182. When You Disappoint Yourself
What happens when you disappoint yourself?
Do you yell at yourself? Tell yourself you’re hopeless? Feel utter despair and wonder how you’ll ever recover?
What do you do with the burning shame? The white hot anger? The cold lump of regret in your stomach?
Are you able to make your way through the rubble? Are you able to find helpful insights and perspective shifts that allow you to handle things better in the future?
In coaching and in the rest of my life, I often see people metaphorically beat the shit out of themselves when they’re disappointed in their own behavior or performance.
But that doesn’t set them up to handle the situation better in the future.
It doesn’t set them up to feel good about themselves.
If anything, this “what the eff is wrong with me” approach tends to make things worse.
It makes people feel flawed and hopeless and out of control.
There’s a better way.
In this week’s episode of Satisfied AF, I’ll teach you. While feeling disappointed in yourself feels terrible, I can show you how to find your way through the pain AND how to set yourself up to do better the next time around.
Want customized support creating your wildly delicious life? Let’s hop on a free consultation call.
I’ll help you understand the blockers you’re facing and how to handle them moving forward. And I’ll share how a three-month 1:1 coaching package could supercharge your progress as well as your satisfaction.
WHAT YOU’LL LEARN FROM THIS EPISODE:
3 key steps for moving through disappointment in yourself.
How to have standards without weaponizing your own imperfections.
How to like yourself even when you aren’t at the level you want to be at.
How to repair with yourself.
LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE:
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FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:
This week we’re talking about what to do when you disappoint yourself.
The Satisfied AF podcast is the place to learn how to create a life and career that’s wildly delicious. Want a steamier sex life? We’ve got you. Want a more satisfying career? We’ll cover that too. And you can be sure we’ll spend lots of time talking about how to build connected, fun relationships that can handle life’s ups and downs. No matter what goals you’re working on, this show will help you create a one of a kind life that is just right for you. Join me, life and career coach Kori Linn and each week I’ll give you lots of practical tips, tools, and proven strategies to help you create all the satisfaction your heart desires.
Hello, hello, hello. Happy Wednesday. I hope you’re having a gorgeous day. I’m having a pretty good day. It’s sunny here, which we know I love. And I’m prepping for a talk that I’m giving next week, so I’m pretty excited about that. And if you’re interested in hearing me talk or having me come speak at your organization, I would love to hear from you.
I used to do more speaking a few years ago and I really enjoyed it and I’m excited to get back into that. So I’ve spoken at HBO, I’ve spoken at Zillow. I’ve spoken at Chief, which is an organization in New York city for C-suite and rising C-suite women. And I get really great glowing feedback on my speaking.
I love to speak to audiences, large and small. So if you need a speaker for a group or an organization or an event you have coming soon, I would love to hear about that. And you can reach out to me at KoriLinn.com, that’s K-O-R-I @ K-O-R-I-L-I-N-N.com or you can send me a message via the form on my website.
Okay, let’s jump into what we’re talking about today. Today we’re talking about what happens when you feel really disappointed with yourself. So if you listened to last week’s episode, you know that I had a situation recently where I set a boundary and then I was really disappointed in myself at the way that I set that boundary because it didn’t align with my values and who I want to be as a person.
And I’m pretty sure it’s not just me because I’m on Instagram and TikTok and also I am out in the world with people and have friends. And so I hear from a lot of other people about when they feel disappointed in themselves or when what they want to be able to show up in the world doesn’t match what they actually did.
And so I thought it would be a really interesting conversation to have because here’s something that I see over and over again, is that when people are disappointed in their own behavior or performance, they beat themselves up. You may do this also. I hear people call themselves names. I hear people just growl at themselves or feel hopeless or kind of like, oh, it’ll never get better. Why am I always like this?
And I’ve said a lot of these things myself. But through years of coaching and years of trial and error managing and loving myself, I’ve really come to realize that beating up is not helpful to helping us actually improve in the future, right?
So take the situation where I set the boundary and I did it poorly. Yes, I did have a moment, or really several hours and days, where I was like, “Oh, why couldn’t I have just slowed down, not panicked and thought about like, who do I want to be in this situation?” But the fact is I didn’t. And once you’ve already done the thing, once you’ve already done the behavior, once you’ve already lost your temper, it’s done, right? It’s happened. So you can think through like, what would I like to do differently? But you can’t go back and change what you’ve already done.
