How Your Mindset Can Keep You From Recovering From a Setback

It was spring break and my thirteen year old son was snowboarding for the first time

After his first day of lessons, he could make it down the bunny hill without falling. Well, without falling repeatedly.

But day two did not end well. I found my young son lying in the snow with one arm holding the other. With a tear in his eye, he presented his wrist to me. It was swollen, limp and badly bruised. “Mom, I think I broke it,” he said slowly.

An hour later, we emerged from ski patrol with a makeshift splint, a bag of ice and a recommendation to get immediate medical attention. As we drove down the hill, my young son lamented his fall. “I was doing so well. And then I tried something different. But I didn’t know how to turn and then I lost my balance and then I heard something snap.”

As we drove closer to urgent care, I was overcome with curiosity

“Ryan, if you knew how this day was going to end, would you do it over again?” I asked him.

“Yeah.” He answered without missing a beat.

“Would you have any hesitation going snowboarding again after your wrist heals?” I inquired.

“Nah!” he replied. “Let’s come back for sure.”

Ah, the resilience of a thirteen year old. I was inspired by his lack of hesitation. And his courage. But most of all, with his mindset.

Because mindset is the key to overcoming setbacks

A setback is when something doesn’t go the way you envisioned it. And mindset is the story you tell yourself about the experience you’ve just had and what it means, both now and in the future. It determines, to a large degree, whether you see the experience as a success or a failure. And the way you see the experience will have an enormous impact on whether or not you will try that experience again.

What’s the big deal if you don’t try an experience again?

Especially if it ended with a broken bone.

Well, the problem isn’t so much the broken bone -– which will inevitably be accompanied by a certain amount of pain. The problem is letting it deprive you of a future that could bring you an immense amount of joy and satisfaction.

And most people let seeming setbacks deprive them of joy and satisfaction more often than they realize

It could be the jobs they applied for that they didn’t get. Or the proposals they poured their hearts into to never really went anywhere. Or the promotions they were working toward for months that ended up going to someone else. Perhaps it was the first time they went out their comfort zones to do anything only to feel as though they landed on their backside with nothing but broken bones to show for it.

In this article, we’ll explore two mindsets that keep professionals turning their setbacks into springboards

(1) Confusing skill with potential.

(2) Taking an experience personally.

Let’s start with confusing skill with potential

You confuse skill with potential when you decide that you’ll never be good at something because you didn’t get it right the first time you tried it. Or the second time. Or the tenth time. Most people do not have a high degree of skill when they try something new. But doesn’t mean they don’t have an enormous amount of potential.

When you confuse skill with potential, you tell yourself a story that has you making an assessment of yourself based on a very limited amount of data. The story goes like this: “Boy, I was really bad at that. I’m just not cut out for it. I should leave it to other people who actually have talent.”

And the problem with a story like that is that you end up believing it

You allow it to keep you from trying something again. And trying something again — and again, and again and again is exactly what you need to do in order to gain the very skill you are having difficulty executing. So your story becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. You miss out on the joy of ultimately mastering that skill. And so do all the people who would have benefited from what you could have accomplished if you did.

But that’ s not the only story that can get you into trouble.

Let’s move to the second destructive mindset: taking experiences personally

When you take an experience personally, you make it more about you than anything or anyone else. Your universe constricts and you become the center of it. You feel hurt and rejected, or angry and resentful. You replay events in your mind and question what you did to screw things up. You think, “if only I would have done this, or been more like that, things would have gone better.”

And that kind of thinking, when accompanied by hurt or anger doesn’t do you any favors

Because it keeps you from learning. You become so fixated in feeling wronged or victimized that you render yourself powerless. In an effort to avoid being hurt again, you may hedge your bets, fly under the radar, try not to get your hopes up. And this act of withholding keeps you from doing the very thing that could allow you to succeed next time.

Because often setbacks have nothing to do with you as a person

You got passed over for a promotion. It could be the promotion you were angling for wasn’t quite the right fit. Getting it would have taken you out of the running for something that was perfect for you. And taking it personally will keep you from doing what you need to do to even be considered.

You lost a big client. Yet in retrospect, you realize the client was a huge pain in your rear end, sucking up time and energy that you could have dedicated to someone you really love to work with. And if you take it personally, you’ll keep your perfect client from seeing the very thing in you that could cinch the deal.

Your proposal didn’t go anywhere. It may have been before its time. Or it wasn’t the right audience. Or there was something you needed to learn before it was ready to fly. But if you take it personally, you could convince yourself there’s no use in proceeding. And no one will ever know what you could have achieved if you persevered. Including you.

But what if it did have to do with you?

What if you came on too strong? Or too meek? Or if there was something you could have done to get that promotion, keep that client, succeed with that proposal? Well, if you take it personally you may never have the courage, the confidence and the open mind it takes to solicit or receive the feedback you need and to act on it in a way that allows you to succeed next time.

There is a difference between taking things personally and learning what you could do differently next time. Taking things personally causes you to contract. And learning allows you to expand. Which will you choose?

Let’s recap the importance of mindset and the two examples we reviewed that keep people from recovering from their setbacks.

• A setback is when something doesn’t go the way you envisioned it. And mindset is the story you tell yourself about the experience you’ve just had and what it means, both now and in the future.
• The story you tell yourself becomes a problem when it leads you to believe something that keeps you from doing whatever you need to do to ultimately achieve your desired outcome.
• One story that keeps you from recovering from setbacks leads you to confuse ability with potential. When you allow less than desirable results to convince you that you’ll never succeed in the future, you let your lack of ability keep you from fulfilling your potential. And everyone loses.
• Another story that keeps you from bouncing back leads you to take things personally. When you take things personally, you fail to realize that there may have been other factors at play, such as timing, and the right fit. Even if something you did got in the way of your success, taking things personally prevents you from learning and growing from the experience.

My thirteen year old son reminded me of the importance of mindset in my own life.

Though it’s not likely that snowboarding will be in my future, there is a good chance that I will fall the next time I try something new. When I do, I will remember how his lack of regret and eagerness to try again kept him from an unproductive mindset.

And I will pick myself up, tend to my broken bones, and allow myself to enjoy the joy and satisfaction that comes from getting back on the slopes.

“Ryan, if you knew how this day was going to end, would you do it over again?” I asked him.
“Yeah.” He answered without missing a beat.

“Would you have any hesitation going snowboarding again after your wrist heals?” I inquired.
“Nah!” he replied. “Let’s come back for sure.”

You see, my 13 year old had done the inevitable. As you figured, he’d gone snowboarding, broken his wrist and maddeningly, was keen to go right back into the thick of the action. His mindset was such that he wasn’t focused on the pain—but instead of the experience of re-experiencing the action yet again.

Yet most of us lose this kind of mindset when we “grow up”.
It could be the jobs they applied for that they didn’t get. Or the proposals they poured their hearts into to never really went anywhere. Or the promotions they were working toward for months that ended up going to someone else. Perhaps it was the first time they went out their comfort zones to do anything only to feel as though they landed on their backside with nothing but broken bones to show for it.