Ever experienced times when life does not go as planned?
Perhaps not just minor things like losing your keys, tripping and spraining your ankle, spilling coffee on your laptop, or just having a bad day from work. It could be serious events like a failed marriage or relationship, dealing with a major conflict with a good friend, facing a major car accident and now you're lying on the hospital bed, losing your job, being diagnosed with a serious illness and even grieving from the death of a loved one.
I'm sure none of us would want to have all these happen to us. They are undesirable things that we wish to avoid at all cost. And yes, we could not even control that from not happening, they are out of our control. Surely you would be down in the dumps, feeling ill-hearted, discouraged, depressed and in low spirits if these unfortunate, unexpected negative events turn up in your life.
As we grow up, we realized that life is not as easy as it seems. We have all been there. Maybe you are even encountering some setbacks now. But how have you been dealing with all these? Here are six useful ways of how to overcome setbacks based on my personal experience.
6 Practical Ways to Overcome Setbacks in Life
1. Spend plenty of alone time with your thoughts.
Yes. Plenty of time alone. Find a nice place. It could be a quiet cafe, a nice beach or anywhere you find comfortable. For me, it is a mall with a rooftop garden. I like to be there in the evening, sitting there until nighttime. It might be uncomfortable to be alone at first, if you are used to venting your emotions to your friends and having someone to accompany you. I'm not saying that having a friend to accompany you is not good, it's just that it may be some temporary comfort that you receive from the friend. Eventually, you would have to deal with the issue yourself.
As you sit with your own thoughts, yeah, I know they are negative and terrible like a messed-up, stinky and dirty basement inside of you, still, acknowledge the thoughts that you have in your mind. You might be thinking "I feel like a loser", "This really sucks, she might not want to talk to me again", "This is horrible and why is it happening to me?", "This is dreadful, I think I'm never gonna get out of this" and so on. Memories will resurface even if they are unwanted. Even so, go through those thoughts. Don't force them out of your mind. Let them flow through your mind and gracefully let them go. The idea is not to suppress the thought, burying it deep into your subconscious or unconscious, or it might turn into an unresolved issue, or what we called, an unfinished business, that would affect you later in life.
You could try to even pen down your thoughts in a journal. By acknowledging your thoughts, it helps you to accept the reality of what has happened, and connects you to the here-and-now instead of living in the past. It then leads you to think about the possible ways to solve the issues. To learn from your setbacks, you need to start by acknowledging them. Which I would then explain later in the next few points.
2. Go through your emotions.
Here comes the hard part. Just as how you went through your thoughts, you can't leave your emotions unchecked. I know you may feel awful, deeply hurt, rage, guilty, hopeless, depressed, intense grief and all other terrible emotions, but you have to feel them and go through them.
If you ignore these strong feelings, try to bury them and act as if nothing has happened, it will hinder you in your growth. Again, we do not want it to turn into some unfinished business. It might be piled up little by little and one day explode when triggered. It will be an obstacle to your goals in life, making you unable to enjoy every moment to the fullest.
When we have the courage to be present with “dark” emotions such as fear, despair, and grief, we can experience a kind of alchemy and transformation that allows us to also feel gratitude, faith, and joy (Miriam Greenspan).
You might develop irrational beliefs from these buried emotions, such as "I don't believe in love anymore", "There's no use in trying hard for my life because something bad will always happen to me that hinders me from being successful anyway". This in turn will cause you to develop faulty or unwanted behaviours and habits, such as not wanting or unable to develop intimate relationships with others, alcohol addiction, becoming super self-centered and so on.
The goal is NOT to make difficult feelings go away. It is our goal to try and increase our capacity to experience and bear intense emotions, without being swept away by them (Beth Kurland).
Hence, find some time alone, sit with your emotions. With all your heart, feel the pain. Feel the anger. Feel the sorrow. Feel it deep. Be friends with this feeling. Accept the emotion as it is.
And then, release it and let it go. Cry if you feel like doing so. It is a form of release. Tell yourself "I know you feel bad but it's okay"', "This is just something temporary". Do something else or continue with your daily routine. You will feel better after that.
Continue for as many times as you want. It may take you days, weeks, or months until you feel neutral or normal again. The more you acknowledge, feel, go through and release the emotions, the more you will accept what has happened, and the lesser the pain would be. This is because you have ventilated and released them instead of keeping them all inside.
