We’ve talked about perseverance and without doubt it remains one of the key drivers behind achieving success. Author John Conolly says:
“I’ve wanted to abandon every novel that I’ve written somewhere between 20,000 and 40,000 words, and start something else instead. But you learn to ignore the siren call of the new idea, and persevere with what you’re doing.”
But the ability to remain focused and plough on is one thing – what about when you trip up and keep tripping up? We’ve all been there: for the fortunate among us it’s a case of having a bad week, for the less-so it’s a sequence of life changing snares in which we seem permanently entangled. And each time we spring the trap of misfortune, it’s like a message from fate itself telling us not to bother: settle into the routine of life like everybody else – it’s simpler, more comfortable there.
But when we take the time to approach our misfortunes, walk around them and study them from a different angle, they change form. It’s not too hard to see them as something else. You know the cliché – a few hurdles in the way, or some such analogy. Think about that: nowhere in life do you find a hurdle – in its literal, non-metaphorical form I mean – deposited in your path either carelessly or maliciously. The hurdle is something invented by sports people to add a very deliberate challenge to running an otherwise straightforward race. They were designed to stretch athletes, to test them. A hurdler has to learn more than a sprinter, to develop further techniques. I’m not going to get into which of the two is the more accomplished athlete because I’m not qualified to say, but the fact remains: were it not for hurdles, there would be no hurdlers.
It’s the same thing with setbacks. Were it not for setbacks, the world would be bereft of strivers – those who have adapted themselves to overcome. When you’re cutting a smooth furrow towards your own success, think of setbacks as training: the building of the strength and fitness you’re going to need when you get further down the line. Need an example?I give you Mark Inglis. He lost both his legs to frostbite whilst climbing New Zealand’s highest peak, Mount Cook, and went on to win a silver medal at the Sydney 2000 Paralympic Games, then six years’ later to become the world’s first – and still only – double amputee to summit Mount Everest. In fact Mark has a very succinct way of summing up the whole issue of setbacks. For him it’s all about “Turning the stumbling blocks of life into stepping stones.”
Believe me I’ve had my fill of people trying to reverse polarisation, telling me something that seems bad is really good, and often as not they’re just empty words. But if you look at those who have truly achieved something, you’ll see that they all have this common propensity to treat setbacks as a science, something to be studied and interpreted. At the very least, as part of their development. And I’m not talking in abstract terms of shaping characters or defining personalities, but the very definite impact they have on us as lessons. They learn something from almost every setback; the difference between them and those who wade through setbacks until they get bogged down in an ever-thickening mire is perception. Think about a class at school: you can sit there bored because it’s a chore, or you can treat it as an opportunity to learn. In either case, you have to go, so you might as well try for the latter. Aren’t setbacks the same? You don’t choose where or when they happen, but you have to go through them anyway. May as well make them a learning experience!
But what if you’re still struggling to interpret your setbacks as some kind of key to the door of success? Maybe I’ve missed something and you’ve had one setback too many that no matter how you twist it just cannot be turned into a positive. I understand that, but the fact is, even if it’s a bad thing best left well behind you, you still have two choices: go on, or don’t. As Olympic medallist Anke Karstens says:
She’s right. Never forget that the bigger your goal, the greater the setbacks you’ll encounter along the way.
We have to fail if we’re going to succeed. Anything else is just winning the lottery.
In Part 5: Getting started.
Image: courtesy of fdecomite | everystockphoto
2 Comments
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Thank you, I appreciate your interest and hope you’re learning as much as I am!