PERSISTENCE: HOW TO STAY MOTIVATED DESPITE SETBACKS?

The distance between you and your goals is only as far as your perseverance. What does it mean to be perseverant? Is it to simply keep at a goal, to try and accomplish it despite failing multiple times? Being truly perseverant is to fall down a 100 times, and still manage to get up the 101st time, no matter the difficulties and your limiting beliefs. Life is no bed of roses and if there are sunny days, there is also going to be a fair share of monsoon. And as much as you detest feeling sad, defeated & disappointed after a setback, there might be moments wherein, between the whirlwind of emotions, you feel powerless to alleviate the pain that you are experiencing. 

Maybe you put in a lot of effort for that project but it turned out below expectations. Maybe you worked day and night tirelessly, skipping personal commitments, but still ended up with unsatisfactory results. Maybe you are experiencing rejection of some kind. You might be feeling angry with the people who you feel were responsible for your setback. You might be getting ready to give an earful to your team about how they made the mistake that had such severe consequences.

But the fact remains that there is no success story without failures. Persistence is what converts failures into accomplishments. Setbacks are learning opportunities that allow us to take the right approach to achieve our goals. So, it is important to keep in mind that if due to the disappointment of setbacks, you decide to give up on all further efforts - you would be giving up on the opportunity to learn, grow and enjoy the success that you so longingly craved for. Persistence is one key skill that every successful individual needs to develop in order to rise above failures and continue moving forward.

WHY DISAPPOINTMENTS & SETBACKS ARE BENEFICIAL?

Setbacks are the foundation of success. Every single setback only means that you are getting one step closer to being successful. Setbacks are proof that you are putting in the efforts that will take you in the direction of your goals. Failures are proof that you are working towards achievement. No failure means that there is no work being done, and therefore, no growth can be expected.

No matter how stuck you may feel while experiencing a setback, all you need to do is remember that this is not the first time you're ever experiencing a failure. If you got through it once, you can get through it again! Always remind yourself that you are doing everything that used to seem impossible once with ease today. If you had quit when you failed in that math exam or messed up during your first big presentation, or on your first day of job, would you have gotten as far today? Failures do not exist in our lives to give us the opportunity to be disappointed, demotivated, or frustrated. Failures exist so that we can figure out how to get better and raise the bar.

HOW TO STAY PERSISTENT AFTER A SETBACK?

Sometimes, persistence outweighs talent and experience. No matter how talented or experienced you may be, if you set your mind to something and learn from the failures you encounter, you can pull off any challenge much better than what was ever imagined. You could achieve goals that no one thought were achievable. Persistence is the driving factor of a successful career. In the absence of it, your growth and knowledge will become stunted.

If you do encounter failures, rise from where you are and:

• Take responsibility

Usually, after a setback, we look for something to apportion the blames to, we try to find someone we can share the responsibility of the failure with. This is the one thing that you need to be mindful of! The moment you put the responsibility of a setback on someone else’s shoulders, you would always find someone else to shift the blame to whenever something doesn’t work out. Don’t blame your team, colleagues, superiors, or even the situation for what happened.

Taking responsibility for everything that may go wrong in a situation may seem hard at first, but it has the ability to fill you up with an unusual sense of power. Because when you take responsibility, then you are in control - not the people around you, not even the situation, YOU are the one person who is in control! Take responsibility, think about what happened, why it happened & what can be done to fix it.

• Allow yourself to accept the setback

Don’t try to sugar-coat the situation by saying, “Oh, it’s not an issue. I’ll do well next time.” Instead, accept that something went wrong, and try saying, “Let me identify the issue”, and allow yourself a chance to think deeper and accept what happened.

No matter how small the problem may be, closing your eyes to the problem and disregarding what really went wrong won't help you today, and it surely won't help you when you face bigger challenges in the future. You want to face your setbacks head-on so that you always feel ready to deal with whatever life throws your way, today and in the future.

• Identify the ‘WWW’ (What Went Wrong)

Sit and evaluate what went wrong. Identify what led to the setback. Maybe you didn’t fully understand or properly execute an aspect of the concerned task, project, or problem at hand. Identifying the cause of the failure helps you tackle the issue from its roots. Pinpoint the root cause of the issue and work on solving it. It is important to understand that unless you eliminate the source of the problem from its roots, you are very likely to face the same setback in different avatars unless you learn to deal with the origin of the problem.

•  Focus on the outcome

Only keeping an eye on efforts serves little benefit. You must keep an eye and focus on the results so that you can maneuver the efforts to achieve the desired goals. This will enable you to think of new & creative ways to accomplish your goals and objectives which will then allow you to redirect your efforts so as to accomplish what you set your mind to.

CONCLUSION

Setbacks happen. It is a part and parcel of life. You are not always going to be successful; there will be moments when you will fail. You have to simply remember that failure is not something to be disappointed about because failing clearly means that you are working towards a goal. Someone who does not work towards something would not fail. View failure & setback with optimism. Thomas Edison failed almost 1000 times before he created the light bulb. If he were to stop because of the first few setbacks, he would have continued to sit in the dark.

Scientists, sportspersons, doctors, artists, entrepreneurs – every legend in any field fails countless times before they get where they are today. Let's remember that we admire these maestros because of HOW they got successful, because of their journey. Their journey to success, filled with failures, obstacles, and challenges is what makes them the people that we look up to today.

So the next time you feel disappointed with a setback, remind yourself that the more obstacles you overcome now, the sweeter your story would be to tell once you accomplish your goals.

What does failure mean to you? Tell me in the comments below.