Dealing with Disappointment

Disappointment can hijack your whole day with one heavy moment, especially when reality doesn’t match the picture you already lived in your head. I’m getting candid about my own struggle with it lately, and then we break down what disappointment actually is: a gap between anticipation and reality that your brain experiences as a real threat to safety, certainty, and control. 

We dig into the psychology of expectations and why disappointment often comes with a unique kind of powerlessness. Then we go deeper into neuroscience and reward prediction error, the dopamine “crash” that explains why a letdown can feel so visceral, like a literal weight in your stomach. If you’ve ever wondered why you can feel wiped out after bad news even when you “know it’s not that big,” this will click. 

From there, we build a practical toolkit for emotional regulation and resilience that doesn’t rely on pretending you don’t care. You’ll learn how to use mindfulness with the 90-second rule to ride out the chemical wave without attaching a story, how to take control of your self-talk with sharper questions that reframe the moment, and how to focus on your locus of control to reclaim agency fast. The goal isn’t to lower your expectations to zero. It’s to keep reaching while getting better at recovering. 

If this helped, subscribe to the Sage Solutions Podcast, share it with someone who’s feeling stuck, and leave a review so more people can find these tools. What’s one disappointment you want to handle differently this week?

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Transcript

Why Disappointment Feels So Heavy

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Welcome to the Sage Solutions Podcast, where we talk about all things personal growth, personal development, and becoming your best self. My name is David Sage, and I am a self-worth and confidence coach with Sage Coaching Solutions. Today's topic is one that I rarely ever hear discussed in the personal development space. And it's one that I personally am not the strongest with. It's kind of weird that it's not talked about more in this industry because it's something that every single person listening to this has felt, and not just felt it, but been enveloped by it. You feel it in your chest, and you might have felt it as recently as this morning. We're talking about that specific, heavy sinking feeling when reality doesn't meet the image or the expectations that you had in your head. Disappointment and how to deal with it. But before we get into it, our goal with this podcast is to share free, helpful tools with you and anyone you know who is looking to improve their life. So take action, subscribe, and share this podcast with them. So the reason that I chose this topic is because if I'm being honest here and uh a little bit vulnerable, this is a topic that I have found myself struggling with, especially more recently. Um there's been a series of events that have put my nervous system in a bit more of a state of dysregulation, and I'm finding that one of the biggest effects of that is that my ability to deal with disappointment has diminished pretty substantially. Now, it's weird because this is one of the only times you're gonna hear me say this, but I am pretty black and white when it comes to disappointment. And this isn't even consciously a choice. This has just been my experience of it. I think in many ways I am well above average when it comes to dealing with disappointment. Because there are many situations that do not bother me the way that they bother other people. There are so many times that things just roll off my back, because my resilience kicks in using core fundamentals like focus on your locus and control, where bad things don't bother me the way that they bother other people. And it's a combination of some of my natural disposition mixed with lots of different things that I've learned. But then there's this other chunk of time, right? And it's reasonably often where I will just get slammed with disappointment, and like it can feel debilitating. I mean, and sometimes it is over dumb things. And there's not like a clear distinction for me as to whether it's going to be the first reaction or the second. That's why I was kind of calling it black and white, and I think I've noticed that the amount of times that I'm having the second reaction has spiked substantially. It sucks. If I'm being honest, it is not helpful in so many different ways. It's not helpful for Hannah to have to deal with. It's just not great. It's a topic that I've, like I said, really not seen in the personal development world. So I'm just finding that this is really affecting me in a negative way. And so I decided I was gonna do some research and try and tackle this. And what better way to do that than to prep a podcast on it and we'll figure it out together. But we should really get into like what disappointment is before I get too far down this tangent. So what is disappointment? Disappointment is the unhappiness, the dissatisfaction or frustration that is felt when hopes, expectations, or desires are not met. It comes from the gap between reality and anticipation. This often involves a sense of loss. It can refer to a person, a thing, or an event that fails to meet expectations. It's the job you didn't get, the relationship that didn't turn out how you hoped, or even the small things. The rain on your wedding day, or the project that fell flat. We often treat disappointment as a negative emotion to be avoided at all costs. But what if I told you that disappointment isn't just a side effect