Setbacks and disappointments

It's easy to stay positive when things are going well in your life. The real challenge to positive thinking comes when problems, setbacks and disappointments occur. Unexpected financial difficulties or health problems, other people blocking you or withdrawing their support, for example, can easily set you back.

Being turned down for a place on a course, a TV talent show, a job, flat or house are all sources of disappointment. So are seeing your team lose, bad weather upsetting your plans, failing an exam, or a meeting at work or a social occasion not going as well as you'd planned.

Even if you're trying to forget about it, a disappointment can stay hovering in the back of your mind like a grey cloud. This is a perfectly natural response to the hurt and sadness that occurs when your expectations or hopes fail to materialize.

Whenever a situation leaves you feeling disappointed, you need to sit with it; to take time to acknowledge and accept that what has happened has happened and nothing can change that. It's not wrong to feel disappointment.

‘When we push away part of us that feels that way, it creates a fragmented self with an acceptable me and unacceptable me.’

Tina Gilbertson

If you're upset or disappointed about something, it's not because you're not positive enough. It's because you're human. If you take an ‘acceptance and commitment’ approach (as described in Chapter 2) then you can acknowledge and accept you feel like you do, learn from your disappointment and move on.

‘Crying has the power to unify our thoughts, feelings and physical body in a way that is cathartic and automatically grounds us in the present.’

Rachel Kelly

It's not always easy to move on though. Negative thinking, dwelling on what failed to materialize – the place on the course, for example, or the sale that didn't go through or the dress that didn't fit – can keep you stuck and unable to move past the disappointment.

But all the time you allow yourself to brood on what did or didn't happen, you make it difficult to move forward, to think logically and clearly – to think positively.

Sports fans and people who take part in a sport know that whenever they or their team lose they can't stay disappointed for long. They know that staying disappointed gets them nowhere. They let go of negative thinking and instead move on to think about the next game or race and the opportunities it will present.

In order to leave disappointment behind, you must do the same; make a decision that you are going to move on. It won't happen automatically; you have to actively look for something positive about the situation.

In his 2005 Stanford University graduation address, for example, Steve Jobs explained what happened after he was fired from Apple.

I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life. During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple.

Like Steve Jobs, you can always draw out something good from a disappointment.

When was the last time that you were disappointed? What did you learn? Did you even stop to reflect on this? Positive thinkers see disappointment as a signal that they need to adjust their expectations and hopes; to rethink their plans so that they can get back on course to achieve what it is that they want to achieve.

For example, supposing you had put a lot of time and effort into studying and revising for an exam. You expected to pass with flying colours. But you failed; you fell short of your expectations. What you originally thought you needed to do – the topics you revised, the time and effort and level of understanding – you now know wasn't enough.

Disappointment shows you that you may need to increase your resources or change your approach to achieve the results you want. Your disappointment is actually helping you to move towards your goal, not away from it.

Your experience has resulted in learning something – whether about yourself, another person, the situation or even the world – and responding accordingly. Learning from failure involves reflecting on what happened, identifying what went wrong and working out what needs to change in order to avoid and prevent similar disappointments and setbacks in the future.

Be aware that whenever you are able to adapt, you create the possibility of happiness and success that doesn't depend on perfect conditions.

For example, there was much criticism about lack of black nominees and winners at the 2016 BRITs ceremony. But funk singer songwriter George Clinton had a different perspective on the controversy. ‘It's always been that way, but it only makes you have to work harder and get better. That's what it takes to become great – adversity. Things are always changing for the better. Fault is easy to find – but finding a reason to keep on pushing is the hardest thing. And when I can find that reason, I'm satisfied.’

You might need to adjust your expectations but that doesn't always mean that you have to lower your expectations. A few years ago I had an idea for a magazine article on the subject of how to be resilient. I pitched it to several editors but none of them was interested. Once I'd got over my disappointment, I decided that even though magazine editors weren't interested in my idea, book editors might be. Together with my friend Sue, I approached publishers and we were commissioned to write our first book! (Bounce. Use the power of resilience to live the life you want.)

