep going.