of living? It's actually a sophisticated biological and psychological feedback loop. So today we're going to peel back the layers. What is disappointment really? Why does it feel so much like physical pain? And most importantly, how do we move from being victims of disappointment to using it as a tool for personal development? So let's get back to that definition. In psychology, disappointment is often defined as a form of expectation disconfirmation. That's a fancy way of saying it is the psychological gap between our internal map of how the world should work and the actual territory we find ourselves walking on, also known as reality. Our brains are prediction machines. We are constantly simulating the future to keep us safe and hopefully successful. When the reality doesn't match that simulation, we experience a sort of prediction error. The problem is that disappointment isn't always proportional to that gap. There's multiple problems here. You are not able to see the future. So no matter what, you are going to run into times where your predictions are wrong. And the firmer that you make these predictions, the larger the severity of that disappointment. This is the difference between a guess, a hope, an assumption, an expectation, and an unwavering belief, right? But not always. And this can actually be some of the most frustrating parts of disappointment. It's when you randomly get super disappointed over frankly stupid shit, small predictions, small unoptimized things, things that for some reason you cared way more than they actually mattered. And I'm not just talking about this, I'm saying this from experience. Some of the times that I get disappointed just feel so dumb and random, but the intensity of that emotion just washes over me. And really just stops me in my tracks from whatever I was doing. Obviously, that's not a great place to be. It's really not very helpful, which is why we're working on and tackling it together today. There's also a lot of extra nuance here. Like, it's not always just about the thing that we lost. Sometimes it's about the loss of the future that we had already started living in our minds. Sometimes it's a form of cognitive dissonance because we believed something would happen. And sometimes it's heavily amplified by the disappointment being about not getting a need met. By far, our strongest drives are towards our needs. This is why we've talked a good amount about getting our six human needs met, and these are psychological needs. Just a quick refresher, it's certainty, variety, love, slash connection, significance, growth, and contribution. But we also have physical needs like food, water, shelter, safety, sleep, kind of more the Maslow's hierarchy. And when something gets in the way of these needs, and we were expecting those needs to get met, it can be especially disappointing when they don't. It's also different from regret. Regret is I did something wrong, or I wish I had done, though I guess hypothetically you could also be disappointed at the result. But it's not about what you did wrong, it's more about the the difference, the gap. Disappointment is the world or the situation didn't deliver what I expected. And this makes us feel uniquely powerless. Okay, you might be thinking, all right, fine, I understand it, I get what uh disappointment is, but like why does it hit so hard? Well, if you've ever wondered why disappointment feels so visceral, like a literal weight in your stomach, it's because your neurochemistry is taking a hit. There's a concept in neuroscience called the reward prediction error. And it's been heavily studied. In a landmark study by Wolfram Schultz, published in Science, researchers found that dopamine neurons don't just fire when we get rewarded. They also fire when we anticipate a reward. When you expect to win, your brain gives you a dopamine squirt in advance. But if that reward is withheld, what you actually get is a loud no instead of the satisfying yes that those dopamine neurons are craving. In fact, they actually depress their firing rate and sometimes even go silent. This dopamine dip is why disappointment feels like a crash. Your brain had already spent the currency of success, and now it's in a deficit. In another study by Marcel Zeelenberg in Cognition and Emotion, highlighted that disappointment is often tied to other agency, the feeling that external forces are in control. This lack of agency is why disappointment can lead to passivity if we don't handle it correctly. It's not just sadness, it's a signal that your environment isn't responding the way you want it to. The happiness expert Mo Godot talks about this in his book about happiness called Solve for Happy. He talks about lots of different things in the book. But one of the major points that he tries to get across is basically that disappointment is the number one way that we are robbed of happiness. Just to be clear, not the only way, but the most pervasive. He even has a happiness equation that boils down to happiness is greater than or equal to your perception of the events in your life. Notice he said perception, minus your expectations of how life should be. A big part of that equation sounds a lot like the definitions that we explored of disappointment. I also want to touch on the flip side. Disappointment is the negative version of this. When reality goes differently than your expectations in a positive manner, we generally aren't disappointed. In fact, we're pleasantly surprised. We're usually excited, elated. When the dopamine spike is bigger than we were expecting, it feels great. But that's not really what