Turning Disappointment into Opportunity: A Lesson from My 16 yo Daughter

I often say my children are my greatest teachers, and this past week my daughter did not disappoint. Sophia, 16, is a solid soccer player now living in a highly competitive school district. Approaching tryouts we knew making the Varsity team was going to be hard. As a former competitive soccer player myself, I wasn’t sure who was more nervous for tryouts—me or Sophia. After a grueling week of practices, tryouts came to an end. We waited anxiously for the email that would either thank her for trying out or welcome her to the Varsity team. We were both on pins and needles. Finally, at 11 PM, the email came in, and unfortunately she didn’t make the cut.

I was devastated for her—and, to be honest, for myself. My days of watching my daughter play soccer had come to an end. I realized I had been reliving my own soccer days through Sophia, and it all came crashing down. But this isn’t about me. When Sophia shared the news, I tried to hide my disappointment and asked her how she was feeling. She shrugged her shoulders and said, "I tried as hard as I could," and without missing a beat, she added, "I wonder if they need a manager."

WOW! Talk about turning a potential disappointment into a gift or opportunity. I thought about how much richer (and less stressful) my life would be if I approached disappointment this way. What could I learn here? What good could I take from this situation? This mindset is so applicable to all areas of our lives, especially during career and life transitions. It’s easy to let our egos hijack the situation and take us down an unhelpful rabbit hole, or we can honor our feelings—disappointment, frustration, fear—and then make an intentional decision about our next move to improve the situation.

Recently, fear and stress have been trying to hijack my mind specifically around career and finances. Acknowledging the emotions and intentionally choosing to disrupt them with something else was incredibly powerful. When I stress about money for example, instead of letting myself ruminate on that, I think what can I be doing differently, or what can I learn to ease my stress? Can you lean into curiosity, exploration, and innovation instead of spiraling further into fear and stress? As you can imagine, the outcome is much more enjoyable when you choose to opt out of feeling miserable.

This Positive Intelligence approach is something I weave into my coaching practice to help clients stay on track. It is extremely effective, and as you can see, both Sophia and I benefited greatly from first acknowledging the emotions we were feeling and then intentionally choosing to be curious about the lesson or possibility that could come from it. I’ll keep you posted on whether she gets the manager position, but in the meantime, she and I will be at their first game tonight. While I won’t be cheering my daughter on, I can still cheer the team on and receive great joy from it! That was my gift from disappointment.

Is there an area of your life that you find yourself ruminating on, bringing you stress or anxiety? A relationship, finances, your job? Can you disrupt the negative loop you find yourself defaulting to and lean in with curiosity instead? It isn’t always easy, but it is possible. If you could benefit from some added support to work through this pattern, let’s talk. Feel free to schedule a free, confidential consultation call with me using my calendar link below! You got this!

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