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Nick Oswald
00:39 Hello, and welcome to the happy scientist podcast from bitesizebio if you want to become a happier healthier and more productive scientist, you are in the right place. I’m Nick Oswald the founder of bitesizebio.com and with me is the driving force of this podcast the never disappointing Kenneth Vogt. My friend, mentor, and the founder of the coaching company Vera Claritas, today's episode is called how to handle disappointment that as a big one Ken, what have you got to say about that.
Kenneth Vogt
01:07 Yes, it is, and before we get started, I’ve got to do something I haven't had to do before I need to make a correction. I love our last episode, oh no, it was I made a factual error it didn't it didn't impact the point, but I, you know I care about I care about the facts like all you good scientists do, so I was talking about Jim Thorpe an Olympic athlete and I said that he had been at the Olympics in Germany right before World War Two, but I was collapsing him with Jesse Owens the African American Olympic athlete who messed up Hitler real bad by not being Arian and yet winning everything at Nuremberg in in 1936 but Jim Thorpe back was actually at the 1912 Olympics before World War one in Stockholm but he still did his practicing in the lounge chair on the deck of the boat he in his head, so that was my main point so that's fair enough classes imagination like.
Nick Oswald
02:16 So that was a disappointing, but you got that wrong Ken.
Kenneth Vogt
02:21 Oh that's it we'll talk about that in in quite the detail today is disappointment is definitely something That you're going to face, especially if you've been using a lot of imagination, because Sometimes you can take your imagination, beyond at a point that you can turn into reality, and you just don't get what you hope for and now here we are telling you to be imaginative Are we setting you up for disappointment well, perhaps, however, disappointment doesn't have to be this horror story that it is for a lot of people and some for some folks disappointment is about the worst thing that could possibly happen to them, and this is the thing about disappointment.
Kenneth Vogt
03:03 is a disappointment is a choice and it's not a terribly productive choice and now you're thinking, how could it be a choice I would never. You know force this upon myself it's just it's such a horrible feeling I just hate it, but no it's it came down to what expectations that you had, and what you think is the story about what happens when your expectations are not met so let's unpack this a bit so first to get a look at. What is it that you might be disappointed in because there, there are several factors, and if you don't if you don't tease them apart, you may not realize what the source really is so, for instance? You might be disappointed in the circumstances of something that happens, in other words, it just didn't go the way you wanted it to, and when I actually come out like you like you had hoped. And, or at least come out well enough, and you know but it's just it didn't go the way you want it that's one possible disappointment.
04:13 Another might be is you didn't get the result you wanted your outcome wasn't there, maybe everything did go fine and, as far as the process but it didn't end up the way you wanted. Another possibility with disappointment, maybe that look we had everything set to go perfect, but these other people just didn't do their part they you know they didn't do their job they didn't they didn't show up on time, whatever it is it's you had everything ready to go perfect and get the perfect outcome. But other people messed it up for you, and then, finally, and this is the one that is the hardest time people is you, maybe you're disappointed in yourself. Like you know everything was there, everything was good to go and I just I just didn't deliver I didn't step up I didn't show up fully I wasn't completely engaged right and so these are, these are all possibilities for why you're disappointed, so if you think about this like man, I should be disappointed all the time. Because circumstances outcomes other people and even myself getting something wrong that's just a common occurrence right so.
05:29 So you're if you look at the world this way, you're going to be disappointed all the time, and it really comes down to. What kind of expectations, do you have for all of these things, and how do you determine your expectations to where did you set the bar now I’m not I’m not advocating that you should set the bar low or that you should have sloppy standards that's not the point here, but sometimes? We set expectations that aren't realistic and when I say unrealistic, I don't mean just that you know they don't know why I align with some current view or some you know or worse yet some political view what I What I mean is that they just they don't tie up To the facts that you're aware of things that you know you know and oftentimes you can hit off a disappointment, by seeing it coming. When you realize, you know I got this person on this task and mean they're swamped right now and there's a high likelihood they're not going to get this done on time.