That being said, if what you’re used to doing when you make a mistake is beating yourself up, it might feel hard to not do that. And it might feel confusing. Like what am I supposed to do instead? And something I see a lot is kind of this all or nothing thing, right? Where we either beat ourselves up and tell ourselves like we’re hopeless and feel utter despair, like we’ll never improve. Or we kind of flip flop and go into the toxic positivity of like, well, you did your best and it’s okay and da, da, da.
What I find is that usually doesn’t feel good either, right? The beating yourself up doesn’t feel good because then you are in the pit of despair of like, am I just screwed? Am I just always going to be like this, no matter what I want to be like? And sort of like self-kindness without accountability, I find there can be something soothing to it and it might be necessary for a few minutes. Like, it’s okay. You’re okay. That didn’t go the way you wanted it to, but mistakes happen.
But I think there’s another layer after that, that feels really good and helps you actually get to where you want to be in the future. Not that we’re ever going to be perfect in the future. Sorry, spoiler alert, we’re not. But I do think we can improve our performance, usually a lot.
So that’s why I want to talk about three key steps for moving through disappointment in yourself. And they’re not just for moving through the disappointment, they’re also for setting you up to be able to do things differently in the future. Because I think when we fuck things up, there is this moment of like, oh, I fucked it up again. Am I ever going to be able to be a person who doesn’t fuck it up? But what I often don’t see is people kind of think through, okay, what would need to happen for me not to fuck that up next time?
There’s kind of this thing that happens, I think, sometimes where we’re like, oh, I’m doomed to always behave the way I’ve always behaved in the past. And if there’s anything that coaching has taught me, it’s that that is not true. You can change. You can change how you respond, but you can also change with practice, and it does take effort, you can also change even the kind of those light flip kind of responses where maybe you respond really quickly. But over time we can change what those look like.
And we can also put other things in place so that even if we do still lose our temper, we have other skill sets that can kind of buffer and help us be more in line with who we want to be and be doing less of what we’ve done in the past that we’re disappointed in ourselves about.
So let’s get into it, what are the three steps? Okay, I’m going to tell them to you and then we’re going to talk through each one. So the first step is you’ve got to figure out where you’re disappointed with the situation and where you’re disappointed with your own behavior, right? Because when we’re disappointed about something, sometimes that sort of blends together and the distinction is going to be helpful for how we move forward.
Thing two is what would you like to be able to do differently? So you have to figure that out. Like how would I like to have been able to handle this situation? And then step three is, how do we make that a possibility? What are the skills we need to build? What do we need to practice? What do we need to put in place? And depending on what you discover in step one, it may be things that you change about your own behavior, but it may be things you change about, like how situations are set up so that they can go differently.
So let’s talk through each one. The first one, again, was to figure out where you’re disappointed with the situation and where you’re disappointed with your own behavior. So when things go badly and you’re feeling really disappointed, it might feel like this huge block of emotion of just like, oh, that was terrible. I wish that never happened. I feel terrible. I feel sick. Right?
And really taking a minute to dig into like, okay, what actually happened? Why did that happen? Why did it go that way? How did I show up to that? Did it feel good? Did it feel aligned the way I showed up to that? And what was happening outside of my behavior, right? And this could be other people’s behavior, but it could also just be other things that are circumstantially happening.
And I do want to just say, these are very specific steps, not for how to move through the feeling of disappointment, but these are how to figure out what the useful content is inside the disappointment. So it is possible that before you do these three steps, you may need a minute of just feeling the emotions and just being in your body. Like, oh, I feel so disappointed. I’m going to be with myself in that feeling. I’m going to care for myself. What do I need? Do I need a glass of water? Do I need a cup of hot tea? Like, do I need to call a friend and just cry?
That stuff is all important too, but what I actually want to focus on in this podcast is when we’re disappointed with our own behavior, what do we do with that information and how do we take that and make that useful so that we can improve and show up more aligned in the future? So that’s really the focus of this podcast.
Okay, so let’s take an example. Let’s say that you were doing public speaking and you kind of buffed it. Like it didn’t go well. Like you’re doing public speaking and it didn’t totally bomb, but it just didn’t flow as well as you wanted. You hadn’t practiced as much and it just felt kind of uncomfortable. And you were like, well, that wasn’t my best performance.
So in step one, we’re going to figure out like, where are you disappointed with the situation? And where are you disappointed with things that are like your behavior, your performance, right? So you might be like, oh, I’m disappointed with the situation and that maybe your wi-fi was being wonky, right?
That’s not your behavior. That’s something about the situation, but it is related to your behavior in that you could be like, hmm, maybe I need something so I can hardwire into the internet. That’s a teachable moment. That’s a learning we can take away and apply so we can have a better experience next time.
