The Code of Disappointment: Beware of Expectations.
It is a little over a week since New Year’s Day. It is a good time to write about disappointment if you have already given up on the resolutions you might have set.
Disappointment is the negative emotion we feel when an expectation has not been met. It has the effect of taking the wind out of our sails, like having the our balloon popped. In that regard it approaches something like grief or sadness in that the energy we are left with is quite depressed. Whereas frustration lets you know that you have the wrong process in getting there, but the right goal or expectation, disappointment is the communication you receive inwardly that tells you that the expectation is incorrect, but the process is not.
For instance, you are home for a Christmas holiday expecting to have deep and loving connections with family members and friends. After a week of hoping, you are left with emptiness, maybe loneliness with little connection. The expectation was that others were going to connect with you, but they didn’t. When disappointment strikes, it wants to give you one very clear message, which is to drop the expectation of what you might get from others, and then engage enthusiastically in the process that will help you connect with others. Disappointment tells you that you need more active process without expectation. When you engage enthusiastically in practices that connect deeply and profoundly with others, good things will eventually happen. If you expect that others will do the engaging work, you are in for some depressed times.
Suppose that you enter a race with the expectation of a fast time or perhaps going for a job interview with the expectation of getting the job. When you don’t get the fast time or get the job, disappointment is likely to strike. You can ask yourself what you were hoping to get out of the fast time or securing the job. What is the fast time going to give you? Whatever you were hoping for is the wrong expectation. What is needed is to remember the positive practices that allow you to be a good runner or the positive abilities that make you great at your work and then do them more. Since disappointment brings a person down, remembering the right process and then being enthusiastic about doing it keeps you up and engaged and brings great long term results.
The tendency with disappointment, such as when a team loses a championship game, is to focus on the things that they did wrong and make lots of changes. What is actually needed is to focus on the positive processes that they did to get to the championship game and keep doing them enthusiastically. The loss doesn’t matter. What matters is what was developed in the athletes and the team along the way. When a team wins a championship, they can experience temporary elation, but then quickly can slip into big disappointment because what they were hoping from the win, like recognition is only ever a temporary thing. The real joy is in what was developed along the way, the creativity, the determination, and the comradery.
Most of us tend to expect more out of leaders than they are capable of giving and when we get the top job in a company, we tend to be a disappointment to ourselves because of our misguided expectations. Leadership works when the the leaders remember and practice the processes that work and are enthusiastic about them.
It is so important to differentiate anger and frustration from disappointment because when you have frustration for not getting to a goal it means that you are stuck in processes that do not give you good results. It is the differentiation of the feeling that is absolutely vital. If you watch a coach yelling at the players for a poor performance out of frustration, it means that he needs to learn some new ways of doing things. If disappointment sets in, it means that positive processes need to be remembered and practiced enthusiastically. Before a recent game I heard coach talk about what the most important ability was in competitive match was to make positive adjustments along the way. What if you as a coach or manager had the understanding of the difference between frustration and disappointment? You could go to the midway break in a game or to the next game and know how to focus. If you feel disappointment, keep doing the positive things that work with more enthusiasm. If you feel frustrated, change what you are doing. It is an amazing formula for success.
What is the wrong expectation? What is the correct process to be done enthusiastically?
Richard Hastings is an expert in change work and dream work and author of Dreams for Peace. He is a 
Dreams For Peace 
This is wonderful, thank you. I face a lot of disappointment. I get closer to my goals but every time it just lets me down and I have to lower expectations even more… Life is just, no matter how hard I work I can’t control most of life.