Table of Contents
- So what does that tell us about failure?
- What is the role of actually having a setback?
- Where does fear of failure come from?
- 4 Ideas to accept setbacks easier
- How do we accept ourselves when we have Setback?
- My challenge for you
Let’s talk in this article about how to recover after setbacks, how to keep going in hard times, even when failure becomes crippling. Listen, my dear reader, if you’re feeling sad, depressed, angry or ashamed, after experiencing failure, I hear you. We’ve all been there.
I mean, literally all of us have been there at some point. From Albert Einstein being called “too stupid to learn anything”, to Walt Disney being told he lacked imagination, to J.K. Rowling being rejected multiple times before publishing Harry Potter, to Oprah Winfrey being fired from her first TV show, to Michael Jordan having more than 9000 missed shots, all while becoming the best basketball player of all time.
So yes, everyone fails! Most probably, even you and even the people you admire most!
And what seems worthy to observe, apparently, some of the most successful people on the globe, failed the most times, in order to get where they are.
So what does that tell us about failure?
First of all, how about we call it a setback? Let’s take off some of that negative charge the word failure has on it.
What is the role of actually having a setback?
Do you think it comes in your life to put a lot of negative pressure on you, and ruin your self-esteem and motivation to do stuff, keeping you powerless?
Or could it also just be the representation of a mistake, an error, an obstacle or a sign you need to take a new path?
That is yours to decide, but I can definitely give you the input of a clinician and therapist with more than twelve years of experience, after working with hundreds of people terrified by setbacks.
They used to see it as pain and humiliation, until they understood this concept with more self-compassion.
Failure itself is just a word. Feeling like a failure is the actual problem
Where does fear of failure come from?
Feeling like this comes from your childhood.
As a child, you have learned very soon that if you make a mistake, your parents could criticize you, or they could tell you’re a bad, incapable person. Some of our parents were nice, and they explained nicely to us when we made a mistake. (And even so, we were scared not to disappoint them and get abandoned). But other parents, unfortunately, didn’t have the capacity to give us grace, patience and kindness. So they were mean, abusive or aggressive. They could have called us names, reject us and made us feel good for nothing, because of small or normal mistakes.
Therefore, you already grew up with a deep fear, of not making mistakes, because mistakes are failure, therefore that could mean you are failure.
And then, when you became a teenager, surrounded by peers, professors, friends, you faced even more opportunities to be criticized, judged or rejected.
Every time you wanted to be yourself and become better at something, naturally, you also had to make mistakes. And if the people around you didn’t offer the proper support, again, it repeated the feeling that you’re being bad or not enough, that you might be a failure as the person.
But, please remember, that feeling is not reality. Many times we can feel something negative based on past experiences. It doesn’t mean it’s reality.
In reality, every single person you know, in this entire world, has had at least one setback, even if it was as a baby falling, while taking their first steps. Setbacks are inevitable and necessary for growth.
But if you created this negative emotion about setbacks, together with a negative mindset about it, (like “I’m not allowed to fail”, “I am not enough”, “There is something wrong with me as a person”,“I should be punished for my mistakes.”, “others are always better than me”), you can become trapped in a world where you cannot grow to your full potential because you feel too fearful.s
4 Ideas to accept setbacks easier
- Be aware that you are more prone to react negatively to setbacks if you had traumas as a child or teenager or your parents criticized you a lot.
- Understand that in reality, fear of setback is connected with the level of self-worth you have. For example, if you truly believe you are good enough as a person, it’s easier to see that any setback is a life experience, just a moment of your life, with an outcome that can be changed.
- Setback is something that happens in your environment, outside yourself. While the environment is meant to change, your worth as a person never changes. Your environment changes, your situations change, relationships, jobs, opportunities, money can have ups and downs in life. But never your self-worth. You are born worthy, because you have life in you, awareness, a desire to learn and improve, the ability to repair your mistakes and heal. You are worthy, the same as every other human being.
- Accept and forgive yourself even when you make mistakes. The more you will trust that in order to grow, you will have to face some setbacks, the more you will have the power to embrace setbacks as normal, natural and part of a healthy life.
How do we accept ourselves when we have Setback?
- Practice self compassion.
There is no better attitude in life than treating yourself with compassion. And what does that mean?
It means to be human. Accept your condition as just a human being. You are not born to have everything to perfection, or know it all. Be understanding with yourself. If you haven’t been through specific experiences, it’s only normal that you will make mistakes on the way of learning.
- Practice self-appreciation.
Be proud for every single try you have made in your life. Be proud for the fact that even though you had tough times, and you’re most probably going through tough days, you’re still searching for ways to feel better or improve. Appreciate the fact that you do try your best, with the knowledge you have right now and appreciate your power to adapt, survive and continue, despite all you’ve been through.
- Practice letting go of control
Embrace the reality that you cannot control other people’s choices and reactions. For example, if your setback is related to a job, interview, money, business, relationships, parents, no matter how much you blame yourself, you are never fully able to control others opinions, preferences, choices and behaviours. And that’s okay. If you get rejected, it doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with you, not everyone will be able to get you. You have your path and your setbacks are meant to turn you constantly on the right direction.
- Trust the process
Take a leap of faith and repeat to yourself that you will achieve your goals. Believe that you can do it, if others did it before you. More good things happens to those who just believe. We all get a chance to peace, love, success, wealth, well-being. Those who get to enjoy the best outcomes are the ones that believe in the process, and trust that their setbacks were necessary for learning.
- Practice a growth mindset.
Learn to accept that you are not perfect. Accept you just made a mistake this time (or more times). If you face a setback, you always have the option to sit down with yourself, analyze what was your error and learn from it. What was the mistake? Which were the elements that caused this setback? What was the strategy that didn’t work? What do you need to change in order to be successful? And what lessons can you learn from it?
Make sure you become clear with your lessons and points of growth. Save precious time from self-blaming and invest it in understanding yourself better.
- Accept change.
Your choice, is sometimes not the right one. Maybe losing some opportunities or people seems like a huge setback. Even though you want things to be stable and secure, if something is not right for you, it will have to become as painful as necessary until you get out of there. This might seem like failure at that moment, but it’s just reality taking its course. Embrace the change with the hope that only better is yet to come. Let people and situations come and go and remain stable in your self-worth and vision.
- Move forward.
Your attitude will dictate the outcome of your life. You can end up being depressed, remorseful, angry or guilty if you focus on failure as the end of everything. That’s a choice. But you can also become resilient, wise, tolerant, flexible and experienced if you embrace failure as a motivation to keep going, moving forward and getting it better next time. Choose wisely.
- Repair your setbacks.
Give yourself permission to repair your mistake. Go fix it. Ask for forgiveness from yourself for not doing better already and promise to repair the mistake. Re-frame negative thoughts with sentences like: “I might have done wrong. I am so sorry for not getting already where I needed. But I promise to do my best to still get there, step by step, learn from it, and take action to fix my mistakes”. “I am allowed to go forward from here. I can try again. I managed many problems in my life and I can also overcome this setback”.
My challenge for you
Get as many failures as possible as soon as possible. The sooner you go through them, the sooner you know how to do better, which is your direction, and attitude needed to succeed. Only people that go through setbacks have the opportunity to become specialists or experts in something, or just better at something. Embrace your setbacks.
Sometimes recovering after setbacks is more difficult than we imagine. If you have a lot of negative beliefs, depression or anxiety, contact me and I am here to help!
Teodora Goloiu,
Clinical psychologist, cognitive behavioral therapist and trauma specialist with 12 years of experience
