Dealing with Disappointment

“No one’s life is a smooth sail; we all come into stormy weather. But it’s this adversity – and more specifically our resilience – that makes us strong and successful.”

- Tony Robbins

 

Disappointment can be one of life’s most uncomfortable emotions. It can also be a foundation for other negative thoughts and emotions to creep in, such as anger, fear, guilt, sadness and it can give you an overwhelming sense of failure. The UCAT is high stakes and unfortunately, not everyone will come out on top. For everyone who is in this position (and know that you are in the majority), now is not the time to give up!

 

USE this adversity and more importantly, use resilience to resist the urge to give up in the face of failure. Let it drive you even harder than last time to ensure you continue your pursuit of your UMAT® Exam goals. The fact that you have decided to dedicate your life to a career in medicine is a testament to your ability and your persona. This is all easier said than done, I realize that. The UMAT® Exam results were released a month ago, so for those of you who are struggling at the moment, it is worthwhile to take some time and consider these points:

 

Acknowledge how you are feeling

If you never experience adversity, how can we be expected to know what is good and overcome these obstacles? Don’t hold back your feelings of disappointment, as this will only end badly: bottled up emotions always come back, and they come back uglier and nastier than before. Accept it and instead of being stuck in a whirlwind of disappointment, use it as a driving factor. So you didn’t do so well this time, you feel disappointed, but you can learn from it and develop yourself. Disappointment is not permanent.

 

Avoid ‘catastrophic thinking'

When things don’t go right, we can all tend to blow everything out of proportion in our minds. An example of what you might be thinking is

“I didn’t do well enough in the UMAT® Exam so I’ll never be a doctor and I may as well just give up on everything else because it doesn’t matter anymore”

This kind of thought can be detrimental to yourself and particularly to your mental health. If you find yourself slipping away into one of these thoughts, come back to reality. You can do this by practicing mindfulness exercises. Start by thinking of 3 things that you are grateful for in your life, then think of all the wonderful people you have and finally think of yourself when you are successful. Feeling gratitude for the good things in your life is one of the best cures for negative thoughts.

 Put things into perspective

The majority of people sitting the UMAT® Exam are straight out of high school or relatively new out of high school. Say you are somewhere between 17 and 23 years old and you didn’t do well enough this time to get an interview into an undergraduate medical school? So What? Some people don’t even know what they want to do straight out of high school and so are stuck in some degree trying to figure out what to do next. You have time. You’re not going to wake up one day a 55 year old still sitting the UMAT® Exam. You’re going to use this feeling of disappointment right now to strengthen yourself and overcome this adversity so that you do not make the same mistake another 20 times. If it takes you a couple of years, it’s not the end of the world.

 

Reflect on your mistakes

What did you do wrong this time? Do you have any regrets? Use these feelings you have to explore what might have been your downfall. Maybe you were having a really off day and so you weren’t in the right mood to be sitting a 3 hour exam? Or perhaps you had heard and so had told yourself that you couldn’t study for it, and so you didn’t (Bear in mind, this is one of the biggest mistakes made in any UMAT® Exam exam, always prepare!). Really think about it while you are in this space as it allows you explore your faults and better yourself. If you didn’t last time, consider a UMAT preparation course or a online UMAT preparation course.  If you did, and didn’t get the benefit you expected, try another one. You might find that the course you tried was just not suited to your needs.

 

Reach out to your friends and family

If you are sitting there at the moment with a massive weight of disappointment on your shoulder, wherever you are or whatever you are doing, get up and talk, or pick up your phone and call someone to talk. They want you to succeed just as much as you do. They may not understand just how you are feeling but they sure as hell can help you get through it. If you don’t feel like you have anyone to talk to, there are services you can call, such as Headspace where you can simply chat to one of their trained professionals about it. Talk about how you’re feeling about everything. You might find that just opening up to someone may help you let go of some of the emotions that have been getting you down.