10 Tips on How To Avoid Disappointment and Live a Happier Life

Everyone is faced with failures and difficulties in life that often lead to heavy disappointment. In this article, I present to you 10 friendly tips on how you can save yourself from disappointment and achieve happiness.

The feeling of despair, emptiness and failure is truly unbearable and undeniably difficult to face. But there are ways in which you can avoid situations that would lead you to the "pit". On the other hand, falling in the pit does not necessarily mean that you will be stuck there forever. There are still ways in which you can let yourself out of that dark hole. Here are 10 friendly tips that can save you from experiencing this dreadful feeling of disappointment and emotional despair:

Tips 1-5: Preparation Tips

• Lowering Expectation
• Preparing Yourself, Psyching Up
• Strengthening Spirituality
• Smiling More Often
• Learning from Other People

_{These are tips prior to facing disappointment.}

1. Lower Expectation

Expectation moves in tandem with disappointment-induced pain. Notice that when you expect more out of something, and it turns out you received less, you tend to feel worse Familiar? Take this as an example: you take an exam and expected a grade of 97%. The following day, the teacher gives you the result, and you take a look at your score, expecting a 97 to show up in bright red ink. However, you are only seeing an 91% on your paper. How would you feel? Now, what if you only expected, let's say a 92%? Will there be any difference? Generally, yes, there will be a difference. One will have a high tendency of being disappointment, while the other one has a very low tendency.

This is how expectations work. So, practice the principle of conservatism.

2. Prepare Yourself, Psych Up

They say that the mind is the most powerful gift given to mankind. It gives us the ability to process thoughts, ideas and information. However , the function of the brain is not limited to these things. The mind may also be used as a major protection against emotional disasters.

"Mind over matter", they say. Other people claim that emotional (even physical) pains can be conquered through the power of the mind. Hence, it is best if you always psych up, especially at times when you'll be battling possible disappointment. This includes identifying before-hand all possible outcomes you might encounter, including the undesirable results. Through this, you are already giving yourself a heads-up on the things you may face. By being prepared, you are being ready to face any outcome, be it good or bad.

3. Strengthen Spirituality

By strengthening your spiritual aspect, you are building up your inner core (i.e. you spirit/soul). With this, you are becoming more ready each day to face any conflicts and problems. Also, by strengthening your spirituality, you are building up your walls against the bitterness of negative outcomes, and see them as if there's a fated purpose for these things.

4. Smile More Often

Besides knowing that smiling tends to relax your muscles than frowning, it can keep your energy up and be tough against strains and stress. Smiling is proven to be healthy. You need to keep reminding yourself that there are a lot of things to be happy (and to smile) about.

Also, who knows? By smiling everyday, you'll get used to it that you'll end up learning how to practically smile your problems, failures and disappointment away.

5. Learn From Other People

In the book of John Mason's An Enemy Called Average, he stated that life is too short to experience all the failures in life just to learn not to commit them again. Therefore, we must learn these things from other people (e.g. mentors, parents, friends and etc.) These people have already gone through a lot of hardships and failures in life that taught them things not to be done that lead to failure and things to be done that lead to success. Hence, by learning from others, you could avoid repeating what is wrongly done before, saving you from all those heart breaks and heart aches.

Tips 6-10: Remedy Tips

• Keeping a Positive Frame of Mind
• Accepting Life and Failures
• Moving Forward
• Diverting Attention
• Engaging with Other People

_{These are tips when facing disappointment.}

6. Keep a Positive Frame of Mind

Everything is an opportunity for optimistic individuals, even failures. For them, falling down is a chance to rise up. They never run out of hope of continuous improvement. Be one of those people!

Keep a positive frame of mind, and every day will be a sunny day. Be that person who always treats every moment as an opportunity to achieve something great! Be that person who always challenges himself to always strive harder in order to continuously grow! Be that person who automatically gets back on his feet when he falls down. Life is just so sweet. You don't have any moment to spare to be bitter about it.

7. Accept the Concept of Life

Acceptance has the greatest power to heal our wounds, but it's also one of the difficult things to actually do. However, it is through acceptance that the process of recovery starts. There are two things we must start accepting to brace ourselves from the damages of disappointment:

• Accepting the Concept of Life -one must accept that life has this so called "cycle", sometimes we are up, and sometimes we are down. When we have accepted this fact, we will be able to anticipate failures, and thus cushioning the damage.
• Accepting the "failure" - once we reach the point where we are faced with disappointment, we must learn how to accept it and the fact that we are humans prone to mistakes. It's not wrong to commit errors and be a "failure". Everybody faces downturns, even the famous and successful ones. The only difference is they accepted their errors and made sure that these won't happen again.These became their motivators instead of suppressors. And it is best if you would do the same.

8. Learn How to Move On

This in connection with tip number 7. After acceptance, one must know how to move on and start the process of getting back to his own feet. In effect, these two must work simultaneously because if we keep on dwelling on our miseries, there will be no full acceptance. As a result, the pains of disappointment will be prolonged and the wounds will be much deeper. In the movie, Meet the Robinsons, they emphasized the quote: "Keep Moving Forward". This is an important lesson for everyone. Failures are there to strengthen us, and not to entrap us in a forever agony and misery. These are just short stops in life, but you need to keep moving forward to escape them.

9. Divert Attention

Find a meaningful, productive and worthwhile activity that would shift your attention away from the disappointment. Don't be like those people who continually dwell on their sorrows that they remain to be stagnant. They are not only wasting their precious time, but they are also missing all the good opportunities in life that may have made them grow. Remember that failing in one aspect does not mean you are a total failure. You might fail in keeping your grades up, but definitely, it does not entirely mean that you will not land a great job. When you have poured time in other productive activities such as extra-curricular work and service, you are building your credentials up that increases your chance of employment. In turn, your failure will be compensated (and perhaps be exceeded) by your achievement in other fields. Lighten up!

10. Engage with People Around You

Related to tip number five, it is highly important to have some trusted people with you. They will be there to keep your spirit up, and teach you how to battle your problems. As mentioned, some of them already experienced what you may have been experiencing. Hence, you must seek advice from them in order to immediately resolve any conflicts that would shorten the time of your misery.

Also, being with family and friends alone is highly comforting. This will help you heal better. No man is an island. No matter how cliché that may be, it is really true and applicable in reality.

I hope you find all these tips practical and intuitive. Let's spare ourselves from from disappointment. It's really amazing to be happy! Let's all be!

Please do share your personal experiences and advice in avoiding and healing ourselves from the paints of disappointment.