To be perfectly honest, I don’t know how to avoid being disappointed in other people. Really wish I did, but I don’t.
However, I can offer some guidance on how to avoid the awful morass of being disappointed in yourself. I say “awful morass”, but I could just as well call it a trap or a cesspit, because once you set foot on the path of feeling disappointed in yourself, the inescapable swamp of self-pity is just around the corner.
Fortunately, that trap is completely avoidable. Because you have an extraordinarily powerful weapon at your disposal with which to obliterate self-disappointment whenever you may feel it coming on. And that weapon is Critical Thinking.
The reason why Critical Thinking is so all-powerful is that it provides you with both motivation and guidance – at the same time! Guidance in that it focuses your attention on objectively & effectively considering precisely what expectation you feel disappointed in not meeting. And clean motivation because you are taking control, which is an excellent way to avoid self-pity and gain ascendancy over any set of sub-optimal circumstances.
As an added bonus, Critical Thinking gives you insights into how to improve, remedy, or just learn from whatever situation that prompted you to feel disappointed in the first place. Wow. And in case you’re worried that you have to be an Einstein to use Critical Thinking, fear not, because it isn’t about how well you use it, just that you do use it. Period.
So go forth and think critically! 🙂