06:42 And maybe I need to take other steps well, you can head off that disappointment, you can you can get around it or here's an outcome that's a real moon-shot. And I’m not going to count on that outcome, you know I might like that, but I’m not but I’m going to count on I’m not going to build things on an outcome that is unlikely to happen, you have some control over this yeah. So that's part of the reason we end up in disappointment is because we don't properly assess from the beginning what's available to us. And even asking too much of ourselves, sometimes, and you know in this in this podcast I’m often advocating that you should you should ask a lot of yourself that you should you should dig deep and you should make an extra effort, but there is a human limit And there's just there's a limit for each of us at any given moment, and it doesn't matter if the person at the next bench can do this easily and it's hard for you, if it's hard for you today it's hard for you today.
07:45 Now you might want to do something about that you might want to get more proficient at something or Maybe you need more information or maybe you need more support, or maybe you need better supplies, or better equipment well okay take those steps, but don't just be disappointed in yourself, purely because. Those other circumstances aren't there if you're aware of those circumstances, now I mean we all have those situations where you go into something. You got that kit and yes I’ve heard good things about this kit it's great I’ve never used it before, but I think it'll be fine and you use it and it just isn't what you know for okay that happens So that'd be a moment where maybe you would be disappointment pointed and you might feel justified like well I I’m entirely allowed to be disappointed, right now, because, because things weren't the way I expected and I did set my expectations properly I didn't seek advice and I did check into things first and I, you know you know poor pitiful me I’ve got a bad result so here's a question to ask yourself in a moment, like that What are you getting out of being disappointed So I’ll put that to you, Nick few I’m sure you've been disappointed in the past, what have you ever got a good being disappointed.
Nick Oswald
09:11 Well that's a good question I guess that that's how it was a really hard question to ask yourself, is what do I get out of this because you think you don't get anything out of it it's happening to you, but I guess one thing you get out of being disappointment, as you get to feel sorry for yourself and that kind of in a strange way feels good or absolves you have responsibility or all sorts of things that those kinds of Feelings do.
Kenneth Vogt
09:40 Right and understand everybody I’ve asked this kind of question of Nick many times, so he was prepared for this question, you might have been sitting there going, what do I get out of disappointment I’m getting anything out of it, I hate it, you know I’ve been.
Nick Oswald
09:54 Ken I have to answer that Question.
Kenneth Vogt
09:57 You know, love it but yeah here's the thing, and this is, this is something that's really, really worth internalizing whenever you're feeling bad in any way disappointments just one of the ways Ask yourself the question what am I getting out of this And don't allow yourself to say I’m not getting anything out of this I hate this this is awful it's the worst I do anything to avoid this like Well, apparently, you won't do anything to avoid it because you didn't avoid it this time and sometimes it's like well when you say do anything to avoid it well, I mean it might mean you'd have to quit your job to avoid this, you know this particular disappointment It might mean you'd have to fire somebody it might mean that you'd have to refuse to do a certain task You know that I mean things with consequences I’m not I’m not saying this, these are insignificant things, but you do have a choice. And at some point, you can you can look at it and go, you know what it is just not worth it, and therefore I’m going to take a different path and other times you're going to realize. As much as I hate this it truly is worth it, I’m committed to this, I got to deal with this and it's funny when you decide to accept something. You will, you will notice that your disappointment starts to be mitigated it starts to go away it start it starts to be easier to take. Because you know a lot of the things about disappointment, or the story you're telling you about it.
11:35 How horrible it all is you know and how devastating it is and how you know eternally damaging it is you know it's all those stories are there being heaped on top of whatever didn't go the way you would like, are what are making it feel so bad So let's start unwinding this a bit so You can set yourself up in the beginning for disappointment, by not examining things so let's make sure that you examine your expectations from the beginning. You know, and you know, based on our last our last episode of course we're telling you to be imaginative we're telling you; you should be swinging for the fences all the time. Well, if that if you're going to do that, I promise you things aren't always going to work out the way you would hope so, It comes down to your expectations now if you realize that when I when I go for that really hard, one that I’m going to not get there sometimes when you know that going into it changes, how you feel about now I don't want you to set yourself up to like well it didn't matter I needed a moon shot anyway so who cares you know.
