Disappointments happen to everyone. No one is exempt. The real question is how you move forward when disappointments happen. I don’t have the answer, but I do have some thoughts on the matter.

I remember years ago I was selling a 17-property portfolio of hotels in the Midwest. I was so excited about it that I made a mistake in allowing myself to envision what it will be like closing that transaction and (at the time) the impact the income would make for my family. Well you guessed it, the deal didn’t happen, and I was faced with how to handle the disappointment. I could have rolled around in the muck for days but instead I did the only thing I knew to do. I got on the phone and started going after new business and in doing so, it lessened the pain of the disappointment.

That answer is good for a selling example, but what if the disappointment is about health, life, relationships, financial stress, death, marriage etc. There is a different solution for every situation and in some cases, there is no solution. That said, I believe in all the examples mentioned, you must move forward. There is something about moving forward (as best you can) that emboldens your faith, hope and drive. Hope is a very misunderstood and often mis-underestimated emotion.

This is important… Hope, for the future could be (in my humble opinion) the most cherished, most valuable and most sought-after emotion we can have. See, it is the thing that keeps us going when disappointments come our way. It is what enables us to feel joy, peace and love and allows us to see the world through a lens that offers meaning to our life.

Therefore, we all have disappointments that come our way but the very act, of moving forward, does something inside our soul (hope) that helps restore us. KT