we're talking about here, is it? I also want to make a note that he said the expectations, because when you expect something, there's a strength in the wording there that makes a big difference. And we talked a lot about this in our episode on unwrapping expectations that we aired around the holidays. The Dalai Lama said that comparison is the thief of joy. Now we take that to mean comparing yourself to others. But comparison can be comparing any two things, including comparing reality to your expectations. With this broader definition of comparison, it does seem to be the most major thief of joy. Okay, this is all great, but what do we do with it? And I'm wondering that myself. Like I said, I have been struggling with this more recently. I'm finding more and more often that I'm falling into a place of disappointment. Sometimes over things that really don't deserve for me to be that disappointed over them, if I'm just being honest. So this next section is what I've really been working on. And guess what? Just like everything else, this skill of dealing with disappointment is built like a muscle. So how do we develop this muscle? How do we take back that silent dopamine firing and turn it back into momentum? It isn't about lowering your expectations to zero. That's just a way to live a smaller life. Most of the time that people default to pessimism, it's because they don't like dealing with disappointment. So they figure if they go to the opposite extreme and set their expectations very negatively and very low, they'll never have to deal with disappointment. Well, there might be some truth to that, but unfortunately, that's one of the few benefits that it gives. We've already covered how pragmatic optimism is a much better approach for daily life. But just like everything, there are trade-offs. This does mean that we're gonna have to build the muscle of dealing with disappointment. So instead of just setting super low expectations, what we need to do is take control of our conscious perspective of reality and reframe the data. When the disappointment hits, your body is flooded with chemicals. Neuroanatomist Jill Bolt Taylor suggests that the chemical surge of an emotion generally lasts about an average of ninety seconds. If you can sit with and be present with that sinking feeling for 90 seconds, and here's the really important part, without building a story around it. Yes, our brains are meaning-making machines. We think in narratives, we tell ourselves stories. So what I'm really advocating for here is taking the mindful approach, remembering that you are the consciousness experiencing your life. You are just experiencing this feeling of disappointment. And by returning to this perspective of being the consciousness, you have removed yourself from it. You've created the gap. But you can still allow yourself to experience it instead of suppressing it. But you have awareness surrounding it now. And we're going to use our mindful conscious awareness to let ourselves feel it without telling ourselves stories about it. If we start to tell ourselves a story about it, we catch that as a thought, a thought that we don't have to accept. Just a story, a story that we don't have to live by. Instead, we're going to be present with and let ourselves feel and experience this emotion for about 90 seconds. Once again, if you can sit with this sinking feeling for about 90 seconds without building a story around it, the physical sting will start to fade. The neurochemicals will start to dissipate and it will get easier from there. But if you suppress it, they stay around in the background. This is why mindfulness is so powerful when it comes to emotional regulation. Then what do we do from there? It's about how we use our tools, not just that we know they exist. A hammer that sits in the garage and is never used is not really any more useful than not having a hammer. If your perspective of reality is how you look at reality, your focus is what you're looking at. There is constantly reality going on all around you. There's reality happening in China, there's reality happening in Russia, there's reality happening in Australia, but you're not paying attention to all of that reality at any given time. We only have so much attention, and your focus is the part of reality that you're looking at. Your perspective is the frames and the filters and the angle at which you are looking at it. By taking control of our conscious perspective of reality, we move into this second strategy that comes after the 90-second rule. You can ask yourself questions like, does this matter in the grand scheme of things? Is this actually important? If something terrible happened, would I still care about this? Will I still care about this in a day? In a week, in a month, in a year? Oftentimes these questions provide a perspective that we lack in the moment. Ask yourself, is this a no or a not yet? Disappointment isn't just a feeling. It's also information. It tells you something. It tells you that your current strategy or your current timing might be off. Top performers in any field don't see disappointment as a dead end. They usually see it as a recalibration point. As the feeling starts to subside, we reframe in a growth mindset. We figure out how we can learn. We ask ourselves questions, because these questions shift our focus. This is one of the ways that taking control of your self-talk, especially in the form of questions, can change both your perspective and your focus. Since Zeelenberg showed us that disappointment is linked to the feeling of powerlessness, this means that one of the best solutions