How To Stop Ruminating And Deal With Disappointment At Work
Disappointment kills careers faster than failure.
And I’m not just talking about the kind of disappointment that makes headlines. I’m talking about the quiet, personal let-downs that happen behind closed doors at work.
The kind of disappointments that hit hard, but then get brushed off by everyone around you, like:
Getting passed over for a promotion you thought was in the bag.
Losing a client you poured months of work into.
Receiving harsh feedback on a project you were genuinely proud of.
When these things happen, well-meaning colleagues or friends might say, “It wasn’t meant to be,” or “There’s always a silver lining,” or “At least you’ve still got a great job.”
They mean well. But what they don’t realise is that these disappointments leave real bruises.
They eat away at your motivation, your confidence, the belief that your work matters.
Until one day, you’ve had enough. You hand in your notice. Or quietly step away from the business you’ve been building for years.
It’s not burnout. It’s not a lack of opportunity. It’s the slow, repeated sting of disappointment that finally pushes you out.
So, here’s a question: are we expecting too much from our careers, our bosses, our clients?
Or… have we just never been taught how to handle disappointment properly?
My guess? It’s both.
Let’s take a closer look.
The Fire Phone flop (and what it teaches us)
Let’s begin with a story. A story about someone we can all relate to: the third richest person in the world and Amazon founder, Jeff Bezos.
In 2014, Amazon launched the Fire Phone. Remember it? Probably not, because it flopped badly.
It was too expensive, too limited, too gimmicky. And, frankly, way too late to the party. Amazon pulled the plug on it just thirteen months later, and today, the Fire Phone is probably worth more as a collector’s item than it ever was as an actual phone.
Now, you’d expect someone like Bezos – one of the most powerful business leaders in the world – to be humiliated. Maybe even try to distance himself from the whole thing.
But his response was brilliant.
He didn’t hide it. He owned it. Called it a “learning experience.” (I know, I know—vomit bag, please.) But then he added:
"If you think that was a big failure, you’re not paying attention. We are working on much bigger failures right now."
In fairness, most of us don’t get to fail with $170 million on the line and walk away laughing. But Bezos wasn’t just cracking a joke—he was giving a masterclass in handling disappointment.
But before I break down that masterclass, let’s step back—why does disappointment hit us so hard in the first place?
Why disappointment hurts so much
Disappointment isn’t just in your head. It’s in your whole body.
Your brain is a prediction machine – constantly forecasting what’s about to happen next. So when you’re expecting good news – a promotion, a compliment, a yes – your brain releases a little hit of dopamine before the event. It’s like an advance payment on happiness.
But when reality doesn’t match that prediction? Boom. Dopamine crash and your system tanks. This is called a dopamine prediction error. Your brain bet on the wrong horse, and now it’s got to pay the price.
Worse still, this all happens in the same part of the brain that processes physical pain. Indeed, your brain registers disappointment the same way it registers a broken bone. So, when you say a piece of feedback “crushed” you? You’re not being dramatic. You’re being accurate.
The expectation gap
Here’s another piece of the puzzle: the expectation gap.
That’s the distance between what you expected and what actually happened.
Say you apply for a job you’re mildly interested in, and don’t get it? Meh. You move on.
But if you really wanted that job – told everyone about it, visualised it, saw yourself in the role? That rejection will hit you hard.
In fact, the wider the gap, the harder the hit.
And here’s a fun fact – a 2023 study in Nature Neuroscience found that people with higher emotional intelligence actually feel disappointment more.
Why? Because they’re better at predicting outcomes. So when they misjudge, the drop is steeper because the expectation gap is wider.
It’s the downside of being good at reading situations. You don’t just feel disappointed – you’re doubly disappointed because you almost never get things wrong.
How to prevent disappointment in the first place
Now that we know why disappointment hurts, how can we stop it from happening?
Two powerful strategies: expectation calibration and preemptive adaptation.
1. Expectation Calibration
I know it sounds a bit like a 1970 disco hit, but expectation calibration is actually a complicated way of saying, set your goals high, but keep them realistic.
When you think about it, disappointment isn’t caused by failure – it’s caused by the near certainty that failure wasn’t really an option.