Whereas where you’re disappointed with your own behavior, you might be like, wow, I really thought I had practiced that enough times. I practiced it, let’s say six times. I didn’t feel confident when I delivered it. I stumbled over some stuff. Maybe next time I want to practice it more times, or maybe I want to write out the whole talk differently or write out my examples or get clearer on the stories I’m going to tell.
So basically in step one, we’re identifying what was about the situation and what was it about your own behavior, your own performance, right? You might be like, oh, usually I do talks over zoom and I feel really comfortable and confident, but maybe this time you did it in person and it didn’t go well.
So like, what can we learn about that? What can we learn, both in this kind of situation, what is necessary, what is helpful so that we can perform at the level we want to, but also where are we disappointed in our own behavior? And could we maybe be having a different experience if we put some things in place, if we practice, if we build a new habit, stuff like that.
And then question two is what would you like to be able to do differently in the future, right? So we’re already kind of getting into that with what we talked about in step one, but it’s like if you did a talk and you weren’t happy with it, how would you like the talk to be able to go in the future? And so this is like really taking a moment to imagine if everything went really well in the version where I’m super proud of myself, I’m super happy with my performance and the situation, what was going on there?
And then three is how do we build that skill, right? So if we’ve done a public speaking gig and we’re not happy with it, we want to get clear, what was it about the situation? What was it about our own performance? What do we wish it had been able to go like? And then how do we create that in the future?
So again, something I see often is that people are disappointed in themselves. And then instead of taking action or putting in effort to build a better future, they just wallow in how bad something went. And again, I totally get that. I’ve done that too, but it doesn’t set you up to have a better experience.
And I think it really erodes your sense of self-confidence. I think it really erodes your sense of efficacy of your capability, right? I think it really erodes your sense of efficacy, your sense of capability, your sense that, first of all, you can do well. And second of all, you can improve.
There’s such a thing in our culture of wanting to be talented and genius right off the bat. And I think that’s super fun when that happens and I’m definitely a fan of doing a good job with the least amount of effort you can put in to do a good job. Like I’m not a fan of overworking or continuing to work on something if it’s not going to improve the outcome.
But I also think our culture really glorifies that instant success, which is usually a lie, versus glorifying the reps you put in to be able to then do the final performance, right? So in order to be a really good speaker, you usually have to think through your talk really clearly. You might have to write the whole thing out. You have to think through your examples and you also have to be skillful at delivering it. That’s not something that most people are just able to do off the cuff.
There is something about the performance of it that gives the illusion of being off the cuff, the same way that stand up comedy kind of gives the illusion of being off the cuff. But I’ve taken a standup comedy class and it’s the least off the cuff thing I’ve ever done in my life. The amount of times I wrote the jokes, I rewrote the jokes, I performed the jokes.
Alex and I spent several hours over a weekend where she would record me delivering the jokes, then she would give me notes on the jokes. Then we would watch the recording and talk about what worked and what didn’t. It was like the most effortful thing I’ve ever done. And then at the end, I mean, people laughed at my jokes, but it wasn’t even that funny, right?
So just to give you an example of something that looks like it’s happening just effortlessly in the moment, but it’s not. But I think it could be so helpful to just really embrace that some things take effort and that’s okay. And that doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with you. And it doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with the task. It doesn’t mean you’re not a good fit for the task.
If you’ve been disappointed in your performance at something and you want to be able to do it better, you probably can, right? But then it’s going to probably involve practice, maybe learning a new skill, maybe just improving an existing skill to be able to then show up the way you want to.
But I think disappointment is so much less disappointing when we’re like, oh, I’m not trapped. I’m not stuck here. I’m not doomed to feel disappointed in myself forever. This is just a skill set and I can get better at skill sets, right?
Like I think all the time about the fact that like we all used to be babies who couldn’t walk and couldn’t talk and couldn’t brush our teeth. And we didn’t have very many skills at all. And then we become children and we develop all these skills. We develop language. The fact that a baby can develop any language, you just develop whatever language you’re around, it’s so cool, right?
But then we become adults and we’re like, oh, my time for learning is over. And I’m like, no, there’s so much learning still available. There’s so much neuroplasticity still available. Just because you’ve never been able to do something does not mean you cannot do it in the future.
And this is as true for public speaking as it is for learning partner dancing, as it is for learning how to communicate more effectively with your loved ones, as it is for learning how to do planks. There are so many different things where if you’re disappointed in yourself, that’s information. And then we can take that information and build a future if we want to.
