Part 1: Embrace Your Setbacks

This is part eight of The ‘Materialize Your Dreams and Goals’ Series by Ines Nangue from NurtureBodyandSoul.com

“Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising every time we fail.” – Confucius

Drifting in pure joy from listening to her favorite classical songs, almost elated she melt in the beauty of the rhythm, enjoying every detail of the sound she hears with her headphone. Her fingers were fluttering up and down her keyboard like butterflies and letters and words were pouring on her screen.

She was overcome with inspiration, determination and the urge to share the lessons from her experience with others.

To Inspire.

Why am I telling you this story and what does it have to do with how to deal with setbacks?

Well, not too long before that moment she was feeling frustrated, angry, depressed and discouraged because she was facing a major setback on her journey to her most meaningful goal. She felt discouraged and almost flirted with giving up.

Mary felt like she was failing at building her own online business. She was busy doing things but was dissatisfied with her results.

Such feelings can arise when you perceive that your reality doesn’t match your expectations on the journey to achieving any goal that you’ve set for yourself.

Especially when you are not prepared for the setbacks you meet or when your expectations are unrealistic in this moment of your journey.

We all have to deal with setbacks or failures in some point or another in our life.

So how to deal with those inevitable setbacks without loosing our sanity and our courage.

Setbacks are not the enemy, embrace them

“A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.” – Albert Einstein

Do you remember the pump up feeling you had at the beginning of a very important project? It goes like this: You get inspired to start something new, or to re-start something again – Like

• to read one book per week
• starting and managing your own business
• rebooting your health
• learning another language
• finally learning to play the guitar
• re-starting to meditate daily again
• deepening the relationships that matter most to you
• empowering your financial situation
• — etc

You can feel the blank with what your biggest dream is, or what your next high priority goal is.

In moments like the beginning of an exciting project, you think that this time is different because you’ve grown so much since your last project or attempt, you got new insights from the latest book you read, the last video you watched, the last audio or from your last course or seminar you attended.

You think: This time will be SUCCESS because you are soo ready for this and soo committed. Enough is enough, this is my time to shine. You said to yourself.

And you engaged with massive action and unrecognizable discipline for the first days or weeks or months.

And then … its strike you suddenly like the lightning hits a tree during a thunderstorm.

You meet the inevitable setbacks.

You think this is the enemy, trying to keep me from achieving my dream or my goal.

That something happened:

Maybe you got sick or a loved one needed you to be there for them with your time and attention. Or you see your biggest fear unfold in front of your eyes instead of that dream situation come true as in your planning.

Bottom line is something unplanned comes your way.

And there you are at the crossroads of making a choice: How will you behave in the face of these setbacks?

The first step is to embrace it all. It feels like chaos at that moment, but there is a reason why each event happens. There is a divine order, which makes even our biggest setbacks our ally.

Resisting setbacks is just going to bring more of the unwanted feelings of frustration and anger, blame and discouragement.

Setbacks are inevitable. They are an integral part of life as a learning process.

In order to shift from a state of resisting setbacks to a state of embracing them you can

Start with gratitude. Why?

Whatever happens on you journey to your goal is helping you to get to your goal.

It can be difficult to realize it in the midst of an event that is disturbing your plans and projections and expectations and while you’re struggling, but the truth is setbacks are not the enemy, they are your ally on the journey to materialize your dreams and goals.

Be grateful because with every setback comes an opportunity to grow.

***

Next, Convert Setbacks into Comebacks Part 2: Setbacks are Feedbacks

This post is part of the Materialize Your dreams and Goals Series. The previous four part mini series covered how to Strengthen Your Mindset To Materialize Your Dreams and Goals

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