-by Darpan Sachdeva
Things don’t always go how we expect them to. Setbacks, or failing to meet a specific goal, happen to most of us from time to time. No one is perfect. We all fail at something at some point in time. Setbacks are a normal part of the path to success But the world’s most resilient people aren’t afraid of failure. They aren’t afraid of setbacks and defeats. They don’t shy away from the pain. They embrace it. They use it to fuel them, to enhance their frame-of-mind, to embolden their pursuits and emblazon their spirits.
Many members of the Fortune 500 Club could easily earn membership in the Misfortune 500 Club. Successful people are not people who never fail; they are people who know how to fail well. They have learned to use the leverage of a failure to push themselves up higher.
Harvard University psychology professor Daniel Gilbert found that people are not good at forecasting their feelings when they’re in the midst of personal adversity. They mistakenly assume that they’ll feel similarly in the future. Our negative forecasting bias drives us to underestimate our ability to recover:
“It’s not that things don’t hurt. It’s that they don’t hurt quite as long or as much as we think they will,” Gilbert says.
However hard it might be to see any light at the end of the tunnel, don’t give up hope that you never will. “Hope is a risk that must be run” and is the cornerstone of optimism.
As much as our society frowns upon failure and as much as it might feel like the embracement of defeatism, failure is a necessary evil. It’s not about failure. Whether you’ve failed once, dozens of times or hundreds and thousands of times, you’re defined not by the number of times you failed,but how you looked at those failures and bounced back from them.
Yet, for most people, failure is the final blow. It’s the proverbial nail in the coffin. They take a single solitary failure and they allow that to emotionally ruin and debilitate them. They allow their lives to be defined by that failure, cowering into a corner, hiding in the aftermath of despair, succumbing to the suffocation of defeat.
Yes, failure hurts. But resilient people know how to bounce back from failure. They utilize the inherent power and focus of the mind to usurp the damning sting of complete and utter failure. However, anyone can bounce back from failure. Anyone can implement any number of methods to allow them to overcome the stifling sensation that sets in when you fail.
The truth? The mind conceives what it sees. When we focus on the problems that arise from failure, that’s all we see. However, when we turn those problems around and see them as stepping stones, looking at our failures simply as markers or milestones on our way to our bigger and brighter goals, something revolutionary begins to occur in the mind.
As i myself have moved through not a single time from setbacks in life and when I try to over come the failures enduring across the seas of hopelessness and ultimately emerging at the shores of happiness ,a true transformation change happens.Its this change that could be your most monumental and life alerting experience.
Bouncing back from failure isn’t something easy. It isn’t something that’s straightforward. In fact, not everyone is able to muster up the strength to be so resilient as to not allow something so ego-defeating like failure to stop them dead in their tracks. However, considering that the most famous and successful people in the world have failed the most times, bouncing back has become the hallmark of success.
It doesn’t matter how many times you fail. It doesn’t matter how painful those failures are. What matters is what you do after the failure. How do you look at that failure? How do you respond? Do you wallow in self-pity, allowing all those negative thoughts to consume you? Or, do you pick yourself right back up again and give it another try? That’s the big difference. That’s what creates a foundation for greatness.
Mediocrity is easy. It’s easy to play it safe in life. It’s easy to avoid taking any risks for fear of failure. But that isn’t a life. That’s isn’t living. As J.K. Rowling once said:
“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.”
Don’t allow a thing like failure to discourage you. Don’t allow upsets and defeats to deaden your spirit. Try again. Give it another shot. Why give up? Especially after you’ve suffered through the pain, you’ve already endured the hard part. Try again. Henry Ford, one of the greatest entrepreneurs in modern history, once said that:
“Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligibly.”
After a long detailed research, I would put up here the most important ways to move through the set backs in life and reheading back on to the road to success:
#1 — Be Honest With Yourself
The first way resilient people bounce back from failure is by being honest with themselves. They don’t try to sugarcoat the fact that they failed. They don’t try to use softer words to help lessen the impact of that failure. No. Instead, they’re honest. They’re one-hundred percent straightforward about that failure and just how gut-wrenching it was.
To avoid being shocked by failure in the future, try to understand why things haven’t gone to plan this time round. Have you not been able to commit enough time to it? Did a life event mean it was put on the back burner? Was there an injury you ignored for a while?
It’s OK to feel the negative emotions that come with the setback. In fact, it is essential. Pretending you aren’t disappointed, frustrated or angry won’t make it go away. Acknowledge how you feel, but steer clear from blaming yourself or others. Take the time you need to process. For some setbacks you will need more than just a brief pause to recover.