Now, I talk all the time also about like, we have limited time, right? We have limited hours in the day. You have limited focus and attention. You maybe can’t do everything. I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news on that, but you can pick things that you want to improve in and then improve in them.
You can take a situation where you were really disappointed in how you showed up to it, and instead of just letting that be a symbol of your shame or like a symbol of your inability or a symbol of your failure, it can become a space for learning. It can become a school. It can become your greatest strength, if you want to put in the work to make that the case.
All of this is to say, you can have standards and not meet them and keep moving towards them without weaponizing those standards and making them a reason to feel bad about yourself. You can like yourself and have a good relationship with yourself, even when you’re not at the level you want to be at.
And I think the key of that ability is being able to see yourself with positive regard, even if you’re not where you want to be. Even if you, like me, tried to have a boundaries conversation with someone and delivered the information poorly, you’re still allowed to like yourself. You’re still allowed to love yourself. You’re still allowed to think you’re doing a great job, even if you’re still in the process of learning.
And in fact, I would argue it’s the most important thing in the world to be able to have positive regard for yourself while you’re learning, because that’s what most of life is. Most of life is learning and having an idea of like, ooh, I could be able to do this, but I’m not there yet.
And if you want to have the capacity to keep going, to keep improving, to keep learning, to keep trying and to feel good doing it, you’ve got to love yourself in the process. You’ve got to like yourself in the process. And yeah, there may be some repair needed. Like if you bomb something, there may be a moment where you’re really pissed at yourself. You’re really disappointed in yourself. And you may need to express that to yourself and hold space for that.
And then also like, how do you move forward? And the way I move forward with myself is the same way I might move forward with another person, which is probably apologizing. Like, hey self, I thought I set us up with enough practice for that to go well. And I was wrong. And I’m sorry about that. Let me do better in the future.
Or sometimes it could even be like, hey, I knew going into that, that I had not set that up to be successful and I’m sorry. How can we improve? How can we do better? We don’t have to be perfect to be good. We don’t have to be perfect to be loved. But it might feel weird and alien to you to love yourself in your imperfection, especially if you never got that as a child. But I think it’s so much more effective for actually getting yourself to where you want to be.
So I think the real question, if we’re looking at this really practically, is how do you want the rest of your life to go? Do you want to just be disappointed in your own performance and behavior ad nauseam forever? Or do you want to allow yourself to be aware of that disappointment, be curious about it, unpack it, and then use that as the exact information and fuel that’s going to help you become the person you so deeply want to be? Because you can, you absolutely can become that person.
Is it going to be some work? For sure it’s going to be some work, but like everything is work. Living is work. Doing laundry is work. Feeding yourself is work. So you may as well do the work to become the person that’s in alignment with who you want to be.
And again, it’s not about being perfect, right? It’s not like there’s some perfectly aligned version of Kori that I’m trying to become. I think it’s more like always just working to like inch closer and noticing when I’m doing it and succeeding it and really celebrating that, and noticing when I’m not quite there and like, how could I move closer to that?
I think in a lot of ways, our ideals are like stars that we’re navigating by. You’re never going to get to the stars that you’re navigating by. That’s not the point. You’re not supposed to get to the stars. You’re using them to navigate to somewhere on this earthly plane, right? So we can use our ideals and our vision and our alignment of who we want to be to inform us and to bring us closer to that and to help us show up in the way we want to show up.
And that feels good and delicious and helps you continuously move towards who you want to be, versus using them as like a measuring stick that you’re always going to feel bad that you never achieve.
When we can do this, when we can take the useful content out of our disappointment, when we can use it specifically to develop new skills and design a future, the disappointment is still disappointing, but then it also has a job. It has a purpose. And even though it’s probably not what we ever wanted to happen, it then instead of an obstacle is a step that takes us towards our satisfying AF life.
And I’ve never figured out how to live a life without disappointment, so I think it makes sense to include disappointment as something that brings us closer to the life we want to be living. If we can’t avoid it, we may as well use it to help us step into the future self we want to become. It’s very informative when you can get past the part where it sucks and feels really painful.
And listen, I realize that this shit is not for the faint of heart. It can be really difficult to be curious and dig into your own disappointment in this way. And that is 100% exactly why people hire coaches. There is so much rich information that can help you have a more enjoyable experience of your life, career, relationships, et cetera, in things like disappointment, but it can feel like a dark alley to go into alone.