12:58 it's not like that, I mean if you're going to go for moon shots you need to make some moon shots but, but you got to understand that you don't make them all, and so it comes down to looking at what you expected. As some of the things might be well, is it is it that you didn't get what you want it in its entirety, or is it just pieces of it, like, for instance, this is just a timeline issue, in other words, did it just that happen as quickly as you would like. yeah because now, you know what parts have to address and now it's easy to go over is there a way to tinker with this can maybe I can put more staffing on it, or perhaps. There are some things that could be tightened up, so that this This can be done more quickly.
13:47 Did I disregard a hard deadline that now caused the problem, because you know, sometimes the timeline problem isn't a problem with the individual thing itself is about something external to that thing, so you know you get disappointed with this with this procedure, because it didn't happen fast enough, this time, but This time was about something else that that caused you to feel that you needed it in a certain timeframe so you'll get clear on time on time issues and do they really apply to this thing that's disappointing you right now, or is it something else here's what I really want to warn you against and that's perfectionism is so caustic and so it's so painful and in the show notes I’ll have a link to a blog post there was entitled perfectionism is setting the bar too low And everything setting the bar too low and perfectionism all about setting it absolutely at the pinnacle it's like no it's not and I’m not even going to get into the details on that go read it yourself it's a short read But then, but you'll enjoy it and the fact is, if you have lived a life as a perfectionist if that's constantly popped up for you. I promise you you've been disappointed over and over and over again, and you probably know, other people who aren't perfect oneness.
15:19 And wow they don't have those disappointments, the same things go right in the same things go wrong for them, but they skip the disappointment it's as simple as stopping being a perfectionist so you know that that's something to really look at. Now the other thing that might happen is that your expectations may be based on inappropriate or even counterproductive comparisons. You know this didn't go as well as the last time just didn't go as well as when Sally did it just didn't go as well as when I had better equipment, you know there's a You can have a whole list of things that you can compare to that are that are fair comparisons well you can't compare it to when you had better equipment, because you don't have better equipment now You can't compare it to Sally because you know she happens to be truly expert at this and you're just trying to for the first time You can't compare it to the last time you did it because, and you know you can you'll know why there's a different set Now I’m not saying you should never make a comparison, but the, the point is don't make inappropriate comparisons and don't make comparisons that are just going to tear you down If you if you just constantly comparing yourself to Nikola Tesla was got this right well boy, you are going to be disappointed a lot, you know. So, what you put in its place, so I, you may have a pattern where disappointment shows up for you regularly and you think why I don't know how to do this any different you know.
17:01 when something goes wrong, I’m disappointed isn't that an appropriate response that is that I didn't get what I wanted so I’m disappointed. Well, in call it appropriate in from the standpoint of you know there's nothing morally wrong with you that you that you're disappointed, however, it is still a choice you don't have to feel that way in its place, consider this as an alternative, how about acceptance You got an outcome, and you accept it. What a novel idea. Now that doesn't mean that you give up it doesn't mean that you, you surrender like you know surrendering and war here and that's it we're not beat down. Acceptance properly applied, is not just capitulation instead acceptance is steely eyed realism you saw the actual result, this is what happened. The past happened it's done, you know that that experiment failed that person didn't come through I didn't properly prepare I didn't have the things I needed, you know that's what happened So The sooner, you get there, the sooner you rip off the band aid, the easier it will be to get past any disappointment. Now here here's the thing too, you can both be disappointed and accepted, in other words, you might you might be disappointed before you can stop It might have already happened with your way out of dissappoitment, the way to turn it off turn it down or turn it off is acceptance that OK, I see things as they, as they are. The problem here is that if you don't accept results here's what you get you end up being pessimistic you end up being passively aggressive you end up being Moody.
19:12 And you know if this is involuntary you, you will realize you're doing those things until you see yourself doing it so you're watching yourself on stage and you're realizing oh man here I go again all dark and gloomy and now people don't want to work with you. Your boss, maybe, maybe frustrated with you because here's another layer On top of this there was some kind of failure, and on top of that, we got to deal. With this Moody person in the lab this this problem person who needs to be coddled right now that needs they need some extra personal attention. Just because they chose to be disappointed, you know we've all seen situations where something went wrong and you see somebody afterward and they're like whoa. That wasn't what I expected and you know, without any caring and without any old woe is me just like well look at that. And don't we find those people a lot easier to get along with it more fun to work with all right don't get more confidence in them because.
