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. 

Taking Responsibility For Your Life's Journey

Accept Personal Responsibility for Setbacks and Successes 

Your life is in your hands. It is up to you to determine your happiness, your satisfaction, your contentment. No one else is in charge. No one else gets the credit. And likewise, no one else is to blame. It is squarely your responsibility. 

In fact, this is at the crux of what we mean Living A Determined Life. 

In fact, as American psychologist Albert Ellis wrote, "The best years of your life are the ones in which you decide your problems are your own. You do not blame them on your mother, the ecology, or the president. You can realize that you control your own destiny."

You, and no one else, are responsible for the energy and attitude you bring into every situation, every encounter with other people, and even every room you enter.

As George Bernard Shaw wrote, "People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don't believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and if they can't find them, make them."

It is rather fascinating that the last two letters of the word blame are me. Is this just a coincidence? Or is it an indication that taking responsibility for blame ends with me and not someone or something else? Is it a sign that we should each focus blame and responsibility for our circumstances first on ourselves ("me"), rather than assigned and delegated to others, outside circumstances, or factors beyond our control? It is something worth thinking about.

Plus, when you blame others you give up your power to grow.  You give up the power to learn from mistakes. You give up your power to learn new things. And you give up the power to understand your own decision-making process.

Your Project You Life Journey will be made easier when you learn to accept personal responsibility for failures and setbacks, and when you see each and every failure or setback as a learning experience. The importance of this is illustrated by these perspectives:

Mistakes are a fact of life. It is the response to error that counts. ~Nikki Giovanni, American poet

A man should never be ashamed to own that he has been in the wrong, which is but saying he is wiser today than he was yesterday. ~Alexander Pope, English poet

Opportunity often comes disguised in the form of misfortune, or temporary defeat. ~Napoleon Hill, author of Think and Grow Rich

A man can fail many times, but he isn't a failure until he begins to blame someone else. ~John Burroughs, American naturalist and essayist

When you encounter pain, frustration, disappointment and all of the other emotions related to unfulfilled desires and delayed dream achievement, realize that these are signals that something in your life needs to change. 

And most important, understand that these signals are also telling you that you are responsible for making the required changes that will either place you back onto your correct Project You Life Journey path or will speed your progress on your chosen path.

This article is excerpted from the Amazon best-selling personal development book Project You: Living A Determined Life, available in Kindle and paperback formats.