Be your best self.

Guest Post – How to Deal with Disappointment… in Yourself.

Guest Post – How to Deal with Disappointment… in Yourself.
Carly Jacobs

Have you all met my new blogger BFF Amy from Just a Titch? I’ve linked to her a few times and we’ve tweeted about important things like the lack of taffy in Australia, romantic comedies and our mutual love of Sarah Von. She’s all kinds of awesome. Teacher, writer, weight loss guru. Need I say more? Here she is.

This week, I had a rather unpleasant situation in which someone I dislike pointed out that I’d dropped the ball on something, as well as unleashing a host of other criticisms. At first, I thought it had just ruffled my feathers, but when I couldn’t shake it, I realized the worst thing ever: they were right. Is there anything worse than someone you sort of hate pointing out something you sort of hate about yourself?

The answer is no, friends. No, there is not.

If I’m being honest with myself, I have dropped the ball recently, on a lot of things. I haven’t been Crossfitting as often as I want to or should be. I haven’t been the educator I hope to be in some ways. I’ve been indulging more than is healthy for me, or than helps support my goals. Budgeting has been a little lax, if you will. In short: I’ve been letting myself off the hook for things I want to achieve. We’ve all been there, right? Please, please tell me I’m not alone in feeling like I’m not measuring up—not to other people, but to my own goals and expectations.

And it stops now.

There really is nothing worse than disappointing yourself.

Here are my tips and plans for getting back on track when you know you’ve done less than your best, and you want to fix it:

Stop, and assess the damage.

Don’t be dramatic. Is it really the biggest deal? Or, conversely: are you minimizing something that requires a lot of fixing? Take a second, figure out exactly what you can salvage or what you need to do.

Pout. Get angry. Whatever.

When my “situation” happened, I took time to go off campus, grab a coffee and shed a few tears in the privacy of my car. I let myself have my moment. I thought terrible things about the person who said the upsetting thing, got really down on myself for sucking, etc. And then…

Forgive. Move on.

It’s fine to be mad for a little while; moping for a week, not so much. Forgive yourself. Decide not to beat yourself up for things any more. Let it go. I know, easier said than done. But if you’re looking back at what you did, you’re not focused on what you can do now.

Make a plan.

Make a list of all the ways you’ve let yourself off the hook. Mine was rather long: not eating as well as I could, not hitting Crossfit three times a week, not handling some business at work, not cleaning my apartment for 15 minutes a night. For me, it included purchasing healthy lunch food and some good snacks for the next few weeks at work, forfeiting a night out in order to make Crossfit, re-teaching something and committing to really, really cleaning the apartment.

Don’t let it happen again.

When you’ve experienced the feeling of really, truly disappointing yourself, you don’t want to do it again. Figure out how to stop it from happening again. For me, it’s meal planning, picking set workout days, coming up with some killer lesson plans and resolving to do my 15 minutes of cleaning immediately after dinner. By taking steps to avoid the things that caused the problem in the first place, it’s easier to keep it from happening again.

Start now.

Sometimes, things take a bit to be resolved. But don’t let that hold you back. Find a tiny, manageable step and take it. Skip buying coffee and move $5 to your savings account. Decline lunch out so you’re sure to eat your salad. Apologize. But do something that sets you into forward motion towards your goal. We’ve all heard that thing about eating an elephant one bite at a time. Start bitin’.

Ask for help.

If you need help being accountable, don’t know how to tackle something, etc. it never hurts to have someone else help you stick to your goals. You can’t do it all yourself, sometimes. That’s okay.

Hopefully, you’ll be feeling good as new again soon.

How do you handle being disappointed in yourself?


 

4 Comments

  1. Danielle O'B 13 years ago

    She’s great, isn’t she? And totally right! I’m going out right now to buy some vegetables and then cleaning… RIGHT NOW!

  2. Monet 13 years ago

     I will try eat salad and sandwich for lunch opposed to muffins and chocolate…..I always eat shit at uni!

  3. Mscillavanilla 12 years ago

    I feel like I have some bigger disappointments that are hard to cope with! 🙁 For example, how do you deal with lack of common sense? How do you deal with being too serious/uptight? How about being stuck in classes which are too challenging and consequently feeling stuck in them? I can’t wait for the school year to be over… that’s the only way that last problem will ever be solved! :/

    I liked this article, though. It helps put into perspective things like failing my drivers’ test 🙁 – I’m sad, but I’m trying to move on. 

    Thanks for the article.

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