66: 5 Steps To Ditch Disappointment. For Good.

Hello, friends, and welcome to Grief Guts and Green Smoothies. I am your host, Melissa Dugalecki, and I am so excited to be here with you all to chat about ways in which we can all get through different adversities, challenges, and loss and how getting outside of our comfort zone and.

Maybe having a green smoothie or two can help us do so.

We will cover different topics, ranging from interviews to recipes, to sharing my own stories of my grief journey and the loss of my daughter, Layden. Honor to be able to share her.

Light in hopes of helping you spread yours. Now, let's dive in. All right, guys, we are having a sprint session today, a sprint session on disappointment. This is something I have coached and worked with so many people on, and I'm excited to talk with you about it. So if you have ever felt disappointed, grab your notebook or your iPhone or your computer, whatever it is, take a couple notes, going to go quickly. It's going to be productive. Let's get right down to it, okay? Disappointment. Holy cow. Something we can all say we've experienced, right? If you haven't, I want to talk to you. But I think for the most part, we've all experienced disappointment. And I've talked a lot about disappointments, you know, that I've shared, obviously, my biggest one being losing my daughter, Layden. I mean, there's no greater disappointment. But I want to talk to you and I want to encourage you to first start thinking about where are the areas you feel disappointed? Where are the areas you feel let down? Where are the areas where your expectations aren't being met? And that's really what it comes down to. So if you are feeling disappointed, typically, I'm going to say that just about always typically, disappointment comes from a lack of connection between an outcome, a result, or a reality, and the expectation. So what I mean by that is the expectation, the way it was envisioned or understood, does not match. It does not align with what the reality is, what it really looks like. It's like, you know those little shape games for little kids where you put like, the star, it's like this big sphere, and they're like the circle and the star and the rectangle, like all these different shapes, right? It's like the square has to match in the square to go through, right? That's an expectation that meets, right? That goes through, but it's kind of like you expect the square to go into the circle and it just doesn't go through. Like they don't match. So disappointment comes from when what we experience doesn't Match what we expected. That could be internally, that could be externally. But that's as simple as it gets, right? Disappointment comes from when our experience does not match our expectation. One of the most powerful tools you can learn to do is to get super curious and clear on disappointment, because you are going to find so much growth and you are going to find so much freedom, I promise you. Because it sucks to walk around chronically disappointed. It sucks to walk around thinking like something should have gone differently, right? So when you are feeling disappointed, I want you to do this. I want you to ask yourself, what was my expectation? Now, this can work personally, this can work professionally, this can work internally. So let's take in the personal world. If somebody does something that you feel disappointed, what was your expectation? What were you looking for? What were you hoping for? In the workplace, somebody doesn't meet your expectation, what were you looking for? What were you hoping for for yourself, right? The next question I want you to ask, did I clearly communicate my expectation? And that can be to yourself, that can be to others, personally, professionally. So, right? Step one, what was my expectation? Step two, did I clearly communicate my expectation? Step three, did I give the other person or myself the tools or resources needed to meet that expectation? Now, this tool could be clear communication, clear directions. It could be, you know, maybe a how to. It could be enough time, right? Whatever it may be. But did I give that person the tools that they need to meet my expectation? Did I give myself the tools that I need to meet that expectation? So if you become clear on your expectation, if you're clear that you communicated it and you're clear that you gave the tools, and you're still disappointed? Well, let me go a little bit deeper. Was this a realistic expectation for myself, for this person in my personal life?