20:26 You know they're not going to head down this this deep dark hole waste time suck energy and you know take suck the joy out of the room. Because something went wrong, you know you don't have to be that person, you can accept what happened and avoid all those all those negative emotional reactions. Now of course anytime something goes wrong, you have you have a learning opportunity And you here here's a here's a truism that might not be fun to hear, but it, but you know it so pain is a very effective learning tool And yes, it's painful when something fails it's painful when you didn't get the result you wanted or when people didn't come through for you or you can come through for yourself. But you can you can learn from a circumstance here, and you can ask yourself some questions like Is there what is one thing I can learn from this now, especially if it's been something where you felt disappointment near it's hard for you don't you know don't make yourself go back to school honest. But ask yourself that simple question was one thing I can learn from this up what's everything I should learn from this; you know that might be overwhelming but what's one thing I can learn from this it's like okay. I should listen to Bob when he told me to watch this I should have I should have been cleaner I should have gathered my equipment first, before I got started I and there could be any number of things and I’m rattling off things that are simple, it might be something you know big and complicated and deep something that's That could be a really valuable learning point, you may realize, something that that could advance your abilities and you know potentially advance your career advanced science, because you realize something now that hadn't been noticed before. This is where you learn those things. And how many scientific discoveries, do you know of that came out of disaster that came out of somebody's messing something up and we've referred to some of those before now, you know won't reiterate ones that are just old an old hat but I’ll bet you, dear listener, have had an experience like this yourself, or something went terribly wrong.
22:58 And you really learn something yeah, I mean I could point back 10 things in my own life about that off top my head and I’m sure Nick you could to it yeah you know we have a lot of a lot of possibilities there, so another question, you might ask yourself after something goes wrong, and it could be potentially disappointing is, how can I adjust my course to avoid this disappointment in the future it's like all right I’m going to accept I’m disappointed right now.
23:30 See that's another thing to do, you don't just have to accept outcome, you can accept this disappointment, but hey I want to be disappointed next time So how do I had that off, and you know, maybe it's like it could be like you know I got to I got to get a better night's sleep before a day like today, maybe it's I need to be more versed on the literature, before I dive into something like this any number of things that you could look at, but look at what can I do to adjust my course and this isn't about making yourself bad it isn't about making yourself weak or insignificant or insufficient it's just about noticing what could be improved here That will make this turn out better and notice I’m saying adjust my course because yes of course there's lots of other things would be adjusted But if you start to realize I can apply it to me I’m not a bad person, because this went wrong, and I can make I can be better and.
24:38 And I will I will face less disappointment in the future, so if you don't like being disappointed if you really, really hate it, the answer is going to be to make yourself better you're involved and only you can make you better you can't rely on other people for that, and you can't rely on I’m going to fix all these other people around me, you know that's their job your job is to work on you. Another thing you could look at. is just Even if you can't come up with something. That that you did wrong per se that you need to adjust just what's one thing I could do differently next time yeah, we may we don't even know if it'll be better it's just what else could I try Oh, I thought I could go this way, maybe actually go that way. So, again be open be open to be imaginative about possibilities of changes not just you're not you don't just have to fix problems sometimes you just have to change just do something different. So, all this being said we each of us have our own experience for things for some of us disappointments just not that bad it's not that hard, but for some of you disappointment is terrible it's a horrible burden it's almost too much to bear so What if that's how you experience things well.
26:14 First off there's some there's some advice that you may hear sometimes and I want to warn you against it it's bad advice and you've probably heard this said, you know if you never want to be disappointed just never leave your comfort zone You know, for some people that might be a way to live For a scientist for a happy scientist there's no way you could follow that advice, you have to leave your comfort zone your comfort zone is where nothing happened And I grant you that all disappointment is outside of your comfort zone but that's Okay, because all opportunities out there to. And all successes out there, too, and all progress is out there, too, and if you can, if you can latch on to the possibilities, the possibility of progress, the possibility of discovery And realize how much more valuable, that is, to you, then the occasional disappointment that you encounter while pursuing those things.
