Bouncing Back from Shattered Dreams
A couple of weeks ago, one of our Wise Humanity Community members – let’s call her Nancy – published a very disheartened post: something she was keen about suddenly got rejected.
She described that incredibly inspiring space that our mind creates when we are optimistic that an important wish will be realised. She called it Lalaland, and I’m sure we all have visited it many times.
We have expectations and desires for something, we put all our passion and energy into it, we create beautiful dreams around it, and then, sometimes, things go a different way.
The desires can be about “small” things, like a few days ago, when I was so excited organising an intimate restaurant dinner for my boyfriend… and so disheartened when we had to cancel.
But the fall from Lalaland can be a lot more painful when it’s about bigger, life-changing wishes like a new job, a promotion or a marriage proposal that get rejected.
Nancy wrote, “It's phenomenal how far our thoughts go into Lalaland and define a surreal life as if this wish got realised and how life would be like and then boom reality catches you back to the surface of the ground.”
How do you deal with unfulfilled desires or wishes? She asks in the end.
Photo by Henry & Co on Pixels
So let me share some "theory" first and some practical advice after.
Many Eastern philosophies actually say that desires are the source of all our suffering. We want something to happen, we want our life to change in a certain way and those very desires dictate what we do, what we feel, how we're going to schedule our days, how we're going to treat the people around us, etc. In a way, we become slaves to those desires.
So the spiritual gurus would say that giving up all desires is the way: pure, unconditional acceptance of what is, with our actions led only by who we want to be in the moment, in the now.
That teaching works for the spiritual gurus and, at some point on our life journey, it may work for us as well. The question is, does it work for you now? Does it work for me now?
It really doesn't.
We do have goals we want to achieve, we have dreams of how we'd like to change our life, visions of the person we'd like to be and the role we'd like to play in that new future that we imagine. And wow, these dreams can be incredibly powerful and motivational, they can inspire us to wake up early in the morning, work hard, and grow as human beings.
That's the positive side of the desires coin: it makes me come alive every day; it makes me love life every day.
But there's also a negative side to that coin: the frustration of not achieving something I really wanted, the painful disappointment of seeing other people not behaving the way I was hoping they would, the disheartening feeling of not having done enough or not being good enough, the crushing feeling of failure.
So, here's some bad news and some good news.
The bad news is that as long as I live a life led by my dreams, I'll need to deal with both sides of the desires coin. There's no escape.
The good news is that I can develop tools and habits that help me get out of desperation more quickly. I’ll focus on two of them today: letting go of the feeling of failure altogether, and switching my focus from achieving to being.
So, how do I let go of the feeling of personal failure?
Now, whether I achieve or don't achieve what I wanted, the final outcome has always been delivered by something bigger than just me. The most skilful kite runner still needs wind. Anything we desire needs the direct or indirect contribution of nature and other people for it to happen. It’s never in our sole control. Nature follows its rules and other people follow their own ways so, yes, there is a lot I can do to achieve something, but no goal is ever completely in my power. None.
For that reason, the failure of a dream is not my personal failure: I never had all the power to fulfil my desires in the first place. I still decided to play the game of trying to make them happen and, this time, the game didn't deliver my victory. But not achieving what I wanted was always a possibility within the rules of the game and it always depends on something bigger than just my commitment to my dreams, no matter how big it is. So why should I feel like a failure for not achieving what I wanted? If anything, I should feel like a failure if I hadn't tried... cos trying is the only thing I can do: playing the game of trying to make my wishes come true.
So, if I can't really control the achievement of something but I still want to feel the energy, drive and inspiration of being led by powerful dreams, how can I minimise the suffering when things don't go according to my wishes?
What I can do is I can put my focus on who I'm being while I'm trying to achieve my goals. And this is the second tool: switching from achieving to being.
Let me give you a couple of examples.
I really want my love relationship with my partner to work. I mean, it's an admirable desire, but do I really have control over it? I ultimately have no control over my partner, let alone other factors (financial, health, professional, etc.) that can obviously have an impact on our relationship. So what can I do? I can focus on being the best partner I can be, every day, every moment, according to what I genuinely believe a good partner should be like. Say we're having a fight, ok, so I can ask myself "what would the good partner I know I can be say or do at this moment?" And I say or do that. I let go of the illusion that I control the outcome (and my partner) and I focus only on being the good partner I know I can be.
Photo by Juan Mendez on Pexels
Here’s another example… you love the company where you work, you really want your job there to work out and you'd love to have that promotion to Sales Director. You have a great network, empathetic emotional skills, and you’re a proven team leader. You really love that company, and you could do so much more for it if you were promoted. Now, this is a powerful vision that drives you every day. It makes you feel like a force of nature! So you decide to play the game of trying to get that promotion, of being the best employee that deserves that promotion. And you keep well in mind that, no matter how objectively perfect a candidate you are for the Sales Director position, it's not solely in your power to get promoted. So, instead of focussing on the goal of getting promoted, you focus on being that good employee you know you can be, who delivers value to their company every day, who leads and inspires their team every day, who collaborates with their peers, and yes, also who makes sure that their boss notices all of that, why not? It’s part of playing this game.
On a side note, since I’m talking about playing, several studies show how
sports teams who focus on playing their best game win more often than those who focus on winning.
So here’s a different way to use my dreams without actually becoming their slave.
My desires give me direction and tell me what game I need to play. But the rules of the game are very clear from the beginning: there's no guarantee that I'll win. The feeling of failure or of not being good enough comes from the illusion that I had power over the outcome of the game and that the final score was in my control. But it wasn't. It never has been.
The feeling of success and fulfilment comes from my focus on – and my realisation – that, at every moment, I'm being the best player I can be at the game of making my dreams come true... regardless of the final score.
So, choose the game you want to play, but then let go of the goal you’d like to achieve and just focus on being the best player you can be.
Now, I always close my emails with “big hug”… and this time I’d like to send Nancy and anyone out there who’s feeling like they’ve just fallen out of Lalaland one extra big hug to comfort you in this 100% human sadness that you're going through. There’s nothing bad in that sadness. Accept and embrace it as a sign of how genuine your dreams were. And I hope this blog helps you bounce back more quickly.
And if you want to have a chat, just reach out.
Big hug!
