A Skillful Approach to Dealing with Setbacks
Acknowledging these two facts when considering how to deal with setbacks is crucial: Firstly, all of us – no matter how successful, smart, and self-confident – experience setbacks. Secondly, setbacks are not automatically bad. The idea is not to avoid setbacks but to deal with them skillfully.
The first important step is to accept the setback and deal with it offensively. A personal failure is always frustrating at first, painful, and perhaps even embarrassing. It often also diminishes our sense of self-worth. Moreover, we live in a society that celebrates success, but those who fail are easily cast aside. That’s why many people instinctively attempt to repress setbacks, keep them secret or forget about them as quickly as possible, and try to avoid them in the future. But: You can learn from your mistakes.
The word setback is often equated with regression – a mistake may put you a step behind, but in a best-case scenario, you can turn it into two steps forward. Defeats are only a detour to success. Making a mistake gives you the opportunity to analyze it and derive a new strategy from it to get better.
If you are not afraid of making mistakes, you are much more relaxed from the get-go – you are resilient. Resilience describes psychological strength, the ability to overcome crises and use them for personal development. It is also called the “immune system of the soul.” This includes remaining optimistic, not drowning in self-pity, accepting your failure and taking responsibility for it, analyzing it, and searching for solutions.
Jessica herself is not immune to setbacks either. She openly discusses how she deals with them in this video interview:
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