Any person who has succeeded or achieved something has faced some disappointments. They learn from their disappointments and move forward – sometimes in a different direction. Active problem-solving allows you to gain a feeling of control and think positively.

Focus on thinking about what can be done rather than what can't be done, and be open to new ideas and new ways of doing things. Rather than thinking, ‘I should/shouldn't have …’ try saying ‘It might help to …’ or ‘I could …’ or ‘now I’m going to …’

Release yourself from your expectation of how things should be. It's too easy to remain disappointed if you're still attached to how things ‘should’ have been. These expectations are disempowering because, as long as you are trapped in them, they are preventing you from acting constructively on your situation. Dealing with disappointment requires you to adjust or let go of your expectations.

Continue to have goals. Let them drive you forward. As Friedrich Nietzsche said, ‘What doesn't kill us makes us stronger.’ And that's positive thinking!

Trauma and tragedy

You can always find something positive in a disappointment or setback, but what if a major trauma or tragedy happens?

When you're going through the kind of event that devastates your life, that overwhelms you with shock and grief, the last thing you can think about is being positive.

It may seem an affront to suggest thinking positively when tragedy strikes but it can help you to cope with the pain you are facing. The two stories that follow show how two individual people have found positive aspects to trauma and tragedy.

One day in June 2007, Garry Methven finished work and went to the pub to drink, as he did every day. Returning home a few hours later, he was rushing to catch the last tube train home and fell down the escalators. ‘I was drunk, so I must have tripped and fallen, and I ended up in a heap on the floor at the bottom.’ Garry sustained a serious brain injury.

I went to rehab, which probably helped, but I couldn't talk properly; I just couldn't find the right words. It's called aphasia. I couldn't go back to work. I had epileptic fits every day. They were terrible, violent – I'd be on the floor, couldn't move my body, couldn't talk, and I would be depressed for ages afterwards.

Finally I found a charity called Headway East London, which helps people with brain injuries. At first, I would go to the centre and just sit in the corner and not talk to anybody; but then I met people who were in a similar predicament, and who understood what I was going through.

Although it was a very bad accident, it turned out also to be quite a good accident. I used to be a big drinker; I would wake up in the morning and have vodka before work, then a few pints at lunch in the pub, and then more after work.

But epilepsy and alcohol don't mix, so I had to give up after my accident. In fact, I'd probably be in more trouble now if it hadn't happened. I was really selfish before, and I used to cheat on everyone. I'm a lot kinder now that I'm sober.

I live on my own in sheltered housing in London, and I'm much happier now. I haven't had a fit for several months, and although I still have aphasia, it's not as bad as it used to be. I've got a garden, so I'm often out and about, thinking about what I can plant. I don't think about my future, I focus on each day as I live it.

I do think about my daughter's future. She's at university – she's amazingly intelligent. She's such a blessing. I hope she will have a good and happy life. That's the most important thing for me now.

*************

In 2008, Andrew Foster's brother Christopher shot dead his wife Jill and their 15-year-old daughter Kirstie before setting fire to their Shropshire home and killing himself. Andrew set up a trust fund in his niece's name, for Riding for the Disabled. ‘We’re trying to get something good out of this', he told reporters.

Finding something positive doesn't mean denying how tragic and devastating the situation is, but it can help prevent you from being overwhelmed by the awfulness of it.

Just as with a disappointment, with trauma, tragedy and grief, you will need to give yourself time to acknowledge and accept that what has happened has happened. Sadness and disappointment, shock and grief are intended to slow you down and allow you to reflect and take in what has happened; to realize that there's no turning back; nothing and no one can change what has happened.

Then, at some point, when you can, focusing on who has been helpful and supportive and what has been a blessing can begin to steer your mind in a positive direction.

Look for the positive

‘If you are going through hell, keep going.’