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For this person in my professional life, Was this a realistic expectation? And if it was a realistic expectation, we got to go a little further. If it wasn't a realistic expectation, that's where you stop. And honestly, this entire map, right? Once you get to that, no, that's where you stop. So again, what was my expectation? Did I communicate it? If you didn't communicate it, that's where you first interject, okay, I need to communicate my expectation more clearly, right? All right, well, let's just say you did communicate it, and now we're going on to give them the tools or the resources. And if it's a yes, okay, we'll continue going. But if it's a no, okay, that's what I need to do differently. I need to give the tools or the resources for that person to get the job done or for myself to get the job done, right? Then was it a reasonable expectation? And maybe it's a. You know what? That really wasn't a reasonable expectation. I think I need to adjust. It's very common in goal setting. It's very common in relationships, right? In romantic relationships, in family relationships. We have these expectations that weren't realistic. Family, I'm going to be honest and romantic. Personal is a little bit harder to tease that out because it's very subjective. Work and goals tend to be a little bit more measurable. Those are a little bit easier to tease out. But we want to look, was this a realistic expectation? And then finally, the last thing is, what choice do I have, Right? What choice do I have? Now I want to point out that every stop, every pit stop we've made up to here has been this sense of taking personal responsibility, right? So tracing back, right? We have disappointment. That's the trigger. And then we go deeper. What was my expectation? Was it communicated? Did I provide the tools? Was this realistic? Now if you notice every stop from that disappointment, we have been taking personal responsibility. That's a beautiful thing, right? We're not finger pointing, we're not placing blame. We're not placing blame on ourself either, right? But we're looking at the disappointment instead of in a place of victimization or anger. We're looking for growth. Holy shit, is that powerful? Guys, if you do this, you will change your life. I promise you. I absolutely promise you. You gotta do it consistently, though, and it's so possible. Just start with one time. So the last thing, if you've gone through everything that you're clear on your expectation, you communicated that you gave the tools and it was realistic and you're still feeling disappointed. Well, now we're in a major lack of alignment. Right now we're in a lack of alignment because you're either seeking to get something from a place you cannot get it or you're seeking to get something from a place where someone cannot give it or does not want to give it. I know it's not possible. And so let me do two things now. If it's external as someone at work or someone in a personal relationship, then we either need to change our expectation or we need to change our relationship. So if the expectation has to stand, and this is a little bit easier in work, right? If that expectation has to stand, but that person is not going to align or be able to get it done, well, Then they're not in a place to succeed. You need to cut ties and you need to allow them to go somewhere where they can succeed and allow you to fill that role with someone who can succeed.

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Personal. If you are trying to get something from someone who doesn't have the ability to get that, you either have to change your expectation and say, okay, I can't expect this from that person. Or if that's an expectation you're not willing to let go of or compromise on, well, then you've got to find somebody else to fill it. And again, this could be friendship, family. It could be on all different levels. This could be as simple as helping with the dishes or making dinner or to be a good listener.

Right?

You know what I'm talking about. If you listen to the teammates episode or to be social.

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We can't expect somebody to suddenly be social and want to go out with us if that's. They don't have that capacity.

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It's like trying to get water from a rock. They don't have the capacity. So instead of feeling disappointed, we either clarify our expectation, we don't have that expectation of them.

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Or we try and fill somebody in that spot who can meet our expectation. Disappointment, guys. We all experience it. But the beautiful thing is that when we get deeper on it, these disappointments dwindle. We get out of victimization, we get out of sadness. We get out of resentment. We get out of anger. We got all these places that keep us exhausted and they keep us stuck. So use this process and tell me how it goes. I want to know. I have used this with my clients. It has worked so tremendously well. I use it with myself. I have used it for years just to recap. Disappointment is your trigger, your next step. What was my expectation next? Was that communicated next? Did I provide the tools and the resources? Next question. Was it realistic? And if you've answered yes to all of those questions, then it's time to make an adjustment because it's not in alignment and that's not good for anyone. All right, friends, apply this. Use this. Watch how it changes things. I am so freaking excited to hear how it goes for you. Let me know. You know where to find me. Email IG on my website, griefing guts.com just making myself widely accessible to you all. I love learning with you. I love growing with you. Thank you for being here with me and helping me shine Layden's light and hopefully positively impact all of yours. Sending you love and light today and always. We'll talk soon.