SETBACKS ARE INEVITABLE - TO SURVIVE, YOU MUST HAVE HOPE AND OPTIMISM

Everyone has setbacks, they are inevitable. Trying to avoid them is pointless, but devising a strategy to overcome them is invaluable. Let’s face it, no one wants or asks for a catastrophic event to happen to them. The ones who thrive and prosper despite a setback have a few traits we all can conjure up within ourselves - hope, determination and endurance. They also perform a “self” evaluation and devise a plan to overcome the issue.

When a setback occurs, the first thing you need to do is evaluate how you got into this situation. Why do an evaluation? The answer is simple. Sometimes people find themselves repeatedly embroiled in the same issues. Now, it may be a coincidence or maybe it is because of something they are doing. So, the first step to overcome a setback is to do a self evaluation and look at your involvement (if any) in this problem. Are you having the same setbacks with different people? Perhaps the problem lies within you, but you will never determine that if you don’t take an honest look at yourself first.

The second thing you will need not just to survive, but to flourish past any setback, is hope or optimism. If you have convinced yourself that the situation is hopeless and you can’t make things any better then you won’t improve anything. You may not change the outcome immediately but you can start deciphering the problem once you realize that you are able and capable. No one can give you hope. You have to obtain it yourself. You will have it once you stop the negative talk and believe in yourself. If you try something, you will definitely be in a different situation than the one you are in now. Not trying leaves you in the same spot you are in now, so you have nothing to lose by giving hope a chance.

Let’s recap, you have figured out if you are causing or if you have any ownership in any of your setbacks. You also now realize that you are not hopeless. What now? The next step is to decide how to overcome this problem. You need to create a plan. Devise a realistic plan based on the issue you are having. The plan has to include things that are achievable to you currently or in the very near future.

The other ingredients needed to overcome a setback are determination and endurance and they are intertwined. You will be working on these two characteristics simultaneously. You will need both of these to ensure that you accomplish what you set out to do. Determination is a mind set that says: I will make it, I will do whatever I need to, and I will accomplish what I start. Endurance is the stamina that determination rides on. Endurance makes sure that you have the patience you need to get things done. Sometimes when you are determined you can be impatient. You want things to change instantaneously. Endurance will provide you with the patience you need to take your plan to completion. Once again, these two traits cannot be given to you. Luckily, you can obtain them whenever you choose to. If you decide you won’t stop until you have completely overcome this setback then you won’t stop. You are in total control of your destiny.

So now that you have the tools you need, the choice is yours. You can work your way to victory or you can do nothing and accomplish nothing.

***

This article contributed by Kim B Miller - a writer at Helium.com