How Your Inability to Disappoint Leaves You Perpetually Disappointed

You are a leader of followers, because those people will never be disappointed by you. No matter how you show up, they’ll continue to love, admire and adore you (and even when they don’t, it’s easy enough for you to dismiss how they feel).

You keep your expectations of people, events and yourself low. You actively seek out the evidence people are too good to be true, and even when that isn’t the case, you find ways to make it so, because it’s safer than the disappointment you would have to face if you were to allow your hopes to be raised.

The less you allow yourself to be immersed in this feeling, the more foreign it becomes, and the more painful your exposure to it gets. Whenever you do get stung by reality, it further heightens your sensitivity and reinforces your inability to be with this simple facet of being alive.

Over time, your life is shaped by your aversion. Your actions are such that you never run the risk of disappointing other people. You never step out far enough to really be a disappointment — instead, life is about calculated risks. Risks you can be assured will permit a minimal level of disappointment; nothing beyond your threshold (which is continually shrinking, contrary to what you may be telling yourself).

A life based on avoiding being disappointed and being a disappointment does not look so bad on the outside. You take more than enough action and say yes to more than enough things to ensure the people you surround yourself will be awed by your work and your contributions. You surround yourself with other people that have expectations that match your own, never asking more from life or themselves than they are sure they will be provided.

You excel in jobs you know, on some level, are beneath you. You create goals, because you read it might be a way out of what you feel on some level, but those goals fall into the same pattern, and you approach them with the same lack of enthusiastic commitment that could possibly lead you down the path of disappointing yourself.

The only one having to bear the cost of this is yourself, and the cost is a life lived in perpetual disappointment. The great irony of all of this is, in order to save yourself and others from the feeling of being disappointed, you actually created ongoing, ever-present, low-level disappointment.

Life as a whole feels disappointing for you. You’re disappointed by what you have created. You’re disappointed by other people. You’re disappointed life never seems to live up to your expectations, no matter how low you work to set them.

The only real way out is to give up caring altogether, which would be a victory of sorts, but in the most pyrrhic way possible.

The way out lies through your disappointment.

The cool thing is if you’re willing to get comfortable and a little cozier with the feeling of being disappointed and being a disappointment, there is a world of excitement, inspiration and hope available to you. You fear disappointment because it’s the dark side of what you naturally bring into the world. If you’re the person I’m describing, your birthright and natural gift is to leave people with an experience of inspiration and being inspired, no matter what they are up to.

Here are some practices to start moving you towards this deeper truth:

The most inspiring people often leave us the most disappointed. From the highs naturally come the lows.

• In order for you to reclaim the inspiration you are, you must first stop avoiding disappointment. Notice all of the ways you avoid being disappointed or being a disappointment. Notice all of the strategies you have in place to ensure you don’t have to be confronted or confront others with this feeling. The more strategies you can uncover and see, the more power you have over your ability to shift.
• Practice making declarations and goals that excite and inspire people, at the risk of leaving you or others disappointed when you don’t achieve them. Set expectations high, and practice actually fulfilling on those expectations. When you don’t meet them (which will naturally be the case if you’re living a big life), practice simply sitting with the disappointment this creates. Don’t fix it — sit in it. Experience it.

Practice catching yourself doing any of the following, and stopping yourself:

• Qualifying and disclaiming (reducing expectations before you’ve even started)
• Explaining why things turned out the way they did (there’s a time and place for it. For now, you are using this as a way of softening the sting of disappointment)
• Lowering your expectations before you’ve started.

When you catch yourself doing any of the above, plug yourself in to the inspiration and hope that exists on the other side.

Whenever you’re avoiding disappointment, there is a silent hope you are holding onto the other side of the door. Get connected to that hope. Give yourself permission to live a life of hope and inspiration. Even if it means you may experience more disappointment.