Learning From Setbacks

Failure Should Be Your Teacher, Not Your Undertaker 

All situations in life teach us something, particularly the ones we label failures and setbacks. The key to understanding these lessons is to treat failures and setbacks as learning opportunities and nothing more. Here is advice from motivational speaker Og Mandino on how to do this:

Whenever you make a mistake or get knocked down by life, don't look back at it too long. Mistakes are life's way of teaching you.

Your capacity for occasional blunders is inseparable from your capacity to reach your goals. No one wins them all, and your failures, when they happen, are just part of your growth.

Shake off your blunders. How will you know your limits without an occasional failure? Never quit. Your turn will come.

Many people have written about bouncing back and learning from setbacks. Here are six pertinent quotes you may want to refer to the next time you think you have failed at something:

Failure is the opportunity to begin again more intelligently. ~ Denis Waitely

I am not judged by the number of times I fail, but by the number of times I succeed: and the number of times I succeed is in direct proportion to the number of times I can fail and keep on trying. ~ Tom Hopkins

No man ever became great or good except through many and great mistakes. ~ William E. Gladstone

When you make a mistake, don't look back at it long. Take the reason of the thing into your mind, and then look forward. Mistakes are lessons of wisdom. The past cannot be changed. The future is yet in your power. ~ Mary Pickford

All adverse and depressing influences can be overcome, not by fighting, but by rising above them. ~ Charles Caleb Cotton

I have always believed, and I still believe, that whatever good or bad fortune may come our way we can always give it meaning and transform it into something of value. ~ Hermann Hesse 

However, the best comment on this subject is this anonymous one: "Failure should be our teacher, not our undertaker."

Remember, just as one solitary success does not make you a successful person, one failure or setback does not make you a failure.

No matter how many attempts it takes you to achieve a dream or a goal, as long as you exude continuous persistence in pursuit of your desires you will attain success in your life. 

We have more thoughts on personal growth and development, plus hundreds of motivational quotes, in our book Project You: Words of Wisdom. It is available at Amazon in paperback ($6.45) and Kindle ($3.88) formats. 

This article is partially excerpted from our top-ranked personal development book Project You: Living A Determined Life, which is also available in Kindle and paperback formats at Amazon.