When Life Doesn’t Turn Out How You Expected
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Words by Samantha DeCosmo
What do we do when we wake up one day and realize that our life looks nothing like the life we had once dreamed of for ourselves? How do we keep going when disappointments sometimes leave us feeling broken? Where do we turn when losses seem so big that we feel we cannot take one more step forward?
My life today looks nothing like the life I had once pictured for myself. By 33, I expected to have a family full of children in a comfortable house on a big plot of land. I expected to either stay home and raise my babies or be working in a fulfilling job counseling and helping others to live their best lives.
But the thing about expectations is that so often they serve only to feed disappointment and frustration.
Instead of living the life I had once envisioned, today I find myself childless, living in a crowded town, with neighbors that sometimes feel entirely too close for comfort and a chronic illness that has changed my life in ways I never imagined. Some days I find myself talking to God, telling Him, “it wasn’t supposed to look like this. When do I get my chance at happily-ever-after?”
But if you’ve been doing this whole adulting thing for more than a few days, you’ve likely come to know what I have as well, that life is not a fairy tale and disappointments are inevitable. More often than not, we cannot control the outcomes in our lives, no matter how hard we try.
From everyday discouragements like an argument with a spouse to life-altering defeats like divorce or the death of a loved one, this whole disappointment thing can leave us feeling downright broken.
So what do we do when we are left to feel that things should somehow be better than they are? How do we deal with disappointments and still live the best life that we possibly can? How do we find joy and happiness despite the defeats that we’ve had to deal with in our lives? We can still find goodness and beauty in a life that hasn’t quite turned out the way we thought it would.
Below are ways that we can best handle life’s letdowns and try to come to terms with disappointment in our lives.
First, we must acknowledge disappointments and give ourselves time to grieve.
It’s hard when our hopes and dreams don’t come to fruition. When this happens, it’s important to give yourself permission to grieve the life you once dreamed of. Acknowledging the difficulty of the situation and giving yourself time to sit with your feelings of frustration and disappointment is the first step towards moving forward.
Let yourself feel the hurt and discouragement. But don’t stay here for too long. Once you’ve wrestled with your feelings about your current place in life, try to accept where you are today and begin the process of moving forward.
Learn to embrace the here and now.
It’s no accident that you are where you find yourself today. Despite the fact that you may not be where you pictured yourself at one time, taking time to accept where you are and embracing this season of your life is so important.
Don’t wait to be happy. Constantly wishing that you were somewhere else or telling yourself, “I’ll finally be happy when ____ happens” is robbing you of the joy that can be found in the present moment.
Today is all we have. After you give yourself time to grieve, learn to accept what is and endeavor to make the most out of your current circumstances.
Adjust your sails.
As the saying goes, “we may not be able to control the wind, but we can adjust our sails.” We may not be able to control or change our circumstances, but we can control how we react and respond to them.
As you let go of the life you had planned, you may feel sad and broken. But there can be a beauty in the breaking and the way that you respond to your brokenness is everything. Pick yourself up and attempt to make the best of your new reality.
You are more resilient than you know. Difficult times shape us into stronger people. Try not to forget this. You can learn to adapt to this new place in your life and move forward with wisdom and grace.
Allow yourself to rely on and reconnect with God.
This is one of the most fruitful things that can happen when disappointments leave us feeling shattered.
When things get hard and we find ourselves in an especially difficult season of life, we may feel that we’ve hit rock bottom. But this can be a beautiful place to be because it is often the place where we begin to seek understanding and comfort from a higher power.
When we feel like we have nothing left in us to fight one more day, we can turn instead to God to find our strength. Trust in this time that God has a plan for you. He has allowed you to come to this point for a reason.
Ask yourself how you’re being stretched and grown into a stronger person. Observe how your faith is being strengthened. Note how this time has humbled you and given you wisdom. Know that God has allowed you to come to this place and trust that He will make something beautiful out of it.
Change your perspective.
Instead of feeling sorry for yourself or angry that things didn’t turn out the way you expected, endeavor to change the way you see things and choose an attitude of thankfulness. Even amidst losses and letdowns, try to be grateful for all that you still have in your life, what you’ve learned from this time, and all the possibilities that the future holds.
Adopting a posture of gratitude helps to make what we do have in our lives enough to sustain us and bring us joy. Look for the hidden blessings in your current situation.
Life often looks very different than the life we may have planned. But there can be grace and goodness in this unexpected side of life. We just have to learn to look for it.
When we choose to accept, embrace, and be thankful for the life we’ve been given, we can begin to see the abundance of blessings all around us. This is how we learn to fall in love with a life that looks different than the one we once imagined. And this is how we find true joy.
About the Author:
Samantha DeCosmo is a wife, rescue dog mom, and old soul who believes that sharing our stories can help others to feel less alone in theirs. She found her calling as well as healing for herself through the words she writes to encourage others living with chronic and mental illness. She writes about living your best life in the midst of challenges at www.apurposeinpain.com.
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