October 10, 2021   |   Tagged Coaching

Seven ways to deal with disappointment in sports

Disappointment comes with playing sports. Players feel disappointed with not enough playing time, teammates who don't work as hard or care as much, or coaches who don't believe in their game. Fans feel disappointed when teams don't win, players get injured, and dreams of the big dance come to a screeching halt. Parents know the bitterness of disappointment when holding their son or daughter while they cry over having been cut from the team or benched during the game.

Disappointment is an inevitable reality in the world of athletics. Learning to handle disappointment appropriately is very crucial. Disappointment left unattended and unchallenged, can lead, *according to researchers, to depression, bitterness, a weaker immune system and a more pessimistic view of life.

Disappointment is defined in the dictionary as the feeling of dissatisfaction that follows the failure of expectations to manifest. In other words, to have what you were expecting, hoping for, planning on, not work out.

One of the best ways to deal with disappointment is through intentional, purposeful steps of action. Here are several of the best ways to deal with disappointment.

1. Operate in your will. This means to make decisions based on your mental toughness not on your feelings. You may feel like giving up, you may feel like blowing up at the coach. Instead, decide to act as mentally tough as possible by not becoming reactive, hostile, or bitter. Venting in public, bad-mouthing the coach, acting like you don't care are poor ways to handle disappointment. Be in control over where and with whom you share your feelings.

2. Write down a plan of action. First, identify what you want to see happen. Understand the only person who can change is you, therefore write down what action steps you can take that are not at all dependent on the coach, the team, or the program.

3. Find a mentor. It is crucial your disappointment does not turn to shame, bitterness or resentment. Having a mentor to share your feelings with will be very important in order to keep those painful emotions from turning toxic. Shame disappears the more we share with a trusted, wise mentor who can help us navigate our feelings.

4. Look for role models. Find examples through the history of people who have used disappointment to become better.

• Dr. Seuss had his first book rejected 27 times before finally being published.
• Michael Jordan was cut from his freshman team.
• Oprah was told she had no career in television.

5. Keep a thankful journal. At the end of the day, take 5 minutes to record what you are thankful for. Research has proven those who participated in this project had higher immune levels and greater joy.

6. Get your eyes off yourself. Serve someone else and get your mind off your own troubles. Go help in a homeless shelter or work with the mentally or physically disabled.

7. Operate with dignity. Take a few minutes to think of ways people inappropriately handle disappointment. Set goals to not live this way. Then take time to identify how people with dignity handle disappointment. How do they think? How do they speak? How do they act? Then live this way.

A Message to Parents
Watching your children in pain is so challenging. It is harder for you than it is on them. Don't make it worse by living below the line through rage, back-stabbing the coach, talking negative about the program or other players, and filling the home with bitterness. Your words can be an even heavier burden. Disappointment is a fact of life but bitterness, shame, and rage do not have to be. Work to help your son or daughter become a more powerful, healthy and mentally tough person.

Remember this story. A young boy observed a butterfly straining to emerge from a cocoon. The butterfly appeared to be struggling and in pain. He rushed into the kitchen and brought out scissors. He carefully snipped the cocoon open and the butterfly was free. But the butterfly's wings where misshapen. He later learned, the struggle and pain the butterfly must endure emerging from the cocoon were necessary for it to fly. Parents, take a deep breath and avoid the reactive impulse to rescue your children from disappointment, it could be the very thing they need to become the best they can be.

Disappointment can propel us to great heights if we deal with it well.

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