Setbacks, Comebacks, and Everything In-Between

SETBACKS

There will be times on your journey towards your dreams that you will fall and you will fail, it’s inevitable. Progress is rarely linear and setbacks are a natural part of the growth process. Setbacks do not mean you are failing or not making overall progress in your life. 

Setbacks are simply an opportunity to learn, grow, change and strengthen the skills you need to create what you want. Sometimes setbacks are necessary because they help you develop the new baseline or skill level you need to become the person who can create and sustain the life you want. 

For example, if I want to own a successful business then learning how to navigate a slow month is vital for the long term success of my business. I have to master this skill without panicking, shutting down and stopping all the helpful habits that grow my business because the reality is every month will not be the same, especially when you are self-employed and do not have a fixed income.I have to master my ability to navigate a slow month in business without letting my old self hijack me and spiraling into old limiting patterns and beliefs. 

So setbacks can be this wonderful opportunity to help you see where you need to strengthen your skill set to create what you want. 

So the next time you experience a setback, will you grace yourself, recommit, get back up again or will you stay down, shut down and quit?

RESILIENCY

Did you know that resiliency is your ability to recover from difficulties you face in your life? Resiliency is literally how quickly you get back on track when you have a setback. Everything in life is a skill and what you practice grows stronger. Therefore if you practice resiliency, this skill will grow stronger and you will recover from setbacks with greater ease.

It is time to stop running, avoiding, denying, blaming and distracting yourself from failures, set-backs and disappointments and instead face them.  

Face your setbacks with unconditional love and compassion. Acknowledge what you chose didn’t work out the way you wanted it to. Accept how you feel about your experience, accept that it is painful, scary, embarrassing, shameful etc… feel your way through it by riding the wave of the emotion. Lastly, let go by gracing yourself, forgiving yourself and even thanking the failure for teaching you information, skills, and knowledge so you can do it differently next time.  

NAVIGATING SETBACKS

Here is my 5-Step process for Navigating Setbacks:

(Disclaimer: This process is not a one size fits all approach. I encourage you to utilize this information as a starting point to customize your own resiliency plan that will support you recovering from setbacks quickly and effectively) 

STEP ONE: FEELINGS (Ride the wave of your feelings, feel the feelings)

STEP TWO: ACKNOWLEDGE & ACCEPT (Face the setback)

STEP THREE: YOU CAN HANDLE IT (Believe in yourself. You got this.)

STEP FOUR:TAKE ACTION (Take one small step ASAP to get back on track)STEP FIVE: REFLECTION (Reflect on the setback and learn, grow and change from it)

NAVIGATING SETBACKS

Here is my 5-Step process for Navigating Setbacks:

STEP ONE: FEELINGS (Ride the wave of your feelings, feel the feelings)

Setbacks are incredibly disappointing so feel your feelings - they are real and valid. Feel the fear, disappointment, anger, frustration, all of it. BEWARE of the empathy trap and falling into a pity party. It is important to feel and honor your feelings without getting consumed by them. 

This is exactly what happened to me, I got lost in my feelings for 4 weeks before I realized what was happening to me.

A really helpful feelings practice for me is to set a timer and feel all the feels during that time. When the timer is up I get up and do whatever it is I originally planned to do. I will also take a yoga class and leave it all on the mat so-to-speak. I let myself feel the feelings and process them through mindful movement in my yoga class so they move through me and release from my body. 

STEP TWO: ACKNOWLEDGE & ACCEPT (Face the setback)

Acknowledging the truth of your experience - the setback happened, face it.. It can be hard to own your story and face the truth of your experience. Most people choose to avoid, hide, distract, and deny the truth of their stories. They do this because the truth can be painful, uncomfortable, unpleasant, overwhelming and scary.

I agree with Brene Brown wholeheartedly that the bravest thing you can do is “own your story and love yourself through the process of owning your story.” Life isn’t just the good times and the good memories. Life is a culmination of all your experiences; good, bad, pleasant, unpleasant, happy, sad etc… All of your experiences count. You cannot pick and choose which ones you want to experience. And, you cannot begin to navigate your way through them if you are not truthful about what you are actually experiencing. Acknowledge what happened, take responsibility for it and accept it.  