So you don’t have to go into it alone. I would love to help you navigate your disappointment and turn it from a symbol of pain into a path of success. And that’s exactly the kind of thing we do in one-on-one coaching. I do have space right now for new one-on-one clients and I have a sliding scale, so coaching is available at different levels of financial accessibility.
If you want to learn more about what it would look like to use your disappointment as fuel, instead of letting it wreck your day and your year and your life, come sign up for a consult call. Let’s have a conversation about it. The consult call is totally free. And then if it seems like a good fit, we can talk about working together.
All right, that’s what I have for you all this week. Thank you so much. Have a lovely week and I will talk to you next time.
Thank you for joining me for this week’s episode of Satisfied AF. If you are ready to create a wildly delicious life and have way more fun than you ever thought possible, visit www.korilinn.com to see how I can help. See you next week.
The Satisfied AF podcast is the place to learn how to create a life and career that’s wildly delicious. Want a steamier sex life? We’ve got you. Want a more satisfying career? We’ll cover that too. And you can be sure we’ll spend lots of time talking about how to build connected, fun relationships that can handle life’s ups and downs. No matter what goals you’re working on, this show will help you create a one of a kind life that is just right for you. Join me, life and career coach Kori Linn and each week I’ll give you lots of practical tips, tools, and proven strategies to help you create all the satisfaction your heart desires.
Hello, hello, hello. Happy Wednesday. I hope you’re having a gorgeous day. I’m having a pretty good day. It’s sunny here, which we know I love. And I’m prepping for a talk that I’m giving next week, so I’m pretty excited about that. And if you’re interested in hearing me talk or having me come speak at your organization, I would love to hear from you.
I used to do more speaking a few years ago and I really enjoyed it and I’m excited to get back into that. So I’ve spoken at HBO, I’ve spoken at Zillow. I’ve spoken at Chief, which is an organization in New York city for C-suite and rising C-suite women. And I get really great glowing feedback on my speaking.
I love to speak to audiences, large and small. So if you need a speaker for a group or an organization or an event you have coming soon, I would love to hear about that. And you can reach out to me at KoriLinn.com, that’s K-O-R-I @ K-O-R-I-L-I-N-N.com or you can send me a message via the form on my website.
Okay, let’s jump into what we’re talking about today. Today we’re talking about what happens when you feel really disappointed with yourself. So if you listened to last week’s episode, you know that I had a situation recently where I set a boundary and then I was really disappointed in myself at the way that I set that boundary because it didn’t align with my values and who I want to be as a person.
And I’m pretty sure it’s not just me because I’m on Instagram and TikTok and also I am out in the world with people and have friends. And so I hear from a lot of other people about when they feel disappointed in themselves or when what they want to be able to show up in the world doesn’t match what they actually did.
And so I thought it would be a really interesting conversation to have because here’s something that I see over and over again, is that when people are disappointed in their own behavior or performance, they beat themselves up. You may do this also. I hear people call themselves names. I hear people just growl at themselves or feel hopeless or kind of like, oh, it’ll never get better. Why am I always like this?
And I’ve said a lot of these things myself. But through years of coaching and years of trial and error managing and loving myself, I’ve really come to realize that beating up is not helpful to helping us actually improve in the future, right?
So take the situation where I set the boundary and I did it poorly. Yes, I did have a moment, or really several hours and days, where I was like, “Oh, why couldn’t I have just slowed down, not panicked and thought about like, who do I want to be in this situation?” But the fact is I didn’t. And once you’ve already done the thing, once you’ve already done the behavior, once you’ve already lost your temper, it’s done, right? It’s happened. So you can think through like, what would I like to do differently? But you can’t go back and change what you’ve already done.
That being said, if what you’re used to doing when you make a mistake is beating yourself up, it might feel hard to not do that. And it might feel confusing. Like what am I supposed to do instead? And something I see a lot is kind of this all or nothing thing, right? Where we either beat ourselves up and tell ourselves like we’re hopeless and feel utter despair, like we’ll never improve. Or we kind of flip flop and go into the toxic positivity of like, well, you did your best and it’s okay and da, da, da.
What I find is that usually doesn’t feel good either, right? The beating yourself up doesn’t feel good because then you are in the pit of despair of like, am I just screwed? Am I just always going to be like this, no matter what I want to be like? And sort of like self-kindness without accountability, I find there can be something soothing to it and it might be necessary for a few minutes. Like, it’s okay. You’re okay. That didn’t go the way you wanted it to, but mistakes happen.
