Disappointment or failure?

Have you been in a situation where you set a clear goal and you work so hard to achieve it just to fall just a bit short? What's your response - are you disappointed or do you feel like a failure? If the latter - your perfectionism is showing! If I had $10 (inflation adjusted) for every time this has happened to me, my life would be quite different. What does that look like in real life - let's say you are looking for a job and you want to get hired within 2 months. Six weeks in, nothing's worked. At this point, some (I see you) would be beating themselves up for being a failure, getting derailed, sacrificing self-care and may end up accepting a job at a lower title/pay. Others will be going full steam ahead applying, networking, interviewing. They process the disappointment and keep going. They may get a job at week 8 and celebrate - after all that was the initial intent, right!

It you want to shift from failure to disappointment - a few practices to take on:

✅ Define upfront what success looks like on a gradient
✅ Notice when you start to derail and challenge it then and there
✅ Ask someone you trust for perspective and really listen to them
✅ Focus on what has worked vs. on what hasn't