On Sunday the England team crashed out of the World Cup. How do we cope with such an ignominious defeat?
Disappointment hurts. No one likes to have expectations crushed and it is almost impossible just to “forget” about something that has dominated your thoughts for a long time.
One of the most distressing aspects of this defeat is that the child in us has to face up to reality. We have to accept that things don’t always turn out as we hoped they would, and that we can’t make things happen simply by wishing hard. Coming back to reality is no fun and it could make you feel angry, despondent and helpless.
However, the result on Sunday doesn’t have to make you feel that way. You have far more control over how you feel than you might think. Although you don’t have much say about what happens in the wider world and you can never change the past, there is something you can do. You, and you alone, are in charge of the way in which you interpret life events. With regard to Sunday, you can either choose to focus on losing and cite the failings of particular individuals, or you can decide to feel proud of the way that particular players performed and how almost all English fans behaved.
Furthermore, you can help yourself to cope even more comfortably with what happens by adopting a particular mindset before events. You can decide in advance whether you will demand a specific result to feel good, or choose simply to hope for — but not to expect — the best. And if in the end your team is the one that loses, you can look upon it as an opportunity to learn something rather than to feel miserable.
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The match on Sunday may not have granted us victory but we now have four years to learn from what happened and to prevent it happening next time.