Eventually, you will be able to walk out of it. Think of it like a friend has shared with you his or her intense emotions, and you sat with him or her through it and listened openly without judging. It is the same with yourself as you deal with your difficult emotions and have this accepting space for yourself. You will feel like you could actually bear with these intense emotions better than you expected.
If you find it hard to express your emotions, for instance you could express your sorrows by listening to some sad songs, or writing in a journal. If you have a trusted friend who is a good listener you could also express your emotions to him or her. Allow yourself some time to feel and express these emotions on your own if you feel like being alone.
However, give yourself a time limit to do this. You do not want to end up feeling depressed the whole day or week. Monitor your feelings and thoughts. Seek help if you need any.
3. Love yourself.
Give yourself a break. Take yourself out for a nice dinner. Go for a movie with yourself. Go for a walk outside. Plan a road trip. Or even take a good nap. When setbacks occur, one would be highly stressed, maybe without even realizing it. Take those burdens off yourself. Take good care of your mental health by doing something relaxing and happy. Rest. Treat yourself good (I am not saying you should eat 10 ice-creams per day or spend a lot on yourself). Develop some healthy hobbies. Go for an exercise. You do not have to wait for people to comfort or treat you good. Love yourself by taking care of your mental and physical health.
In my experience, as I spent more time with myself and treated myself good by developing healthy habits such as exercising regularly, sleeping early, rewarding myself from time to time and eating healthy, I felt comfortable being in my own skin. I accepted the setbacks that have happened, acknowledged how they have affected me both positively and negatively, learned from them and I accepted myself more. I discovered more about myself as I have the time to reflect and think, such as what are my strengths, weaknesses, preferences, dislikes, core values, what are my passions, what do I want to do with my life and many more. And then I accepted myself even more. As you think, feel, and reflect through the setbacks, you will then discover so much about yourself, other people, and about life. You will definitely gain more self-awareness which is the first step towards self-development.
4. Analyze and evaluate the setbacks and yourself.
After you have become more stable, it's time to put aside your emotions and look into the bits and pieces of the issue. Ask yourself, what seems to be causing it to happen? How can I improve the situation? What are some of the things that I could do about it? How to prevent this in the future? Sitting there, doing nothing and feeling sad doesn't change you or the situation. And if you don't do some analyzing you won't be able to learn from any experience.
Evaluate yourself. Ask yourself, why was I acting like this? How do I want to improve myself? How do I want to be a better friend, partner or human being? Reflect, and you will discover truths about yourself, people and life. You then learn and grow. This needs to be done intentionally.
5. Learn from the setbacks.
What can you learn from the setbacks? What are some lessons for you? It could be resilience, discovering what works for you and what does not and so on. Perhaps the setbacks have taught you to filter your words before you throw them out because if not it will cause conflicts. Perhaps you discovered that you should sharpen your communication skills. Perhaps from the setbacks you have learned about your true core values or what traits you would like to have in a partner. Know that things would not always go as planned, and setbacks happen so that we could always learn, change and grow. You will grow to be matured in your thoughts and emotions from the setbacks if you persevered and handled them well.
6. Seek the help of God.
I am sure God has allowed these things to happen in your life. However, if it is something wrong that you have done, you would have to face the consequences to learn from it, even though God has allowed it to happen. Some things are beyond our control, such as illness, accident and so on. They serve a purpose. The battles you fight, they all serve a purpose. God doesn't simply allow us to face some hardships for fun. Perhaps it is a platform to sharpen your character to prepare you for something great. Perhaps it is a channel for God to bless you and for God to be glorified in your life. Perhaps it is to help you discover who you truly are. Maybe God use setbacks to draw you close to him as you come to depend on him more.
Seek and ask God what does he want you to learn through this. And of course, you could depend on him wholly during this difficult time. He is always there, it's only whether or not you want to call on him. When I was in the dumps I could feel God closer. This makes me want to worship him deeper and then strength is drawn from him. And then you will come to know him more and how his presence can be so real.
The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. - Psalm 34:18
Give yourself plenty of time and patience to recover from setbacks, but not too long or you will stay stagnant. Setbacks may be suffering, but undeniably they have helped me to learn and grow as a person, and I thank God for them. If they did not happen, I would not have known who I truly am, what do I really want in life, who I can be in God, and how much God loves me. I see them as a form of training to prepare me so I could run the race of life set for me with all my very best. Remember, you are called for greatness, I'm sure you can overcome and learn from your setbacks.
Sincerely Yours,
Kim
x