Winston Churchill

Even during the worst of times, there can be something to be thankful for.

In Chapter 5 you will have read about identifying and reflecting on two or three positive things that happened in your day.

If you can get into the habit of doing this in your normal daily life, you will have established those neural pathways that will serve you well when you are faced with really tough times and serious adversity.

In every situation, there is something positive and good. Most of the time it's not obvious. You have to look, and often you have to look hard. But you can help yourself to cope better in difficult times by training yourself to look for the positive in your everyday life.

Nat cared for his Mum who was ill for 18 months before she died. He says:

I could only see all the bad things – the distress and pain Mum was in, how caring for her had narrowed my life and that my brother did very little to help. I just went with it, it didn't even occur to me that there might be some positive aspects to the situation.

A friend told me about the concept of identifying and reflecting two or three positive things at the end of each day. I put a note next to the bathroom mirror to remind me. It didn't take long to get into the habit.

Now, when I'm faced with a difficult or challenging situation, I think to myself, ‘What's good about this?’ No matter how bad the situation might seem, it's quite easy for me to find some good things. It doesn't change what's happened but it does help me not to be overwhelmed by it.

Identifying the good things that have happened every day is what people who pray do each evening when they thank God for the blessings of the day. You don't have to be religious to do this. You just need to make it something you do on a regular basis and know that it can help you feel good at the end of each day and prepare you to cope in difficult, challenging times.

Bullying and abuse

However, finding the positive in adversity doesn't mean you should put up with a bad, risky or harmful situation just because you can find some positive aspects to it.

If you're in a relationship or a friendship where you are becoming more and more unhappy and miserable, if you're being bullied or even abused by a colleague, family member or neighbour, you mustn't use positive thinking as an excuse to stay in a bad situation.

You may, for example, be staying in an abusive relationship because you reason that despite the awfulness of it, it's the right thing to do for the children; they will be better off coming from an intact family than from a divorced one and at least you have two incomes coming in. Or, maybe you've convinced yourself that the positive aspect is that your partner isn't bad all the time – most of the time he or she is good fun and you get on well.

This is not positive thinking. It's delusional thinking. Positive thinking does not mean ignoring real difficulties. If someone is persistently badgering, dominating or intimidating you, someone is continually coercing and threatening you, criticizing or humiliating you, tyrannizing you or making abusive remarks and insulting you, you must do something. This person will not go away!

Shift your perspective; use positive thinking to think about the good things that can happen if you do what you know to be the right thing; and that is to get out of the relationship.

See leaving a bully or abusive person as a goal. An urgent goal.

Criticism

We've all heard of ‘constructive’ criticism but if you're like most people, you rarely respond positively to even the most well-meant of criticisms. At best, we interpret a criticism as a negative judgement on our thoughts and behaviour and at worst, we receive criticism as a personal attack.

Of course, it doesn't feel great to be told you're not doing, looking, talking or behaving as someone else thinks you should. Criticism can cause you stress and upset and trigger the sort of negative thinking that erodes your self-esteem and confidence.

In some cases, the criticism isn't fair and has more to do with the other person's issues and expectations. It's not a criticism, it's verbal abuse – insulting, offensive and entirely damaging. But in other cases, the criticism is warranted; it's something you may need to consider and act on.

How can you tell the difference between criticism and verbal abuse? Verbal abuse fails to provide any pointers as to what it is that you can improve on. As in this example: ‘You’re a f^***ing idiot – a waste of time and space – you never get things right.' Criticism, on the other hand, describes behaviour that can be improved on. For example, ‘This is not what I asked you to do. You haven't done it in the right way.’

If it's a genuine criticism, you can learn from it. Take the case of Luke, who is a successful TV actor. Luke describes a sharp lesson that he learnt early on in his career, in managing criticism:

I remember when, in my late teens, before I went on to drama school, I was in a local theatre group. This one time, the director was giving me feedback after a scene in front of the whole group. But she couldn't get through a single sentence without me making excuses and contradicting her.

