Don’t let setbacks stop you

American basketball legend Michael Jordan once said, “I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.” Doesn’t this remind you of a similar story you heard when you were in school? Of a spider that fails several times when trying to climb a wall before he ultimately succeeds? Success seems to follow failure. Ask any successful individual what his secret of success is and he will most likely attribute it to his ability to accept failure or a setback.

Take it as it is

“You need to be able to accept where you are right now,” says Andrea Rains Waggener, author of Healthy, Wealthy and Wise. “In order for a ball to bounce, it needs something to bounce out of, right? So do you. If you want to start bouncing back after a setback or failure, you need to put your feet solidly on the ground of reality,” she explains.

Accepting either—a failure or setback—does not mean saying, “OK, I know I’m in deep trouble.” That’s acknowledging it—only half part done. It means being able to believe deep within you that “setbacks happen, I’m facing one right now, and however bad the circumstances seem, there will certainly be light at the end of the tunnel”. Because no tunnel is endless [even though it may seem so at times]. Accepting setbacks help us realise that setbacks are no big deal.

To read the entire article, pick up the June 2009 copy of the Complete Wellbeing magazine

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