But I think there’s another layer after that, that feels really good and helps you actually get to where you want to be in the future. Not that we’re ever going to be perfect in the future. Sorry, spoiler alert, we’re not. But I do think we can improve our performance, usually a lot.
So that’s why I want to talk about three key steps for moving through disappointment in yourself. And they’re not just for moving through the disappointment, they’re also for setting you up to be able to do things differently in the future. Because I think when we fuck things up, there is this moment of like, oh, I fucked it up again. Am I ever going to be able to be a person who doesn’t fuck it up? But what I often don’t see is people kind of think through, okay, what would need to happen for me not to fuck that up next time?
There’s kind of this thing that happens, I think, sometimes where we’re like, oh, I’m doomed to always behave the way I’ve always behaved in the past. And if there’s anything that coaching has taught me, it’s that that is not true. You can change. You can change how you respond, but you can also change with practice, and it does take effort, you can also change even the kind of those light flip kind of responses where maybe you respond really quickly. But over time we can change what those look like.
And we can also put other things in place so that even if we do still lose our temper, we have other skill sets that can kind of buffer and help us be more in line with who we want to be and be doing less of what we’ve done in the past that we’re disappointed in ourselves about.
So let’s get into it, what are the three steps? Okay, I’m going to tell them to you and then we’re going to talk through each one. So the first step is you’ve got to figure out where you’re disappointed with the situation and where you’re disappointed with your own behavior, right? Because when we’re disappointed about something, sometimes that sort of blends together and the distinction is going to be helpful for how we move forward.
Thing two is what would you like to be able to do differently? So you have to figure that out. Like how would I like to have been able to handle this situation? And then step three is, how do we make that a possibility? What are the skills we need to build? What do we need to practice? What do we need to put in place? And depending on what you discover in step one, it may be things that you change about your own behavior, but it may be things you change about, like how situations are set up so that they can go differently.
So let’s talk through each one. The first one, again, was to figure out where you’re disappointed with the situation and where you’re disappointed with your own behavior. So when things go badly and you’re feeling really disappointed, it might feel like this huge block of emotion of just like, oh, that was terrible. I wish that never happened. I feel terrible. I feel sick. Right?
And really taking a minute to dig into like, okay, what actually happened? Why did that happen? Why did it go that way? How did I show up to that? Did it feel good? Did it feel aligned the way I showed up to that? And what was happening outside of my behavior, right? And this could be other people’s behavior, but it could also just be other things that are circumstantially happening.
And I do want to just say, these are very specific steps, not for how to move through the feeling of disappointment, but these are how to figure out what the useful content is inside the disappointment. So it is possible that before you do these three steps, you may need a minute of just feeling the emotions and just being in your body. Like, oh, I feel so disappointed. I’m going to be with myself in that feeling. I’m going to care for myself. What do I need? Do I need a glass of water? Do I need a cup of hot tea? Like, do I need to call a friend and just cry?
That stuff is all important too, but what I actually want to focus on in this podcast is when we’re disappointed with our own behavior, what do we do with that information and how do we take that and make that useful so that we can improve and show up more aligned in the future? So that’s really the focus of this podcast.
Okay, so let’s take an example. Let’s say that you were doing public speaking and you kind of buffed it. Like it didn’t go well. Like you’re doing public speaking and it didn’t totally bomb, but it just didn’t flow as well as you wanted. You hadn’t practiced as much and it just felt kind of uncomfortable. And you were like, well, that wasn’t my best performance.
So in step one, we’re going to figure out like, where are you disappointed with the situation? And where are you disappointed with things that are like your behavior, your performance, right? So you might be like, oh, I’m disappointed with the situation and that maybe your wi-fi was being wonky, right?
That’s not your behavior. That’s something about the situation, but it is related to your behavior in that you could be like, hmm, maybe I need something so I can hardwire into the internet. That’s a teachable moment. That’s a learning we can take away and apply so we can have a better experience next time.
Whereas where you’re disappointed with your own behavior, you might be like, wow, I really thought I had practiced that enough times. I practiced it, let’s say six times. I didn’t feel confident when I delivered it. I stumbled over some stuff. Maybe next time I want to practice it more times, or maybe I want to write out the whole talk differently or write out my examples or get clearer on the stories I’m going to tell.
So basically in step one, we’re identifying what was about the situation and what was it about your own behavior, your own performance, right? You might be like, oh, usually I do talks over zoom and I feel really comfortable and confident, but maybe this time you did it in person and it didn’t go well.