It takes courage to accept responsibility for a setback or failure, especially if you are feeling hard done by or let down by others. Whatever the causes, by accepting responsibility for the failure and the reality of the consequences that could come your way, you are making an important first step towards bouncing back. Through acceptance you have some certainty to work with and hopefully no prolonged emotion to battle with. It is what it is and you need to get on and deal with it.
#2 —Be gentle with yourself.
Resilient people who bounce back from their failures, do so because they don’t live in that state of defeatism for too long. Yes, they allow themselves to feel the hurt associated with failure. They don’t escape from it. But they also don’t stay there for too long. While it’s easy to allow resentments and guilts to overcome you on the best of days, you can’t constantly continue to do that.
The true hallmark of persistence and resiliency is not allowing the pain of failure to last forever. When Thomas Edison was attempting to create a commercially-viable electric lightbulb, and he famously failed over 10,000 times, he didn’t live in that state of failure forever. If he did, he likely wouldn’t have achieved the wild successes that he achieved. In fact, Edison, when asked about his failure, stated:
“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”
Setbacks can happen to anyone. Winston Churchill lost elections. So did Abraham Lincoln. Walt Disney’s first animation studio went bankrupt. Billionaire Michael Bloomberg, three-time mayor of New York City, was fired from Salomon Brothers. Anna Wintour, before becoming editor of Vogue, was fired from Harper’s Bazaar.
#3 — Forgive Yourself For Past Mistakes.
The most resilient people in the world are able to forgive themselves for their past mistakes. The truth is that failure doesn’t happen when we do everything perfectly. We usually mess up in one area of our lives or another. When we’re trying to build a business, our personal mistakes take a toll on our professional businesses or careers.
However, we have to forgive ourselves for those mistakes. As long as we can learn from them, we can move on. Too often, we beat ourselves up and we can’t find a way to forgive ourselves. We replay the events repeatedly in our minds, never really allowing ourselves to move beyond the situation.
Resilient people don’t do that. They know that human beings aren’t perfect. We make mistakes. More importantly, we need to learn from those mistakes if we’re going to bounce back from even the most earth-shattering failures in life. Forgive yourself if you’ve failed. You don’t need to forget. Just forgive.
#4- Don’t play the blame game.
Were you treated unfairly? Perhaps so. It happens. Unfortunately, no matter how angry you may be, you gain nothing by blaming others. Failure can be a springboard to success, but only if you are willing to put blame aside and consider whether you may have inadvertently contributed to the setback. That’s the only way you can hope to avoid similar crashes in the future. But even there, it’s self-destructive and inaccurate to blame yourself entirely, for forces may be at work that have nothing to do with you. The best approach might be to take the advice of the great Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius. He said (in The Emperor’s Handbook),
“If you fail, blame only yourself, or better yet, don’t blame anyone.”
It was true in the second century, and it’s true now. Analyze; don’t blame.
#5-Revisit Your Reasons “Why”
In order to make your grand comeback, oftentimes, you need to review the reasons why you wanted to achieve or attain something in the first place. What was it about that specific thing that was so alluring to you? Is that still the case? What were your original reasons for wanting to achieve it?
You need to revisit your reasons why. If your reasons for wanting something are strong enough, you can see just about anything through. But if those reasons are merely superficial, it’s far harder to bounce back from a failure. When it doesn’t mean as much to you, the pain of achieving something becomes far greater than the potential for the pleasure, and we simply give up.
We’re willing to endure the pain of failure for the potential for great amounts of pleasure as long as we find something that means so much to us that we’d be willing to do just about anything to get there. Thing about migrants who leave war or famine or oppression with slim chances of escape, yet they still try. Why? Family, security and prosperity mean that much to them. Find a strong enough why you want to achieve something and you can bounce back from any failure.
#6 —Don’t get bogged down on the past – move forward
Things often happen for a reason, and an apparent setback can actually place you on a fresh and exciting career path.
“You have to take things as they come and work to overcome challenges,”
The last place where you want to be stuck is in your current problem. That’s why so many people get active after a setback. They want to see movement. They want change.
Try and avoid just focusing on your failure and what went wrong. Instead, think about what you need to do to succeed.
It does no good to ask yourself: Why didn’t I…? What if…? Why me…? Would you accept some of the mean questions you ask yourself if they came from an outside source? Doubtful! So you have to “stop ’em and swap ’em” immediately for these questions that bounce you upward: What can I do to move forward? How can I grow from this challenge? What’s within my control to change?
It’s also important to understand that reaching for success always involves a certain amount of risk. Realize that taking risks will result in occasional setbacks that can eventually be overcome through determined, repeated effort. As a 25-year-old Winston Churchill observed,
“You must put your head into the lion’s mouth if the performance is to be a success.”
#7 —Be Grateful For What You Have
Gratitude is quite possibly one of the most important aspects of life. We have to be grateful for what we have, no matter how little it might seem. Today, if the world were to cast its problems into a big pile, you’d immediately take yours back, so you have to be grateful for what you have, even if all you think you have are problems.
