Sometimes things in life don’t work out the way we’d like or expect them to. I’ve had one of these experiences recently and it led to me feeling disappointed. I wont go into what happened here, but will discuss what I learned from the experience.
Disappointment is a mix of emotions including sadness, rejection, frustration and anger. Feeling let down. Feeling like you have failed. None of these emotions or feelings are positive.
But if you take some time to think about it, there is a positive side to disappointment. Here are some positives:
Learning – You can learn a lot from the experience that caused you to feel disappointed. You can use this learning to help you navigate future similar events.
Stepping stone to future success – Anyone who is successful has often failed (and no doubt felt disappointment at the same time). But they have used past failures and disappointments as a stepping stone to future success.
Thing happen for a reason – I’m a big believer that things happen for a reason. Even if you don’t understand it at the time. Opportunities that I have failed to get in the past have nearly always turned out with me feeling grateful that I didn’t succeed in the first place.
An opportunity to take time out, reflect and re-plan – Feelings of disappointment take you out of your normal logical cognitive functioning. This can be an opportunity to take time out, reflect on choices made and change future plans.
Motivation – Feeling disappointed initially demotivates anyone. But once you get past this initial stage you can use it to motivate you and use it as springboard to future success.
To get perspective – Disappointment can be used to put things into perspective. Ask yourself: are you going to care about this in a year’s time? Is it life or death? Will it cause the world to end? Compare what’s important in your life and this disappointment to gain a more positive perspective.
Look at how well you did – Ask yourself: Could you have done anything more? Would it have changed the outcome? If the answer to both of these questions is no, then recognise that you did your very best. Make peace with yourself and accept this.
Other opportunities – Know that other opportunities are open to you. Yes, there is always the risk of failure and/or disappointment, but think of the benefits of these opportunities should you be successful. Now imagine how many of these opportunities would you have missed had you not been disappointed now. You might have an even better opportunity awaiting you around the corner.
There’s a saying that things, especially bad things, come in threes. I’ve had two unfortunate things happen recently.
First my new laptop that I’ve written about here died in under 1 week. It crashed and froze on start up, meaning it was completely unusable. I tried reformatting the hard drive and reinstalling Windows via Recovery Mode (F2 pressed repeatedly on switch on) but to no avail. However credit must be given where it is due, HP Support were fantastic. They arranged for my faulty laptop to be picked up and replaced it with a new one quickly.
My new HP Laptop died in under one week.
Second the clutch went in my car. Luckily just after I got off the motorway. The RAC towed it to a garage. At the garage we discovered that my car would no longer switch on. This means that as well as the master cylinder that needing replacing, there’s also likely to be another problem with my car.
Currently my car is still with the garage, nearly three weeks later. Hiring a car is starting to get costly and it’s likely that my car will end up being an expensive repair job.
The clutch went in my car. It’s still in the garage, nearly three weeks later.
This poses the question:
Well I’ve got a few contenders. My boiler is playing me up. The speaker and microphone on my iPhone 6 plus is starting to go. This is particularly annoying and frustrating as I’ve only had my iPhone for just over a year. It was a replacement for a previous iPhone that also broke at just over a year old. On my next upgrade I’m most likely to switch to a Samsung Galaxy. Hopefully their phones are better built. My Washer/Dryer has started to sound like a noisy hovercraft taking off.
I’m keeping my fingers crossed that whatever the third thing is to brake, it holds off for a few months.
I want to share with you this truly inspirational TED Talk video about Supergays around the world. This video shows positively what life is like for LGBT people around the world. Enjoy and be inspired:
Here are some collages of photos from the Harry Potter Studio Tour, click on any photo for full size image:
The Goblet of Fire Photos.
Forbidden Forest Photos.
Hogwarts Express Photos.
Props Photos.
Weasley Shop Props.
Knight Bus Photos.
Inside Privet Drive Photos.
Other Cool Stuff Photos.
Even though mum and I had been before, there were plenty of things we hadn’t seen on our last visit. I’ve only included photos things we didn’t see last time in this blog post. Things we didn’t see last time included: The Goblet of Fire, The Forbidden Forest, The Hogwarts Express and inside Privet Drive.
There were plenty of things that we saw last time. I was great to see that they had significantly increased the interactive activities for visitors.
It was brilliant to see that they are building an extension to include things from the new Fantastic Beasts films series (of which there will be 5 films).
Here’s one final photo of Mum with a Hedwig puppet. We took a similar photo last time, how many times do you have to do something before it becomes a tradition?
Mum with Hedwig Puppet.
The next day mum and I were released into the wild of London city centre. We saw the Houses of Parliament, the scaffolding-covered Big Ben, the High Courts and my favourite St. James Park.
St. James Park is a lovely park that is like a natural oasis within one of the world’s most busy cities. There’s a bit of a family story to St. James Park.
When my mum was a little girl, she lived in London with her mum and dad (my grandma and granddad). Every Sunday, while her mum was making the Sunday dinner, her dad would take her to watch the changing of the Guard and then into St. James Park to feed the ducks.
Here are some photo collages from photos I took in St. James Park:
St. James Park, London. Photo collage by me (1).
St. James Park, London. Photo collage by me (2).
Mum and I had a fantastic time and will no doubt do the trip again in a couple of years.