27:26 that's how you can get free of this when you start to realize, then, that I can avoid disappointment and I can have disappointment and have it not be that bad because it's worth it it's the cost of doing business and we've all done this, if you, if you like, working out at the gym you know that all the adage of the no pain, no gain it's so true We go to the gym sometimes we enjoy the pain. In the past, we might have found that to be similar to disappointment have to suffer that so you know it a lot of it comes down to perspective. So, another thing to look at them like well you haven't this disappointment has been so overwhelming to me well all right, maybe it's because that's where you're focusing your attention. So, it's good to stop and ask yourself sometimes what isn't disappointment in my life in my job in my career and in my lab. You know what's going on in your world that isn't disappointing and I’m not I’m not talking about it's got to be everything that's so wonderful And perfect and in winning cherries on top all the time just I’m going to set the bar here really low just what isn't disappointing, you know I show up every day and the power is on I show up every day, a lab is here that's outfit it you got stuff and there are other people here and I’m safe here.
29:06 And you know there's there can be a lot of things you can look at instead of the thing you're disappointed in and realize, you know. It isn't that bad I’m going to put it all in context and realize that that's just one piece of this puzzle here and there's all these things I can do about it, meanwhile All these other things are going well there's plenty of things that are not causing disappointment and if you show some gratitude for those things disappointment starts to be less painful to you Another thing you can do is whenever you find yourself in a situation where you're disappointed get some good counsel and good counsel from come from a lot of places now maybe that after something goes wrong it's like I really don't want to do this better well Go get some counsel some advice from a mentor someone who's been there before someone who is walk this road and think many of us can find those people right in our in our close circles there, there are people that have more experience And there are people that are willing to help so go to them, or you might go let's say you don't have a mentor for this will go to a colleague.
30:30 You know somebody else who's walking the same job as you and facing the same issues as you and sometimes just having a powwow or somebody like that you come up with some answers between you And finally, if there's nothing else to do go to a friend didn't have to have answers to just have to hear that I’m disappointed And just receiving their compassion or their empathy I’d be enough to carry you through it You know these, this is the last stop along the way, do all these other things and you'll rarely have to do that and I’m not saying, not to tell your friends about your disappointments I’m saying that It doesn't have to be the thing that saves you it's always a nice it's great that to you know go to the bar after work and have a beer and like man, today I just fell on my face it was ridiculous and your bartender is like yeah I know how you how you feel man I’ve been there Great that emotional support is useful to you know he can't help you, with your problem, you know you you're the one with a PhD he pours beer, you know But it still can be helpful to you.
31:45 So, finally, after all this is going on and, like all right well I’m doing what I can do this thing happened it's over. Now it's time to get back up on that horse it's don't go well I’m never doing that again I’m afraid to ever try again like no you definitely have to try again you got to keep going. And you can use it as motivation when something goes wrong, sometimes that can be some oh I’m not I’m never doing that again I’m never ever negative my face like that, again, it can it can cause you to step up, it can make you pay more attention it can make you be more detail focused, to make sure that you get a better result, the next time And then, when you do that, and you get involved again and even before you succeed, you're just getting engaged again. Can separate you from that past this appointment, you know you know you're focused on what you're doing now I’m not focused on A painful outcome before I’m focused on right now, and the thing that that I am deeply a part of and that's how you can take yourself out of disappointment so.
33:09 And I’ve got also put a link to a past episode number 26 the power of gratitude, because we talked about that a bit. In you know this, I just want to make sure everybody gets that make sure you take a look at perfectionism is setting the bar too low And, and you know talk to people, they can they can help a buck you up. Get back on that horse get back in the game keep going disappointments will happen, but they can be very short lived you can accept your way out of them. And you can move forward and keep expanding your career and you'll find you'll have less and less disappointment so anything you'd like to add their Nick.
Nick Oswald
33:55 And that was really great Thank you Ken, and as you were speaking, I jotted down a little diagram of All of this like a biological pathway just appeared to me And for me it's quite it's quite an interesting one, if you link it back to you know this idea of disappointment, causing pain and if you went back to. To the previous episode about imagination Again, I think we said last, I think we've mentioned that last week the idea of imagination. You know, being required for success would be the you know the biological would be imagination is necessary for success, but not sufficient so imagination, plus drive gives you it's either going to give you success or failure, but if you don't have imagination or drive, you are. You’re not going to get either and this is the just so people know this diagram if it's useful for you, you can find it in the in the show notes for this episode so.
Kenneth Vogt
35:04 it's really good Nick I really like.
