Coping with Disappointment

Being a self employed model and TV presenter often brings about a great amount of opportunities for exciting and potentially life changing jobs that could arise. As discussed previously, I had a great opportunity for some regular work with style haul, a very successful YouTube channel. The casting for this went extremely well and I received some immediate feedback about the job. However, unfortunately for me nothing came to fruition and I didn't get the job. Complete disappointment.

Coping with this disappointment is something that I have had to get used to over the past 5 years of my life. It's quite an incredible emotion to have to deal with on such a regular basis. I think back to when I worked previously away from the entertainment industry and the only possible disappointments I could have got was being rejected a pay rise or a promotion, which may have happened once or twice in 6 years! It is very different when for work I have to regularly audition for jobs and roles in order to earn a living. This is my choice of course.

When I first started in the industry, I took every disappointment extremely personally, always looking at myself and feeling I just am simply not good enough or good looking enough for the model roles I was being put forward too. It is very tough to take and to hear criticism directly to your face. At first I would cope by shutting myself away from the rest of the world, not looking at my phone, not talking to anyone and just being by myself. It hurt, it really did.

As time went on and I gained more experience in the industry, I learned to not taking anything personally. I have to be honest, I have never completely learnt this and still often take the disappointments to heart but no where near as much as I used too. I will often look for other excuses now as for why i did not get the jobs. For example, over here in LA I often blame my English accent for not getting presenting work here. This doesn't mean I rest on my laurels. I will still aim to work hard at home to practice my presenting techniques whenever possible.



I just try extremely hard to block any disappointment out of my mind and to occupy my mind with positive thoughts and thoughts of completely different things, whether football, movies or anything. I stop shutting myself down afterwards as well and I am becoming more open about the disappointments.
Why should I have to hide away from disappointments?
Do people think less of me when I have had more disappointments?
These are the questions I ask myself and I realise I do not care one bit what people think about me anymore. If people are revelling in my disappointments, then so be it, but these people will never get close to my life, ever.


Coping with the disappointments is one thing. Learning from them is a completely different thing. But both of them together are absolutely key to being able to move forward with future aims and ambitions within the industry and to simply be able to pick yourself up, brush yourself off and move on to the next audition.