How To Recover From Setbacks

Source: brusinski / Getty

As humans, we can be very results-oriented. We have these goals in mind like get married, start a business, have children, have a bustling social life, and we take on many of our days with these goals in mind. We can also be a little tough on ourselves with how we evaluate that progress.

For many, they see things in a simple, but not very helpful way: I either have the thing or I do not. It’s I either am a CEO yet or I’m not. I either am married or I’m not — and if I’m not “I’m a failure.” While goals are good things to have, and can even provide a guiding light for life, it’s a shame to grade our progress on a simple pass or fail system. Remember those in college? Nobody liked those because they didn’t feel fair. If you failed, it would feel that all of the progress you made from knowing nothing on a topic to actually knowing quite a bit was completely discounted.

Life shouldn’t exist on a pass/fail system, either. In fact, there is no guarantee those results (become a CEO, get married, etc.) will ever happen. The only guarantee in life is how you respond to things, and one way you can respond is by learning from your setbacks. That is the one thing that you can control, and the one type of progress you can ensure you make. If you see that you’re doing that, you’re doing okay out there. We spoke with Karena Curry, founder of Black Clinician Network, and Margaret Seide MD, about how to better respond to setbacks, disappointments, and the like.

Source: Unknown / Unknown

Be careful how you label things

“The way we label things has a certain power,” Explains Dr. Seide. “If we label a life event as a failure or a mistake, we are much more likely to feel awful about it. One could argue, there is no such thing as failure. If you don’t get the job, it might be because that job wasn’t right for you and the next interview will lead to a great career opportunity.”