Growing from Disappointments

How do you grow from a series of disappointments? Life can throw many challenges your way, but you must learn how to respond. Focus on these motivational thoughts as you pick yourself up and move forward with a positive outlook.

Blessings

If you look around, your life abounds with blessings, things taken for granted in happier times. You have relationships with family, friends, and animals. Perhaps you have a home or a job you love. These trappings of an ordinary life are much more; they are intangibles you have built or received from others over your lifetime. Counting your blessings reminds you of what is going right when everything feels wrong.

Looking Backwards and Forwards

Turn a bad day into a good day by reflecting on the good times captured in your photo albums. If you choose to view problems as temporary, you can imagine a better tomorrow. When you see a happy picture of yourself, you can visualize being happy again. While you don't need to live in the future, recalling that disappointments hurt less with time keeps your outlook positive.

Positive People

Surround yourself with positive people because enthusiasm for life is contagious. Some people have trouble identifying a person who finds joy in everyday living. Find people by getting involved in your community (i.e. volunteering at a nursing home or a preschool). As you build new relationships, you will meet positive people.

The last step is to focus on inner work, including resolving old issues and enjoying the present. Explore your disappointments and move past them. If you are unsure how to begin inner work, a counselor can help. Talk with a friend, a member of the clergy, a holistic practitioner, a mental health clinician, or a life coach.

By counting your blessings, looking backwards and forwards, surrounding yourself with positive people, and working on your inner self, you can grow from life's setbacks.