Six Ways to Turn Setbacks into Comebacks

By Al "The Inspiration" Duncan

The vast majority of smart and successful people have all kinds of insurance to cover them just in case of an emergency. Most people either have or wish they had insurance so that when a loss occurs they will be protected. Even your money in the bank is insured.

But there are situations that have the potential to become disasters for which many people, especially graduating college students, do not have insurance: setbacks and letdowns.

If a person is not prepared to deal with a setback, it can become a permanent disaster. Although the success that you have experienced will most likely continue, here are six things you can do to make sure that you’re covered when you experience a setback.

1. Identify what is and what isn’t under your control.

I once heard someone say, “All you can do is all you can do. And all you can do is enough. But you better make sure you do all you can do.”

After a setback, many people spend too much time agonizing over things they have little or no control over. So when you are preparing for an interview or another opportunity, take inventory of what is and isn’t directly under your control.

Make a list of everything that has to happen in order for your opportunity to be a successful endeavor. After completing your list, go through it and label each item as “under your control” or “not under your control.” For example, being well prepared for an interview is under your control. Being the most qualified and experienced person for the job isn’t under your control. There’s no way for you to know who else is being interviewed for the position.

WARNING: Be careful of passing the buck or playing the blame game. You’ve got to be honest with yourself about assessment of what is and isn’t your control. If the situation didn’t your way because of circumstances were under your control, it might tempting but it is most certainly not beneficial to beat yourself up. In fact…

2. Move from bitter to better.

If you are like most people, you your own worst critic. When you constantly giving yourself a mental tongue-lashing you are simply compounding your current bitterness. Piling negative thoughts on top of negative thoughts and mixing toxic emotions with more toxic emotions leaves person stuck in a vicious circle – feeling about feeling bad. Psychologists estimate that negative thoughts are seven stronger than positive thoughts. means it takes seven positive thoughts nullify one negative thought!

If you come to the realization that things haven’t gone your way because of something that was under your control, immediately begin to assess your thinking and your feelings at that moment.

As you’re reading this you might be saying to yourself, “That’s easier said than done.” You’re right. The reason people have a hard time ridding themselves of negative thoughts and emotions is because they try to remove the thought or feeling without replacing it. That’s like changing a flat tire without putting on a new tire.

When a negative or bitter thought pops into your head, immediately say to yourself, “Erase that and replace that.” Then you replace the bitter thought with a better thought. So if someone were thinking, “I’m so stupid,” he or she would then say, “Erase that and replace that.”

Next, that person would repeat at least seven times a phrase such as: “I made an honest mistake, and now I know better so I’ll do better.”

This brings us to a very important rule. You should…

3. Never convict an innocent person.

Setbacks can leave a person wallowing in the muck and mire of past misery. And unless you are a little piggy, you have no business sloshing around in the mud!

World renowned speaker Willie Jolley says, “The past is a place of reference; not a place of residence.”

Far too many people convict themselves over and over again for past mistakes and mishaps.

Would a parent punish a teenager again and again for something the child did at age seven? What if a professor decided to penalize a student in March over and over for something the student did in September? That would be insane, right?

So why would you want continue to punish yourself in the present for an honest mistake you made in the past? You’re convicting the new and improved you for something that the old you did. If the statement “I made an honest mistake and now I know better, so I’ll do better” is true for you, then give the new you a pardon. What it boils down to is learning from the past, planning for the future, and taking action now.

What if someone else wrongly convicts, condemns, or mislabels you? Then remember…

4. Someone’s opinion doesn’t have to be your reality.

In 1979, as a sophomore in high school, a young basketball player was cut from the varsity team. He was devastated but he wasn’t done. Three years later in 1982 he made the game-winning shot in the NCAA championship game. In 1984 he was passed over by the first two teams in the NBA draft but he went on to become arguably the greatest basketball player of all time.

Michael Jordan epitomizes the fact that a person’s opinion doesn’t have to be your reality. Oprah, Sojourner Truth, Muhammad Ali, Les Brown, Tyler Perry, Mary J. Blige, Frederick Douglass, Gandhi and countless others have been mislabeled, misunderstood, and overlooked at one point or another in their lives.

If you are qualified and some company, organization, or institution misses the opportunity to utilize your talents, it’s their loss not yours. There’s an expression used in sales that’s apropos for scenarios like this: “Some will, some won’t, so what? Next.”

Some opportunities will work out. Some won’t. So what now? Next! You’ve got to keep it moving. After all…

5. Failure isn’t permanent unless you quit.

Here comes the proverbial good news and bad news. The bad news: Success is not permanent. After you achieve it, you have to keep working to stay successful. (I know that isn’t really bad news, but just play along.) The good news: Setbacks aren’t permanent, either, unless an individual makes them permanent by choosing to quit.

Everybody knows that there are very few things in life more frustrating than putting your all into something and receiving an unfavorable response. But there is no reason to allow that response and the pain that comes along with it to be the final chapter in your book.

Take some time to re-evaluate what happened using these principles and then move on to the next opportunity, because…

6. New opportunities heal old wounds.

Has anyone you know ever been in a relationship that ended on a sour note? Perhaps the person was a little depressed, sitting around licking his or her wounds, and didn’t feel like doing much. Finally someone tells the person that he or she needs to get out of the house and go meet somebody new. And just like that, life starts to become fun again.

It works the same way with temporary setbacks. So, when you experience a letdown, find a new opportunity to pursue as soon as possible. There is an expression, “When God closes a door, He opens a window.”

No matter whom you admire or aspire to be like, more than likely he or she has experienced some type of temporary setback. The powerful and prophetic words of Frederick Douglass remind us, “If there is no struggle, there is no progress.”

Who knows? Maybe you’ll become the first person to achieve true success without experiencing any letdowns. If so, then congratulations.

But if you want to travel the path of greatness that countless others have traveled before you, keep this in mind. Temporary setbacks and letdowns are learning experiences – albeit tough ones. You can turn setbacks into comebacks by using the six principles you learned today as an insurance policy. Make sure you’re covered. Just in case.

Al “The Inspiration” Duncan is an author, a self-empowerment coach, a professional motivational speaker, and a self-motivation, communication, and emotional intelligence expert. Visit him online at www.alduncan.net, or see the new Elevate U blog with Al "The Inspiration" Duncan at THE BLACK COLLEGIAN Online.