When you find out something you really wanted isn’t going to come through, how do you deal? Do you crawl into bed and go to sleep? Do you eat until you can’t fit another morsel into your belly? Do you pour yourself a second, third, fourth glass of wine? Do let the outcome of this singular event define an entire area of your life?
What’s more important than how we react physically is how we react emotionally. Any type of rejection can elicit huge reactions based on our past experiences. Hurt in the present can dredge up related and unrelated hurt from the past in the blink of an eye.
It’s important to remember the many circumstances, people, opinions and biases that make up these seemingly significant events. It’s impossible to know exactly why something turned out the way it did, who said what to whom, and when, and how they interpreted it. Unless you are inside the head of the decision-maker, you have no way of knowing. And that may not be for us to know. We only need to know that it had nothing to do with us personally.
Do what you can to avoid making the outcome of this one thing a referendum on all your efforts in this area of your life. So often, we let a single event define us. Because we didn’t get that thing we’re not good enough, we were silly to even try, and we might as well give up now before we further humiliate ourselves.
To ensure you can still get out of bed in the morning, remember your successes. Pinpoint areas in your life where you’ve achieved. Where in this area of your life have you really showed up? When have you given your best? When did you throw caution to the wind and resolve to just have fun, no matter the outcome? Search for evidence that your light is shining and people are taking notice. And in the immortal words of Winston Churchill, “Never, never, never give up.”