After a few minutes of this, someone spoke up and said, ‘Stop talking. You’re embarrassing yourself.' It was harsh, but I realized it needed saying and that instead of being defensive, I needed to take on board the director's feedback.

Criticism isn't always delivered gently. A lot of the feedback we receive is not asked for and doesn't come from teachers. Or maybe all of it does. Maybe there's something to learn from every criticism. We just need to be willing to listen, decide if there's any truth in it and then act on it.

Typically, if you're like most people, you see praise as good and criticism as bad. There is, though, a different way of seeing criticism; you can see things in less black and white terms and recognize that although being on the receiving end of criticism isn't easy, it's often a fair reflection of how another person sees you at that point.

Forgiving

Has someone else been the cause of your disappointment, setback or trauma? Maybe it was a parent who let you down when you were young, a partner who was unfaithful? Perhaps it was a friend or colleague who failed you in some way? Whoever and whatever it was, after your initial disappointment, shock or anger has passed, you're presented with a new challenge: do you forgive the person?

Forgiveness means letting go of the resentment, frustration or anger that you feel as a result of someone else's actions. It involves no longer wanting punishment, revenge or compensation. It means recognizing that you have already been hurt once, so you don't need to let the offence, the hurt and pain keep hurting and distressing you by holding on to it.

All the time you feel unable to forgive, you're holding on to something that happened days, weeks, months or even years ago. But you deserve to be free of this negativity! Forgiveness is, first and foremost, for your benefit, not the person who hurt or offended you. Forgiveness is for your peace of mind.

If you forgive someone, you don't change the past, you change the future. Not forgiving is like deliberately keeping a wound open – it remains raw and it festers. On the other hand, when you forgive, you allow yourself to heal.

So if it's something you do for yourself and if it can help you heal, why is it so hard to forgive? It's hard because you're angry, confused, feel victimized or filled with thoughts of retribution or revenge. It can also be hard to forgive because you simply don't know how to resolve the situation.

If you've now reached a point where you want to put your own or someone else's actions behind you and move on with your life, there are a number of steps you can take.

Firstly, it really helps to accept what has happened and how it affected you. No doubt the other person is responsible for their actions and you wish that what they did had never happened. But you can't change what has already happened. It is what it is.

‘Give up on all hope of a better past.’

Matt Child

Think positively: instead of thinking about how you can get back at the other person, think about what you learned from the experience. What would you do differently to avoid becoming involved in a similar situation? Ask yourself ‘What strengths can I develop from this?’

Identify any positive aspects. Maybe other people were helpful and supportive when this person betrayed you, hurt or offended you. Maybe, if you've now cut this person from your life, you realize how much better off you are without them.

Change the story you replay to yourself and to other people. Each time you go back over what happened, you access negative thoughts and images. Change your story to one that tells of your decision to forgive; to accept and learn from what happened, to identify any positive aspects and move on. Look to the future; think of creating new, good memories to replace old, bad ones.

Forgiveness doesn't mean you shouldn't have any more feelings about the situation. It doesn't mean you are excusing the other person's actions; it doesn't mean there is nothing further to work out in the relationship or that everything is OK now.

By forgiving, you are accepting what happened and finding a way to live in a state of resolution with it. It may happen quite quickly or it may be a gradual process.

You might find it helpful to write an honest, emotional letter telling the other person how hurt and angry you are. Then tear it up and burn it. As you watch the smoke rise, imagine it carrying your hurt and disappointment into the air; let it go.

Forgiveness puts the final seal on what happened that hurt you. You will still remember what happened, but you will no longer be bound by it.

Guilt and regret

Although feelings of guilt or shame can be distressing, remember that, like all emotions, guilt has a positive intent; to prompt you to put right a decision or action by you that has hurt or offended someone else. If, for example, you felt guilty about having pulled out of a friend's special occasion, then your guilt can prompt you to make it up to her in some way.

