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Every Sunday I bring you an article, an interesting quote that has been on my mind, and a journal prompt, all related to working and living better.
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From Defeat To Victory: Transforming Setbacks Into Opportunities
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If you are doing work that is meaningful, setbacks are inevitable. In fact, if you aren’t encountering failures and challenges, you need to consider if you have stagnated in your life and career. Encountering setbacks is a normal part of stepping outside of your comfort zone and becoming the next best version of yourself.
It’s easy to become discouraged when facing a setback. But it’s important to remember that setbacks can offer us the opportunity to grow and to learn. I know, easier said than done…
The story that you tell yourself when encountering a failure matters.
You have a choice when this happens; you can either feel discouraged or you can choose to consider what you have learned because of the setback, and how that insight will now allow you to move forward more effectively. Because you now know more. Failure is just a data point. As Thomas Edison famously claimed,
Getting control of your emotions is the first step after a setback. You will probably be upset, maybe angry. You will feel some disappointment, maybe even having a sense of inadequacy. This is obviously not the ideal emotional state for learning, so you will want to calm yourself down as a first step. Stopping for some deep breaths can help here, maybe even doing a bit of meditation if you can calm yourself down enough. Talking to a friend, spouse, or mentor can often be useful. Remind yourself that the feelings you are experiencing are only temporary. You have overcome challenges in the past and will move past this one as well.
Once you have calmed yourself down, brainstorm some lessons that you could take away from the setback. Write them down. It is quite amazing how many insights you can find just by forcing yourself to brainstorm for even 10 minutes. After brainstorming on what insights you gained through the experience, identify the top few.
Next, take these few insights and consider how someone you admire may apply them in their life. Could you do something similar? The idea here is to think about how ‘future you’ (your ideal, best version of yourself) would leverage this insight to move themselves forward. By shifting the perspective off of yourself, it allows you to consider a wider range of ideas than you currently would consider. It also helps you move closer towards that ideal state, preparing you to better face similar situations in the future.
Finally, it’s important to remember to be kind to yourself. The most important relationship you have is with yourself. Rather than beating yourself up for failing, focus on the fact that you learned something that will allow you to make progress towards your goal.
That means looking at how much progress you’ve made, rather than looking at how far away you are from your goal. By changing the narrative that you tell yourself when hitting a setback, you can use it as a tool to move yourself towards your goals and dreams.
The setback happened; you might as well get something good out of it!
Quotation that I have been pondering
Several days ago, I was following my usual morning routine, which includes guided meditation using the Headspace app. The app has a section called ‘The Wake Up’, where there is often an inspirational video shared. On this day, the video was of Blake Leeper, who is a United States Paralympic athlete, eight-time Paralympic Track and Field international medalist, world record holder and three-time American record holder.
His story really resonated with me, especially the quote below;
That phrase really caught my attention, and it is what inspired the above article.
It seems worth trying to look at our challenges as opportunities to grow. It won’t be easy, but so worth it.
Journal Prompt
One of the biggest challenges facing most professionals today is the sheer quantity of time spent doing things that:
a. aren’t truly important;
b. lie outside what the person really wants to be doing.
Which leads to this week’s journal prompt:
People say that they don’t have time for things, which is completely false. When you claim you “don’t have time” for something, you actually mean it is “not that important right now”.
Make time for the things you care about. Put them on your calendar and protect that time.