It’s the difference between ‘I want to get promoted’ and ‘I’m 100% getting promoted.’ The first will keep you motivated. The second leaves you crushed if it doesn’t happen.
So Tip #1: make your expectations realistic.
2. Preemptive Adaptation
This is about mentally preparing for different outcomes.
Before any big moment, ask: What’s my Plan B?
If you’re up for a raise, ask: What will I do if I don’t get it? If you’re pitching an idea, ask: How will I respond if it’s rejected?
Research shows that just thinking through alternate scenarios cuts your disappointment by 50%.
That’s because you’ve prepared yourself for multiple outcomes
See, most of us treat major moments like promotions, job interviews or pitches as all-or-nothing. Either it happens exactly as we imagined, or it’s a failure.
In reality, outcomes live on a spectrum and we need to stop our selves from thinking in such binary way.
A promotion isn’t just ‘I got it’ or ‘I didn’t’ – it could mean a raise instead, more responsibilities, or a step closer to being promoted in six months time.
A pitch isn’t just ‘They loved it’ or ‘They rejected it’ – it could mean they liked parts of it, but not all, or they’re interested but need more info.
So, before a big moment, instead of imagining just one perfect outcome, map out a range of realistic ones – some great, some okay, some not ideal, and some bad ones.
When the result then lands somewhere within that range, your brain doesn’t feel like it got hit with a plot twist. It processes it as one of the expected possibilities.
Your dopamine won’t plummet as much because the result (while not ideal) was still within the range of outcomes you expected.
This is probably how Bezos dealt with his Fire Phone disappointment.
He’d been in the business for decades and knew very well that his smart phone flopping was certainly within the range of expected possibilities – one which he probably assigned a relatively low probability, but a probability nevertheless.
What to do if you're already feeling disappointed
As I said earlier, disappointment isn’t just an emotion. It’s a physical feeling caused by a chemical chain reaction happening in your body.
The moment something unexpected occurs, your brain floods your system with a cocktail of stress chemicals.
First, there’s adrenaline, which will make your heart race, your stomach drop, and your body feel tense.
Then comes cortisol. It lingers longer, keeping your brain on high alert, making it harder to focus and even blocking dopamine production – which is also why disappointment feels so unmotivating.
And then there’s norepinephrine. This is the one that locks your brain onto the negative experience, making you replay it over and over, even when you don’t want to.
However, these chemicals only last about 90 seconds… unless you keep the cycle going.
And that, my friends, is where rumination kicks in.
Rumination: the gift that keeps giving
Rumination is that loop you find yourself in where you keep replaying what happened, over and over and over. What was said, what you should have said, what you did or what you didn’t.
You’re not just remembering; you’re reliving the whole thing.
Any kind of disappointment – especially the kind that feels unfair or unresolved – creates a mental itch. Your brain wants to scratch it. Make sense of it, solve it, to protect you from feeling that particular sting again in future.
Unfortunately, most of the time, there’s nothing left to fix. And the more you loop it, the more stress chemicals you produce. The more you scratch, the harder it’ll start to itch. The more the memory embeds and the worse you feel.
When we ruminate, it feels like you’re processing, but what you’re really doing is spinning your wheels in the mud and getting yourself more and more stuck.
On top of that, your brain’s natural negativity bias means we already lean towards giving more weight to bad experiences than to good ones, so you’re creating the perfect storm.
That’s why one awkward conversation haunts you longer than a dozen great ones. Why you still cringe when you think about something small that happened years ago. It’s simply your brain’s evolutionary survival software that’s running.
But you can break the loop. Here’s how.
How to recover from disappointment fast
#1: The Rumination Reset
Earlier, we talked about that delightful stress cocktail your brain serves up – adrenaline, cortisol, norepinephrine – whenever disappointment strikes.
And as I explained, they typically run their course in about 90 seconds, unless you feed them. So, the key is to interrupt the rumination cycle quickly.
Next time you feel disappointment hit, try this 90-second reset:
1️) Pause. Let yourself feel it. Don’t stuff it down or pretend you’re fine. Just acknowledge the emotion and name it: “I feel disappointed right now.”