So like, what can we learn about that? What can we learn, both in this kind of situation, what is necessary, what is helpful so that we can perform at the level we want to, but also where are we disappointed in our own behavior? And could we maybe be having a different experience if we put some things in place, if we practice, if we build a new habit, stuff like that.
And then question two is what would you like to be able to do differently in the future, right? So we’re already kind of getting into that with what we talked about in step one, but it’s like if you did a talk and you weren’t happy with it, how would you like the talk to be able to go in the future? And so this is like really taking a moment to imagine if everything went really well in the version where I’m super proud of myself, I’m super happy with my performance and the situation, what was going on there?
And then three is how do we build that skill, right? So if we’ve done a public speaking gig and we’re not happy with it, we want to get clear, what was it about the situation? What was it about our own performance? What do we wish it had been able to go like? And then how do we create that in the future?
So again, something I see often is that people are disappointed in themselves. And then instead of taking action or putting in effort to build a better future, they just wallow in how bad something went. And again, I totally get that. I’ve done that too, but it doesn’t set you up to have a better experience.
And I think it really erodes your sense of self-confidence. I think it really erodes your sense of efficacy of your capability, right? I think it really erodes your sense of efficacy, your sense of capability, your sense that, first of all, you can do well. And second of all, you can improve.
There’s such a thing in our culture of wanting to be talented and genius right off the bat. And I think that’s super fun when that happens and I’m definitely a fan of doing a good job with the least amount of effort you can put in to do a good job. Like I’m not a fan of overworking or continuing to work on something if it’s not going to improve the outcome.
But I also think our culture really glorifies that instant success, which is usually a lie, versus glorifying the reps you put in to be able to then do the final performance, right? So in order to be a really good speaker, you usually have to think through your talk really clearly. You might have to write the whole thing out. You have to think through your examples and you also have to be skillful at delivering it. That’s not something that most people are just able to do off the cuff.
There is something about the performance of it that gives the illusion of being off the cuff, the same way that stand up comedy kind of gives the illusion of being off the cuff. But I’ve taken a standup comedy class and it’s the least off the cuff thing I’ve ever done in my life. The amount of times I wrote the jokes, I rewrote the jokes, I performed the jokes.
Alex and I spent several hours over a weekend where she would record me delivering the jokes, then she would give me notes on the jokes. Then we would watch the recording and talk about what worked and what didn’t. It was like the most effortful thing I’ve ever done. And then at the end, I mean, people laughed at my jokes, but it wasn’t even that funny, right?
So just to give you an example of something that looks like it’s happening just effortlessly in the moment, but it’s not. But I think it could be so helpful to just really embrace that some things take effort and that’s okay. And that doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with you. And it doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with the task. It doesn’t mean you’re not a good fit for the task.
If you’ve been disappointed in your performance at something and you want to be able to do it better, you probably can, right? But then it’s going to probably involve practice, maybe learning a new skill, maybe just improving an existing skill to be able to then show up the way you want to.
But I think disappointment is so much less disappointing when we’re like, oh, I’m not trapped. I’m not stuck here. I’m not doomed to feel disappointed in myself forever. This is just a skill set and I can get better at skill sets, right?
Like I think all the time about the fact that like we all used to be babies who couldn’t walk and couldn’t talk and couldn’t brush our teeth. And we didn’t have very many skills at all. And then we become children and we develop all these skills. We develop language. The fact that a baby can develop any language, you just develop whatever language you’re around, it’s so cool, right?
But then we become adults and we’re like, oh, my time for learning is over. And I’m like, no, there’s so much learning still available. There’s so much neuroplasticity still available. Just because you’ve never been able to do something does not mean you cannot do it in the future.
And this is as true for public speaking as it is for learning partner dancing, as it is for learning how to communicate more effectively with your loved ones, as it is for learning how to do planks. There are so many different things where if you’re disappointed in yourself, that’s information. And then we can take that information and build a future if we want to.
Now, I talk all the time also about like, we have limited time, right? We have limited hours in the day. You have limited focus and attention. You maybe can’t do everything. I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news on that, but you can pick things that you want to improve in and then improve in them.
You can take a situation where you were really disappointed in how you showed up to it, and instead of just letting that be a symbol of your shame or like a symbol of your inability or a symbol of your failure, it can become a space for learning. It can become a school. It can become your greatest strength, if you want to put in the work to make that the case.
All of this is to say, you can have standards and not meet them and keep moving towards them without weaponizing those standards and making them a reason to feel bad about yourself. You can like yourself and have a good relationship with yourself, even when you’re not at the level you want to be at.