If you never felt remorse or guilt, how could you ever care about how your actions could affect others? Guilt only becomes a negative, harmful emotion when you allow it to overwhelm you with shame or self-loathing. Or if you allow it to paralyse you so that you fail to take positive action.

Parenthood, for example, seems to bring a lot of guilty feelings with it. You can feel guilty when you've been irritated and impatient with your children, or when you don't spend as much time with them as you think you should, if you miss a school performance or a meeting with their teacher and so on.

Guilt is not the sole preserve of parents though – guilt can occur as a result of a wide range of events. Perhaps you lost or broke something belonging to a friend or family member? Maybe you let someone down, said something derogatory or unkind.

Whatever it is, your perception of the events is that you think you did wrong and now you feel like crap! And the more you replay events over in your mind, the worse you seem to make them. It's like a game of Chinese whispers going on in your head: the more you replay it, the more distorted it becomes.

But hanging on to guilt serves no purpose. You have to forgive yourself. You can do that in the same way as you forgive someone else.

First, acknowledge, without exaggerating or minimizing what happened, the extent to which you were responsible. There may have been mitigating circumstances; you may have had no option but to do what you did; you may have been unable to get time off work to get to your child's school play; you may have been stressed when you made a critical remark; it may have been a complete accident that you broke something belonging to someone else.

You must, though, take responsibility for what you did. Don't seek to place blame elsewhere. Avoid, too, justifying what you did or pointing out the parts of the situation that you were not responsible for. Simply acknowledge the other person's pain without minimizing it, without excuses and without revisiting details of the situation.

On the other hand, although there may have been something you could have done differently, don't overestimate your responsibility. Don't exaggerate and dramatize and make it all about you!

Say sorry. A genuine apology can go a long way. Say what, specifically, you're sorry for. Are you sorry simply for not turning up or are you sorry that your friend felt so let down? Or is it both?

Now for the positive thinking: accept you did something wrong, but move on. What can you do or are you prepared to do, if anything, to make up for your actions?

If you are going to do something, make amends as soon as possible. Whatever it is, keep it in proportion to the wrongdoing. Missed your child's school play? Rather than make up for it by buying them a new computer game, spend time doing something nice together. And if you broke something belonging to someone else, get it fixed or replace it as soon as possible. Make it a priority.

Have hope that the other person will recognize your attempt to make amends but also be prepared for the fact that they might not be ready to do that just yet. If you've done what you can, accept that the ball is now in their court.

In a nutshell

• Let go of expectations of how things ‘should’ be. It's too easy to remain disappointed if you're still attached to how things ‘should’ have been.
• Disappointment is actually helping you to move towards your goal, not away from it. You can learn from disappointments and move forward – sometimes in a different direction.
• Finding something positive in adversity doesn't mean denying how tragic and devastating the situation is, but it can help prevent you from being overwhelmed by the awfulness of it.
• Never put up with a bad, risky or harmful situation just because you can find some positive aspects to it.
• Identify the good things that can happen if you remove yourself from a potentially dangerous situation. By removing yourself, you put yourself in a positive position: one of being in control.
• Don't think that you can't be courageous because you don't feel courageous. Courage often requires that you act ‘as if’ you're confident, whatever you actually feel. It's feeling the fear and doing it anyway.
• Maybe there's something to learn from every criticism. Be willing to listen, decide if there's any truth in the criticism and act accordingly.
• Forgiveness means letting go of the resentment, frustration or anger that you feel as a result of someone else's actions. If you forgive someone, you don't change the past, you change the future.
• Hanging on to guilt serves no purpose. Accept you did something wrong, but move on. What can you do or are you prepared to do to make up for your actions?
• Regret arises from thinking and feeling that at some point in the past, you made a ‘wrong’ decision and that you have lost out.
• Acknowledge what did or didn't happen, accept that you can't change it and instead turn your thoughts to how to do things differently from now on.