What do you want out of life? Every once in a while it is important to reflect upon what you are doing with your life. But are you asking the wrong questions?

This recent article upends what most of us think we should be thinking about when it comes to “big life questions.” Instead of focusing on what will make you happy, Mark Manson suggests something a little more challenging:

Everybody wants what feels good. Everyone wants to live a carefree, happy and easy life, to fall in love and have amazing sex and relationships, to look perfect and make money and be popular and well-respected and admired and a total baller to the point that people part like the Red Sea when you walk into the room.

Everyone would like that — it’s easy to like that.

If I ask you, “What do you want out of life?” and you say something like, “I want to be happy and have a great family and a job I like,” it’s so ubiquitous that it doesn’t even mean anything.

A more interesting question, a question that perhaps you’ve never considered before, is what pain do you want in your life? What are you willing to struggle for? Because that seems to be a greater determinant of how our lives turn out.

He continues…

Who you are is defined by the values you are willing to struggle for. People who enjoy the struggles of a gym are the ones who get in good shape. People who enjoy long workweeks and the politics of the corporate ladder are the ones who move up it. People who enjoy the stresses and uncertainty of the starving artist lifestyle are ultimately the ones who live it and make it.

This is not a call for willpower or “grit.” This is not another admonishment of “no pain, no gain.”

This is the most simple and basic component of life: our struggles determine our successes. So choose your struggles wisely, my friend.

“It is what it is.” This hackneyed phrase is on repeat in your head and odds are, you don’t even know it. We rarely question or bother to challenge things as they are. Why bother?

As Adam Grant points out in the un-put-downable book, Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World, we accept the default setting for a lot of stuff in life. Examples abound in all aspects of our daily lives –even for basic stuff like which search engine you use. If you’re a Mac user, your computer came with Safari pre-installed so most likely you use Safari, not Chrome or Firefox. Few bother to explore whether a better option exists.

Relying on a mediocre search engine is but one example of the power of defaults. It occurs everywhere—at the voting booth, in the supermarket and in the office. The astonishing thing it is how it happens without most of us even noticing.

Grant uses the wildly successful online, affordable and fashionable eyeglass company Warby Parker to underscore the necessity of questioning things as they are. Up until Warby Parker came along, few questioned the “fact” that eyeglasses needed to be so expensive. The founders rejected this default position and the rest is history.

Accepting the status quo has consequences. It numbs us into believing that things are supposed to be as they are and it robs us of the initiative to take action to change them.

One way to defy defaults is to practice what Grant calls “Vuja De.”

We’re driven to question defaults when we experience vuja de, the opposite of déjà vu. Déjà vu occurs when we encounter something new but it feels as if we’ve seen it before. Vuja de is the reverse—we face something familiar, but we see it with a fresh perspective that enables us to gain new insights into old problems.

It takes a little extra effort to practice vuja de but it may just open your eyes to what is in front of you and, even better, help you envision and create a better future.

According to the old adage, “disappointment is expectation divided by reality.” If you adhere to this formula then the best way to reduce disappointment is to dial down your expectations.

While this approach may keep disappointment at bay, my concern is that it cultivates a pessimistic mindset. Thinking this way gnaws away at courage and hope.

As author J.K. Rowling reminds us:

It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all – in which case, you fail by default.

Instead of avoiding disappointment, navigate your way through it with these seven actionable strategies:

1. Do the opposite:

During periods of stress, people retreat into bad habits like eating poorly and not getting enough sleep. It is precisely at these moments that you need to take good care of yourself.

2. What would X do?

Think of someone you admire and consider what they would do. You don’t have all the answers. Look beyond yourself for advice and wisdom.

3. Use your strengths:

Take this survey to identify your top five strengths. Harness these strengths to help you move forward.

4. What matters most?

Your values define you, not your achievements.

5. Reach out:

Avoid the temptation to go it alone and withdraw from friends and family. Their support will shepherd you through this.

6. What can I learn from this?

Asking this question fosters a growth mindset. Effort isn’t always enough. Be curious. Stay flexible. What will you do differently next time?

7. Be you own voice of reason:

As hokey as this may sound, research shows that when you engage in positive self-talk using your own name (i.e. instead of saying to yourself, “I will get through this,” say “Samantha, you will get through this.”) you reduce anxiety and feel more in control.

Your attitude and actions will make the difference between getting stuck or moving beyond disappointment.