If you’re human and you’re alive, you have had a setback at some point in your life. You had a plan, and things didn’t turn out the way you hoped. You might look at the setback as a failure. You may become stagnate for a period of time. The turn of events and the unexpected shortcoming may have a paralyzing – stuck in your tracks – effect. If you’ve experienced this, I’m sure it impacted several, or all, areas of your life — your business, your family life, and your personal relationships. It may even have caused you to question your spirituality.
Why Me? Why Now? Why This?
Setbacks are normal because some things are out of our control and just go wrong. Sometimes it is clear that the setback was our fault because of something we did incorrectly, ineffectively, not fast enough, unprepared or in a haphazard way. Sometimes it is dead obvious what went wrong and who’s fault it was and sometimes it’s not so apparent and there is no one that is clearly at fault. Either way, the focus shouldn’t be on who’s fault it was. The focus should be on what can be done differently in the future. If you focus on what went wrong as opposed to focusing on what can be changed, you’re setting yourself up for another setback, lowered productivity, lowered self-esteem, second guessing yourself… the list goes on. Don’t bash yourself, just educate yourself and make note for the future.
Turn this into an opportunity to improve and do better next time. Whatever the issue is, it is best to analyze what went wrong, was there a hole, a gap, something you could have done better, some piece of information you could have obtained prior that would have helped. The best thing is not to sulk or complain or cry but to analyze what took place and see where adjustments can be made in the future. A setback is actually an opportunity for improvement. It is an opportunity to become better than you were before. It is an opportunity to make changes.
If you use this an education moment and a learning opportunity, a setback does not have to slow you down. It can actually make you better.
When is the last time you had a setback in your business and/or personal life? How did you handle it? Were you able to use it as an opportunity to learn and improve?
Quotes on Turning Failure Into Success
“Losers quit when they fail. Winners fail until they succeed.” Robert Kiyosaki
“Most great people have attained their greatest success just one step beyond their greatest failure.” Napoleon Hill
“The biggest risk is not taking any risk. In a world that changing really quickly, the only strategy that is guaranteed to fail is not taking risks.” Mark Zuckerberg
“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” Thomas Edison
“Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.” Winston Churchill
“Each bruise is a lesson. Each lesson makes us better.” Syrio Forel, a Game of Thrones character