The quicker you accept what happened the quicker you can take action and get back on track. The longer you deny it or blame something else for it,  the longer it takes to course correct, the longer it takes to turn your dreams into reality.. 

STEP THREE: YOU CAN HANDLE IT (Believe in yourself. You got this.)

It is such an illusion that you can’t handle what is happening to you. I hear clients say this all the time, but the reality is you are handling what is happening because if you truly couldn’t handle it you would be dead, so the fact that you’re alive means you are handling it. Believe in yourself. You got this.

Believing in yourself is about becoming your #1 fan. It is about encouraging yourself and loving yourself every step of the way no matter what life throws at you. It is about a deep intrinsic knowing of I CAN.  

My mindset is strong. No matter what happens, no matter how hard it may feel, or how impossible it may seem, I can. My mindset is strong, my body is strong, my life is strong. I am strong. I will not give up, I will not give in. I will stand in the power of my center, and no matter what and I will believe in myself. When it feels hard and I tell myself “I can’t” then I dig deep into my center and connect with the truth of “I CAN AND I WILL!” 

You can do this. You can live your best life as your best self. You can learn how to fall in love with yourself, your life and others. You can make more money. You can attract your dream soul-hearted partnership. You can heal yourself. You can be healthy. You can have your dream job. You can get paid doing work you love. You can have a beautiful connection and healthy relationships with your family. You can have anything your heart desires.

I believe in myself is an unwavering commitment to never give up on yourself and your dreams. It is an unwavering commitment to face the negative self-talk and stories of the past and to write new ones. It is a commitment to wake up every day and decide who you want to be and how you want to show up in the world. What you feed your mind will shape your future. Are you feeding your mind with doubt and negative self-talk or are you feeding your mind with belief and possibility?  

STEP FOUR:TAKE ACTION (Take one small step ASAP to get back on track)

Take action as quickly as possible, especially if you are an overthinker. One of the greatest pieces of advice I have ever received is when I was doing pull-ups and DJ was spotting me and I was standing there and he finally asked me what I waiting for and I gave him a list of reasons why I was waiting …. It’s heavy…it’s hard… I can’t…. He finally looked at me and said, “don’t think, just go”.  

Don’t think, just go.  

Action is healing, sometimes taking action and doing the thing will negate all the fear and self-doubt. For example, this is the longest I have gone without writing a newsletter in two years and every week that I didn’t write one the more fear, pressure, stress and anxiety I held around writing one - kept me from writing one.  

Finally I said, don’t think, just go and I was committed to write a newsletter and send it even if it wasn’t my best work. 

You won’t always ‘feel’ like it, be aware that your feelings aren’t a trap to keep you stuck in old stories.

As soon as you have a setback get back on track by taking an action step no matter how small as quickly as possible. This will lessen the fear, insecurity etc…

STEP FIVE: REFLECTION (Reflect on the setback and learn, grow and change from it)

Remember when I mentioned earlier that setbacks can be this wonderful opportunity for you to see your weaknesses and identify the skills you need to build to create the life you want.  

Once you start taking action again, reflect on your setback and learn from it. Are there any patterns or trends that you notice? Is there a recipe for disaster? 

Identify what happened to cause the setback, identify what skills you need to build to keep this same setback from happening again or what skills would help you navigate setbacks with greater ease?

Perhaps the setback is revealing to you limiting stories or old wounds that need to be healed that unconsciously blocking you from what you want.  

BONUS TIP: SUPPORT

Don’t forget to ask for help when you experience a setback. It can be really hard to do it all on your own. Don’t be afraid to ask for help and support along the way. It’s safe, it’s easy and you are allowed to receive help and support. Every single successful person has received help at some point on their journey. You are worthy of receiving help. Surround yourself with a circle of people that love, encourage and support you. Ask for what you need and be willing to receive all the good the universe has to offer.