Using Setbacks to spur you on...
Posted on 19th May 2022 at 14:12
How do you react when you face setbacks? Do you get frustrated? Recoil and give up? Or do you dig your heels in and resolve to find another way. How you react defines your character and your level of success in life.
Whatever we try and achieve, bar the simplest and most mind-numbing of tasks, we will face setbacks and obstacles.
Nothing ever goes entirely to plan.
This is yet another aspect of the Growth versus the Fixed Mindset. When we are in this frame of mind, we choose how to respond to something happening which is against our plan. We choose our response. Disaster. Give up. Or…. it’s okay, these things happen. We learn, find another way, and press on. Which state of mind do you tend to find yourself in?
Think of all the famed scientists and inventors who failed more times than they succeeded. Failures, or maybe we call them unexpected events, can be the turbo charger towards success. We learn nothing from an easy win, but if we choose to, we glean so much from a mistake or a loss. It ends up being part of the solution, if we treat it the right way, rather than part of the problem. Thomas Edison, when his laboratory burned down, saw it as an opportunity to clear away the rubbish and start again.
With a Growth Mindset, we are always learning, always moving, never sitting still. That might not feel like a mindful way of living, but it actually is. We pay attention to what gets in our way, then mindfully accept, appraise, and then act upon the knowledge.
Next time something gets in your way, whether physically or mentally, apply the Growth Mindset. What can I learn? How can I harness this? How can I move through this? It’s a whole lot better than turning round and going back the way you came.
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