You get the email.
“We've decided to move forward with another candidate.”
Oof.
You close it, and almost immediately your brain starts filling in the rest.
I knew I wasn't qualified enough.
I probably sounded ridiculous in that interview.
Why do I keep thinking I can do things like this?
Except...
none of that was in the email.
All you actually know is that they hired someone else.
Maybe your version isn't a job.
Someone didn't text back.
Your kid had a rough game.
The number on the scale went up.
You pitched an idea and nobody seemed particularly excited about it.
You tried something and it didn't work.
Something happens, and almost instantly we start explaining to ourselves what it means.
That's the part I've become really interested in.
Because the thing that happened is real.
I'm not interested in pretending disappointment isn't disappointing or finding a positive spin for everything that hurts.
Sometimes things just suck.
There. I said it.
But the event and the story I build around the event are not always the same thing.
And I have a tendency to build fast.
One thing doesn't work and suddenly I'm explaining an entire pattern.
This always happens.
Someone responds differently than I hoped and now I know exactly what they think of me.
A hard week becomes evidence that everything is falling apart.
Meanwhile, I may have about twelve percent of the actual information.
I think that's where “attitude” has started to mean something different to me.
I used to hear that word and think positive thinking.
Have a good attitude.
Look on the bright side.
Turn that frown upside down.
No thank you.
There are days when the bright side can wait five minutes while I acknowledge that I'm disappointed.
But attitude doesn't have to mean pretending something is good.
Maybe it's the posture I bring to what happened after I let it be what it is.
I can be disappointed and still be curious.
I can be hurt without deciding I'm unwanted.
I can make a mistake without turning it into a prediction about every attempt that comes next.
I can hear “no” without automatically translating it into “never.”
That's not positivity.
That's leaving room for information I don't have yet.
And I think that room matters.
What story am I adding?
I've started trying to separate those two things when I catch myself spiraling.
What actually happened?
And what did I add?
They can get tangled together so quickly that the story feels like part of the event.
She hasn't texted me back because she's upset with me.
What happened?
She hasn't texted me back.
Everything after “because” might be true.
It also might not.
I messed this up because I'm terrible at this.
What happened?
I messed something up.
The rest is interpretation.
And interpretation matters because it influences what I do next.
If one rejection means I'm not cut out for this, I probably stop trying.
If it means this opportunity didn't work out, I still have choices.
If one missed week means I have no discipline, why bother coming back?
If it means I had a rough week, Monday isn't carrying nearly as much baggage.
Same facts.
More than one possible story.
This is where gratitude has become useful to me too, although maybe not in the way I used to think about it.
Gratitude isn't forcing myself to find something wonderful about a situation I hate.
Sometimes it's simply refusing to let the hardest thing in front of me become the only thing I can see.
This didn't work.
And something else still might.
I'm disappointed.
And there are still good things here.
I don't know what happens next.
And I don't have to decide that means something terrible is coming.
Both things can be true at the same time.
Faith gives me even more room there because I don't have to know how a situation resolves before I believe God is still present in it.
That doesn't make me endlessly optimistic.
Trust me.
It just means uncertainty doesn't get to write whatever ending it wants because I'm uncomfortable waiting for the real one.
Maybe that's the posture I want to carry.
Not everything happens for a reason.
Not just think positive.
Not pretending the hard thing isn't hard.
Just enough space between what happened and what I decide it means to ask:
Do I actually know that?
Because maybe your attitude doesn't determine everything that happens to you.
Life is far too complicated for that.
But the story you tell yourself about what happened?
That can absolutely change what you do next.
And sometimes the first step isn't changing your attitude at all.
It's noticing the story you're already telling.
Want to keep going with this conversation?
🎧 Listen to Episode 29: How Your Attitude Determines Your Altitude in Life and Leadership →