And I think the key of that ability is being able to see yourself with positive regard, even if you’re not where you want to be. Even if you, like me, tried to have a boundaries conversation with someone and delivered the information poorly, you’re still allowed to like yourself. You’re still allowed to love yourself. You’re still allowed to think you’re doing a great job, even if you’re still in the process of learning.
And in fact, I would argue it’s the most important thing in the world to be able to have positive regard for yourself while you’re learning, because that’s what most of life is. Most of life is learning and having an idea of like, ooh, I could be able to do this, but I’m not there yet.
And if you want to have the capacity to keep going, to keep improving, to keep learning, to keep trying and to feel good doing it, you’ve got to love yourself in the process. You’ve got to like yourself in the process. And yeah, there may be some repair needed. Like if you bomb something, there may be a moment where you’re really pissed at yourself. You’re really disappointed in yourself. And you may need to express that to yourself and hold space for that.
And then also like, how do you move forward? And the way I move forward with myself is the same way I might move forward with another person, which is probably apologizing. Like, hey self, I thought I set us up with enough practice for that to go well. And I was wrong. And I’m sorry about that. Let me do better in the future.
Or sometimes it could even be like, hey, I knew going into that, that I had not set that up to be successful and I’m sorry. How can we improve? How can we do better? We don’t have to be perfect to be good. We don’t have to be perfect to be loved. But it might feel weird and alien to you to love yourself in your imperfection, especially if you never got that as a child. But I think it’s so much more effective for actually getting yourself to where you want to be.
So I think the real question, if we’re looking at this really practically, is how do you want the rest of your life to go? Do you want to just be disappointed in your own performance and behavior ad nauseam forever? Or do you want to allow yourself to be aware of that disappointment, be curious about it, unpack it, and then use that as the exact information and fuel that’s going to help you become the person you so deeply want to be? Because you can, you absolutely can become that person.
Is it going to be some work? For sure it’s going to be some work, but like everything is work. Living is work. Doing laundry is work. Feeding yourself is work. So you may as well do the work to become the person that’s in alignment with who you want to be.
And again, it’s not about being perfect, right? It’s not like there’s some perfectly aligned version of Kori that I’m trying to become. I think it’s more like always just working to like inch closer and noticing when I’m doing it and succeeding it and really celebrating that, and noticing when I’m not quite there and like, how could I move closer to that?
I think in a lot of ways, our ideals are like stars that we’re navigating by. You’re never going to get to the stars that you’re navigating by. That’s not the point. You’re not supposed to get to the stars. You’re using them to navigate to somewhere on this earthly plane, right? So we can use our ideals and our vision and our alignment of who we want to be to inform us and to bring us closer to that and to help us show up in the way we want to show up.
And that feels good and delicious and helps you continuously move towards who you want to be, versus using them as like a measuring stick that you’re always going to feel bad that you never achieve.
When we can do this, when we can take the useful content out of our disappointment, when we can use it specifically to develop new skills and design a future, the disappointment is still disappointing, but then it also has a job. It has a purpose. And even though it’s probably not what we ever wanted to happen, it then instead of an obstacle is a step that takes us towards our satisfying AF life.
And I’ve never figured out how to live a life without disappointment, so I think it makes sense to include disappointment as something that brings us closer to the life we want to be living. If we can’t avoid it, we may as well use it to help us step into the future self we want to become. It’s very informative when you can get past the part where it sucks and feels really painful.
And listen, I realize that this shit is not for the faint of heart. It can be really difficult to be curious and dig into your own disappointment in this way. And that is 100% exactly why people hire coaches. There is so much rich information that can help you have a more enjoyable experience of your life, career, relationships, et cetera, in things like disappointment, but it can feel like a dark alley to go into alone.
So you don’t have to go into it alone. I would love to help you navigate your disappointment and turn it from a symbol of pain into a path of success. And that’s exactly the kind of thing we do in one-on-one coaching. I do have space right now for new one-on-one clients and I have a sliding scale, so coaching is available at different levels of financial accessibility.
If you want to learn more about what it would look like to use your disappointment as fuel, instead of letting it wreck your day and your year and your life, come sign up for a consult call. Let’s have a conversation about it. The consult call is totally free. And then if it seems like a good fit, we can talk about working together.
All right, that’s what I have for you all this week. Thank you so much. Have a lovely week and I will talk to you next time.
Thank you for joining me for this week’s episode of Satisfied AF. If you are ready to create a wildly delicious life and have way more fun than you ever thought possible, visit www.korilinn.com to see how I can help. See you next week.
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