Nick Oswald
35:07 Imagine these put my imagination, plus five equals. Success or failure, you know binary outcome and the downside is failure leads to disappointment, which leads to pain, which is suppresses imagination and drive. And then that's where you get people the phenomenon of people's world getting smaller because they don't want to expose themselves to disappointment well the really don't want to expose themselves to the pain of disappointment. Because that that's what they've experienced so they let their world gets smaller and smaller and smaller. So, if you can look at what Ken just said here and outlined of ways to mitigate this appointment so there's two ways to do that or there's two points that you can mitigate disappointment. One, as you can stop the disappointment turning into pain. And some ways, you can do that our preparations are preparing for the outcome of disappointment and being ready to accept it and advance the second one is accepting it when it comes. You can either do that in advance, or when it happens, treating it as learning so defuses the sort of pain and energy, rather than an opinion, it becomes a building block for your future success or just plain old gratitude. To be like okay well you know to kind of put that into context.
36:22 Then you that's one way to defuse the pain, the other one is to is to not allow these things that amplify the pain like perfectionism and comparison and things like that to be part of your life or to get rid of those if you can. Those will reduce the translation of failure into pain and stop you from having that that downward spiral effect where you. Will you suppress your imagination and drive, so you go I don't want you know the whole there's a thing in the in the news here in Britain just know that I popped out at me and actually fits in quite well and it's a you can look up I’ll put I’ll put the link to in the show notes there's a newspaper article about it, so this guy is Marcus Rashford he's a footballer and English football and these kind of over the this pandemics, he become a bit of a political activist, always been drawn into it, but that's by the by the he's an extremely successful young man, and he has the quote, that he from him is that whenever I hear seen whenever I hear no I asked myself why not And that's you know if you look at That diagram the reason you say no to something that pops up in your imagination, that you can possibly do Is that you're worried about disappointment and pain or looking bad or whatever, if you can remove that inhibition and just drive and focus on the doing the imagination and drive part rather than whether it's a success or failure and keep going forward, regardless of whether it says success or a failure that's when you get hyper. Sort of growth that's when you get high levels of growth and success.
Kenneth Vogt
38:15 Sure, and for those of you who are very pragmatic sometimes you hear that question why not you Pooh it You blow off because you're hearing it wrong, you're hearing it as a rhetorical question don't ask it as a rhetorical question ask it is a question you intend to answer, why not, I have to have a reason why not, and that that can because the. The thing you think is the you know, is the answer that question is what's holding you back, and when you make it a rhetorical question you leave it on answered, so you don't know why you're being held back you just you know sitting there.
Nick Oswald
38:57 I mean literally, if you look at this, you know if the way that it's gone, as is. For you, is shown in this diagram if you see it's explaining this diagram is the reason you're seeing, why not is because you're Literally because you're afraid of disappointment, you know that are or something like that it's going to be something like that, if you examiner.
Kenneth Vogt
39:23 Well, I think we should have Nick drawn pictures during all these episodes from now on.
Nick Oswald
39:28 I love this when something pops up like a biological pathway, because I can understand those and hopefully people in the audience can as well, but this is quite nice, yeah great.
Kenneth Vogt
39:38 All right, anything else you want to add to this point, Nick.
Nick Oswald
39:41 No, I think we can just wrap up by again thanking you Ken. A great episode so really, it's a really, really important topic and, hopefully, people can absorb and use it to use this to stop disappointment as an as a suppressing science so let's get rid of it lets deal with it. If you want to see the links to the. The episode an article, the podcast episode and the article about perfectionism that can mentioned put you can go to the show notes and in there, you can also get my amazing diagram, of course. Then you can go, you can find the show notes at bitesizebio.com/thehappyscientist, this is episode 34. How to handle disappointment and in that page, there will be a place where you can download the show notes, and you can also find us contact us talk to facebook.com/thehappyscientistclub. And also, just a reminder that if you haven't done so already go back to episodes 129 of the podcast and listen to them if you this. This sort of stuff is working for you, then, or if it's if it's ringing a bell for you then go back and listen to those episodes 129 which talks about some foundational principles that you will find useful So I think that brings us to the end of another episode of can't believe we’ve done 34 already but Okay, thanks again, and thanks everyone for listening today.