Dealing with disappointment and discouragement

Can you recall what one of your greatest disappointments was? Is the picture emblazoned in your memory? Or perhaps the rush of emotions comes flooding in when you think about it. If we are honest, certain disappointments have changed the trajectory of our lives.

“Discouragement shows up in multiple ways. It can set in because of what others say or what they don’t say, what they do or don’t do. It can hit as hard when we’re winning as when we’re losing. But regardless of how or when it arrives, discouragement always displaces hope and leaves you feeling something like this: It’s not working, so what’s the point? Have you ever felt this way at work? at school? at the gym? in church? in friendships? in a conversation with someone you love?”

How I best describe disappointment is this: when the experience doesn’t live up to the expectation. A different way of saying it: disappointment is the gap between what I expect and what I experience. Disappointment can always be sourced back to a person or group of people. We are wired for connection and that’s why it hurts so much when that connection is severed or damaged. Disappointed expectations, when full-grown, give birth to prolonged discouragement. If you allow this discouragement to run rampant in your life, you’ll lose your hope. What’s draining is giving your all and seeming to get nothing in return. 

For many, at some point in their lives they mustered up the courage to open up to someone about their disappointments and chances are they were met with remarks that discounted their feelings, their experience, and their emotions. They were made to feel that perhaps they were wrong to be disappointed by what they had shared. So, what did they do? Locked it up and vowed to keep it to themselves because they now believed the lie that no one actually cares and accepted it as truth.

Undealt with disappointment can cause a lot of chaotic damage in your mind. It’s ok to acknowledge to yourself that you’re disappointed, that it is real. Don’t suppress it. Disappointment is not healthy – it’s toxic.

“Some choose to pretend it doesn’t exist. When faced with a disappointment, they deny its effects and pretend everything is fine. But nobody is immune to discouragement. And if all you do is hide the symptoms, your hope still withers. It just does so silently. Ignoring the gap won’t produce transformation. It will only postpone the reality of frustration, allowing it to pick up momentum. Then when the frustration finally hits—and it will—it will be devastating because it wasn’t dealt with.”

“Others, instead of ignoring the gap, give up in the gap. Sick of being let down, they simply lower their expectations to the level of their experience. And then they start to live by mantras like “Well, I’ll hope for the best, but I expect the worst.” Something goes wrong, and their auto reply is “Story of my life.” 

It’s not wrong to need people. But some of our biggest disappointments in life are the result of expectations we have of others that they can’t ever possibly meet. “We can’t expect any other person to be our soul oxygen. People don’t mind doing CPR on a crisis victim, but no person is equipped to be the constant lifeline to another. We must respect ourselves enough to break the pattern of placing unrealistic expectations on others. After all, people will not respect us more than we respect ourselves.”

Yet, disappointment & discouragement don’t have to be a dead end. Every disappointment will give birth to multiple opportunities if you look for them. Properly navigated, it can become a doorway to discovering the comfort and courage that you never knew possible or existed but it will involve taking the risk and deciding that it’s worth trusting again. I can say from personal experience that it is possible to hope and love again!

“Maybe the gap between what you expected in this season of your life and what you’re experiencing is a space that seems too wide to cross. Even with help. I’d like to offer some encouragement to you that I speak over myself many times: You’re doing better than you think you are. It’s less about you than you think it is. You matter more than you think you do. More than you could ever know. It’s working. It’s not in vain. Don’t stop.”