Anna Maria Richards
In a world where people often share carefully curated versions of their lives on social media, it might seem like there are people who genuinely never suffer any setbacks. As enviable as this sounds, it also isn’t true. Everyone has times when they have to pick themselves back up again, and the key is not that you never have to do it. It’s how you react when you do have to recover from a setback. Below are several things to think about as you’re weathering those slings and arrows that life can unexpectedly produce.
Problem Solve
In the face of challenges, some people simply give up. Others start figuring out how they can solve the problem. You should strive to be the latter type of person. This means brainstorming how to deal with the situation that you find yourself in. For example, perhaps you’ve just found out the roof of your house is in serious need of replacement. You don’t have a lot in savings. What are you supposed to do? If you have enough equity in the house, you might qualify for a home equity loan. If you compare interest payment amounts with credit cards and other loans, you will probably find that they are favorable. You can review a guide that will help you make this comparison and find out more about home equity loans. Try to think in terms of solutions instead of spiraling into negative thoughts.
Fight the Fear
When you’re looking at a setback, the worst thing about it can be the fear of failure. One way to deal with this is to embrace the possibility of failure. That may seem crazy, but in most cases, failure is nothing to be afraid of. It’s just a part of life. Entrepreneurs, artists, and politicians all know that failure is a perfectly normal part of getting where they want to be. When you remove that fear, you can take bigger risks, and setbacks just look like minor inconveniences. If you can put your setback in perspective, you can respond to it more effectively. Read books about letting go and how that concept associates itself with embracing the possibility of failure. Feeling settled in the fact that you cannot change the past and should not let it affect your present is highly valuable.
Make New Goals
One of the best ways to deal with a setback is to start looking toward the future and new goals. For example, perhaps you were training to run a marathon, but you injured yourself in the eleventh mile. Maybe you finally realized your dream and started a business only to find yourself bankrupt a year later. This is not the end of your story as this is simply a weigh station. Once you’ve given yourself time to process the disappointment, start to think about the new goals you’d like to set. Write them down, and be as specific as possible. You might be surprised at how quickly your attention turns to how you can complete them rather than dwelling on your disappointment.
Journaling
There’s no denying that trying to do something that matters to you and having to regroup can be unsettling. Writing about it can be a good way of emotionally regulating yourself and working through complicated feelings. You don’t have to show what you write to anyone, and you don’t even have to keep it. However, it can be a good way of forensically examining what went wrong, how you feel about it, and how to avoid it in the future.