I know that it’s easy to be unappreciative and ungrateful for things. I’ve been there before. Until something is taken from you, you forget its value. You simply expect it to be there. But I’m not just talking about material things. I’m talking about things like air, water, food, shelter, health, sound mind, the ability to speak, the ability to write, your hands and fingers, your heart and your lungs, and so on.
Gratitude is the surest pathway to success and happiness in life so be grateful for everything. Yes, even for your problems.
#8 —Connect ,Strategize and Act
It can take courage to share our struggle, reveal our shame, admit our failings or confide how out of our depth we might feel. Yet it’s not a sign of weakness to open ourselves up to others or to ask for help. It’s the opposite: a sign that we are brave and that we want to be stronger.
Everyone feels vulnerable after a setback, so it isn’t easy to ask for feedback, even from friends and allies. But this could be the single most enlightening step you take. At the very least, doing this will let you know what people might be saying about you. And because you’re in a crisis, you’ll find that people will tend to be straight with you.
When you’re trying to push through a roadblock, solitude is your enemy. You need support. But not from just anyone. You don’t want to reach out to the person who will turn this into a pity party. You need to surround yourself with people who are objective, positive and focused on solutions, not problems. Seek out the can-do people in your network. Confide in them, and enlist them to help you overcome your obstacle.
Devise a plan that will minimize the impact of the setback and get you back into the fast lane after your temporary breakdown.
After you’ve had time to process the emotions, gather the facts, and recruit your A Team, you’re ready to move forward with your plan, measuring progress along the way. This step will energize you. It helps wash away the negative emotions associated with the setback and gives you something positive on which to focus.
#9 —Don’t Be Afraid to Dream Big
Never be afraid to dream big. And I mean, really big.
The most successful people in the world, attained their success only after massive and monumental failures. And most of them didn’t just fail once. They failed repeatedly, over and over and over again. But they still bounced back by dreaming big. They held that dream so vividly and bright in their minds that failure didn’t diminish their spirits.
The mind can achieve anything it can conceive. Don’t be afraid to conceive outlandish things. Over time, you can achieve them. It might not happen within the timeframe that you anticipate. But as long as you don’t give up, it will happen. So don’t be afraid to dream big whatsoever. Don’t be afraid to believe in yourself.
No matter what happens, you can always bounce back. We are resilient. We are made to thrive. Not just survive. Human beings have been thriving since our earliest days. They’ve dreamed big dreams and seen them through. Anything is possible with the right amount of determine focus and persistent action. Anything.
#10 —Don’t give up:View your setback as a possible blessing in disguise
Sometimes it feels easier to cope with a failure by accepting that you weren’t good enough or it wasn’t meant to be and emotionally packing the experience away in the deepest pocket of your mind, never again to see the light of day.
If, after a serious reflection, you feel that giving up is the right thing to do, then you should learn what you can and pack it away. However for most people, most of the time with some adaptation, they should keep going with redoubled determination to make it work. There are so many examples in our own everyday lives when persistence is the essential characteristic in a situation.
Don’t give up or as Winston Churchill famously said
“If you’re going through hell, keep going”
Setbacks are actually progress in disguise. Think back to the most powerful things you learned in life, and I’ll bet many of those enlightenments are connected to a setback. In fact, you can likely connect a lot of your success and confidence to the growth that came from your most challenging experiences. Of course, hindsight makes those setbacks seem inconsequential – but they likely felt a lot heavier at the time. Remind yourself that the aftermath is temporary and will lead to valuable outcomes.
#11 —Find Your Source Of Happiness
Just because we fail at something, it doesn’t mean that we aren’t worthy of being happy. Everyone deserves to be happy. But when was the last time you actually did something you loved? I mean really loved? We’re often so busy chasing some dream that we forget about the fragility of life in the here and now.
Think about a child for a moment. When a child sees something for the first time, their eyes light up. They point up to the bird soaring up above or smile at the dog as it walks by. As we grow older, we forget about all of that. We forget about doing the things that used to bring us so much joy and happiness.
However, resilient people that learn how to bounce back from failure don’t forget about their sources of happiness. Whatever makes you happy, no matter how many times you’ve failed, be sure that you come back to it. Paint on a canvas, walk on the beach in the moonlight, travel the world, or just sit in the park and meditate or write in a journal.
Whatever it is. Simply do it.
Darpan Sachdeva is the CEO and Founder of Nobel thoughts.com. With a long time passion for Entrepreneurship, Self development & Success, Darpan started his website with the intention of educating and inspiring like-minded people all over the world to always strive for success no matter what their circumstances.To keep going and never get disheartened and learn from every adversity.
