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Editor’s Note: This is a guest post by Amber Hensley of OnlineUniversities.com.
When our professional, academic and personal goals suffer setbacks, it’s natural to want to give up, at least temporarily. Frustration, anger, hurt, and even depression may take over for a little while, but if you want to achieve any kind of success in life, you’ve got to learn how to not only accept your setbacks but also learn from them.
Here are 10 tips for reworking your goals after failing the first time.
1. Understand how your goals are affected. Have you experienced a minor setback that won’t even matter in a week, or do you feel like everything you’ve worked for has been destroyed? Decide how serious your setback is to your long-term goal, and start rebuilding from there.
2. Accept blame if need be. Be honest with yourself, and if you’re able to recognise any mistakes that you made along the way, it will be that much easier to do better next time.
3. Compromise. Compromise doesn’t just help you get along with people in the short-term: the challenge to compromise also promises a new way of looking at something, which can help you become more innovative in the long-term.
4. Believe that everything happens for a reason. It might seem naive, but if you truly believe that your setback has just put you on a new path to a different opportunity, you’ll feel more optimistic as you regroup.
5. Rework your priorities. Depending on the type of failure or setback you’ve experienced, you may need to reprioritise your goals or go about achieving them in a different order before everything makes sense again.
6. Understand that you can’t change other people. If someone else is responsible for sabotaging your work or your relationship, accept the fact that no matter what you say or do, you can’t change the way someone else thinks or act. You can only control how you rebuild after a disappointment.
7. Take a break before making any major decisions. Just after a break-up, failed experiment or lay off, you’re probably too upset, hurt or angry to make any serious decisions. Wait until you’ve calmed down and can think rationally before you make your next move.
8. Ask for help. Enlist the support of friends, family and co-workers as you come up with a new plan for achieving your goals.
9. Rebuild your confidence. Everyone experiences setbacks, so don’t think take setbacks too personally.
10. Anticipate problems. You may experience another disappointment as you continue to go after your dreams, but if you learn to anticipate problems, you’ll be better prepared to deal with them.
Author’s Bio: This post was contributed by Amber Hensley, who writes about the online universities. She welcomes your feedback at AmberHensley1980@ yahoo.com
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on Oct 7th, 2009 at 1:44 am
Hi Mark and Amber,
Great advice. My favorite is number 7. So often when we have a perceived setback, our immediate reaction is to move forward. However, we need a break to rethink things or develop a new plan. That breathing space is so vital. At least that has been my experience.
Hope all is awesome!
on Oct 7th, 2009 at 8:35 am
Hi Mark and Amber
What a great article you have here. Simple but full of information!
I like this one:
“When our professional, academic and personal goals suffer setbacks, it’s natural to want to give up, at least temporarily. Frustration, anger, hurt, and even depression may take over for a little while, but if you want to achieve any kind of success in life, you’ve got to learn how to not only accept your setbacks but also learn from them.”
Everybody in this world will eventually meet with failure. Especially when we are dealing with business. Not all will succeed for the 1st time they try. Failure will get them to become stronger and help them to be motivated and think how they can overcome the situation.
For most people, they will simply give up and not change the way they think.
Anyway, tip no.9 is the major one i think. We need time to recover and rebuild the confidence back.
Thanks
on Oct 7th, 2009 at 6:53 pm
Hi Nadia,
I agree. We need to calm down after a setback and evaluate what exactly went wrong so we can revise our plan and how we can do it better the next time.
Cheers~
Mark
on Oct 7th, 2009 at 7:00 pm
Hi Fahd,
Welcome to The Big Dreamer! Thank you for dropping by and sharing your thought.
It’s true that many will fail at their first try and this failure will only make them stronger if they make good use of the experience. However, confidence takes time to rebuild and we need to be patient in the process.
Cheers~
Mark