is to find a small thing that you can control. Focus on your locus. You can't control everything in your world. You have to accept that. And the thing that you're feeling disappointment over is likely something that you can't control anymore, even if you could have proactively. And I think this is where I tend to struggle the most. It's when I feel that it was within my locus of control. I think it's when I also feel regret that it hits the worst, but it's definitely not the only time. By letting go of the things that you don't currently have any control over, and focusing on the things that you do in this state of disappointment, like repair or mitigating damage or making the most of the situation, or even moving on and doing something else helpful, fun, productive, whatever it is. You take back your agency and stop that feeling of powerlessness. So find the one small thing that you can immediately control. If you didn't get the job, you can't control the hiring manager, but you can control the quality of your next 20 minutes, whether that's going for a walk or doing something else that makes you feel like you've accomplished something, updating a bullet point on your resume, thinking through better ways to answer a question, or simply just moving on and making a cup of tea, or doing something that you enjoy. Reclaiming your agency kills the paralysis of disappointment. So how do we bring this all together? First, we remember that disappointment isn't just a feeling. It can actually teach us things that help us in the future. If you're feeling disappointed, that means you cared. And if you cared, there's probably a reason why you cared. This can help us develop our self-awareness. This can help us get clearer on our drives and motivations, on our values, needs, on the things we care about. And it can also help us build better plans for the future. But when it comes to actually dealing with disappointment in the moment, follow these three steps. First, harness your awareness. You are the consciousness that is experiencing your life and this disappointment. Bring yourself to the present and bring your awareness to this disappointment. Don't suppress it, find the gap and observe it. Let yourself feel it, but maintain your awareness. And while you're letting yourself feel this, give yourself a time limit. Give yourself ninety seconds to just be present with and feel the feeling of disappointment. But use your awareness to prevent yourself from attaching meaning to it when you're in this heightened emotional state. If you can do this, if you can build this muscle over time, you will find that the neurochemistry that is creating this disappointment will dissipate after you've given it that 90 seconds because you haven't suppressed it, you've been present with it, and you haven't attached meaning. The second step is going to be taking control of your self-talk. I like to picture in movies when somebody goes into the principal's office and hijacks the microphone. You get to do that with your self-talk. You can make your brain say whatever you want on the inside. So use it. Ask yourself questions and take control of your perspective of reality. Reframe the situation in a much more helpful way. To either learn from it or to get through it. And then third, take control of your focus and focus on your locus of control. Stop worrying about the things that you can't do anything about and direct your focus, your awareness to something that you can. Give yourself power, and you will stop feeling so powerless. Use mindfulness and the 90 second rule. Follow it up with self-talk. Utilize your self-talk to ask helpful questions. Take control of your conscious perspective of reality, and reframe the situation in a more helpful way. And then, of course, third, focus on your locus of control and take back your agency so you don't feel so powerless. As we wrap up today's episode, I want to leave you with a thought that I find myself returning to whenever my own expectations get shattered. It's a quote from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who knew more about navigating disappointment than just about anyone who ever lived. He said we must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope. The finite part is the key. The job, the project, the specific outcome, those are finite. They have a beginning and an end, but your capacity to try again, your hope for the future, that can be infinite. Disappointment is simply the price of admission for a life of meaning. If you aren't being disappointed, you aren't reaching. You aren't testing the boundaries of what's possible. So next time you feel that heavy drop in your chest, take a breath, acknowledge it, and give yourself the time you need. Remember that your brain is just recalculating, and you control your perspective, and then find your agency, hold on to that infinite hope, and take the next small step. I'm going to be practicing this in my own life, and I hope you will too. And remember, you are enough, and you deserve to fill up your inner cup with happiness, true confidence, and resilience. Thank you for listening to the Sage Solutions podcast. Your time is valuable, and I'm so glad you choose to learn and grow here with me. If you haven't already, don't forget to subscribe so you don't miss out on more Sage advice. One last thing. The legal language. This podcast is for educational and informational purposes only. No coaching client relationship is formed. It is not intended as a substitute for the personalized advice of a physician, professional coach, psychotherapist, or other qualified professional.