2️) Breathe deeply, focusing on longer exhales than inhales. This activates your parasympathetic nervous system– the one responsible for calming you down.
3️) When the timer goes off, break the loop. Physically move. Get your bum out of your chair, walk outside, go make a coffee – anything that forces your brain to shift focus.
The faster you stop ruminating, the faster your system resets.
#2: The instant nervous system reset
Say you’ve just had a setback – like, this very moment. You’re still sitting in the meeting, or reading the email, or hanging up the call. Your stomach’s dropped, your heart’s racing, and your brain is starting to catastrophise.
A fast way to reset is by physiological sighing – a simple breathing technique used by fighter pilots to lower stress instantly.
Here’s how it works:
Take a deep inhale.
Then sneak in a second, smaller inhale right before exhaling.
Exhale slowly, for a little longer than both inhales combined.
That second little breath is key because it helps inflate the tiny sacs in your lungs and triggers a powerful relaxation response.
Sounds too simple to work, right? But studies show that physiological sighing brings down stress levels faster than standard deep breathing. It actually resets your heart rate and starts bringing you back to calm within seconds.
Try it next time your body goes into “Oh no” mode. I think you’ll be amazed at the difference.
#3: The dopamine reset
Remember the crash we talked about earlier? The one that happens when your brain pre-releases dopamine based on an expectation and then reality doesn’t deliver?
After a disappointment, your dopamine levels flatline. Which is why you feel so unmotivated, stuck, or like you just want to crawl under your desk and scroll forever.
The antidote to this is progress. Small wins. A sense of forward movement.
So, the trick is to get your brain producing dopamine again, but on your terms.
That might look like sending one short email, completing a small task, tidying your desk, making a plan for what comes next, or going for a brisk 10-minute walk.
Physical movement is especially effective because exercise naturally boosts dopamine levels. Even a few minutes helps reset your brain chemistry.
My personal favourite? I pull out my phone or my journal and write down what I learned from the disappointment, or what I swear I’ll do differently next time.
It gives me a sense of control and helps reframe the moment as a step forward as opposed to a dead end.
Remember: it doesn’t have to be big. Your brain just needs to register that you’re back in motion and that you’re not stuck.
#4: The Cognitive Contrast Reset
Let’s talk about your brain’s negativity bias, which is that tendency to focus more on what went wrong than on all the things that went right.
That’s not just a bad habit – it’s evolutionary. Your brain is hardwired to zero in on potential threats or failures, because historically, that’s what kept us alive.
But when it comes to modern-day disappointment, it means your brain is constantly inflating the size of the setback.
So how do we fight back?
With a little trick called cognitive contrasting.
A study in Psychological Science found that people who compare their disappointment to a worse possible outcome feel significantly less upset.
Here’s how to use it:
Ask yourself: “What’s a worse outcome that could have happened?” Then, imagine that situation in detail—how it would have felt, what the consequences would be. Now, compare it to what actually happened.
Didn’t get the promotion? Imagine if the feedback had been awful and your position was at risk. Got your idea rejected in a meeting? Picture them laughing you out of the room instead of giving thoughtful criticism.
It might sound silly, but it works. Your brain makes sense of setbacks by comparison. So if you give it a new reference point, it quickly reframes the situation.
This isn’t about gaslighting yourself or pretending it didn’t hurt but it’s about putting disappointment in perspective. Keeping it real and keeping it moving.
Conclusion: disappointment is not a dead end
If there’s one thing I want you to take away from this, it’s this: disappointment isn’t what breaks you. It’s what you do next that matters.
Look at Bezos. He didn’t dwell. He moved on to another even more expensive failure: his divorce settlement.
My point is that setbacks at work and in life are unavoidable. If you’re taking risks, you’ll get rejected. You’ll mess things up.
And if you’re not getting disappointed now and then, it means you’re probably not pushing yourself hard enough.
So here’s what to do next time it hits:
Catch the spiral – Notice the mental movie playing on loop.
Reset your nervous system – Physiological sighs, breathing, movement.
Shift your focus – Find a win, reframe the story, keep moving.
Remember that your feelings of disappointment are never the full picture. They are just a moment. What happens next? That’s up to you.
