Why not getting what you want can be good for you (even if it doesn’t feel like it at the time).
We’ve all been there. That make-or-break, do-or-die scenario where we feel it in our bones that this is our perfect moment. Heck, we might even hear Martine McCutcheon tuning up in the background. It could be a job, a project, a pitch to a literary agent, or a relationship…anything that matters to us.
And then somehow, impossibly, it doesn’t go our way.
What can we learn from disappointment, defeat and disaster?
Quite a lot, actually.
1. We can learn resilience. Think of it as resistance training for the ego / soul!
2. We can learn to adapt if faced with unexpected outcomes. When one door closes…basically the door is shut so there’s no sense in waiting there any longer. We have to decide what we do next.
3. We can learn not to associate our contributions – or our self-worth – with external outcomes, especially the negative outcomes. (Eventually we can apply the same approach to our successes as well.) Rudyard Kipling was on to something.
4. We can learn to focus on our inputs – those things we can actually control. That, in turn, may bring discernment so that we make wiser choices at the outset.
5. Sometimes what we want isn’t what we need. A deeper understanding of why you wanted something in the first place brings self-knowledge.
6. We’ll eventually disavow the notion that the world is fair or a meritocracy. It isn’t. Understanding that will inform your expectations.
7. We learn that not only is it not all about us, it never was.
“We are not defined by what happens to us, but by what we do about what happens to us.”*
About me
I'm a freelance writer, serial novelist, and speaker.*
My books live here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/stores/author/B0034ORY08/allbooks
* And even that definition is a limited perspective.
