15 Jul TSLH #028: 7 Hacks To Recover From A Setback
Read time: 5 minutes
When I was a kid, my dream job was to be a doctor.
❌ After my Baccalaureate in France, I entered medical school and failed twice to get to the second year of studies (this is a competitive process in France).
After I completed my MBA, I started a wine tasting event venture in New-York.
❌ Within a year, I was broke and had to go back to France.
I failed miserably on a few occasions in life as you can tell from the above.
How is that statement true for you? Where have you failed? Think about a failure or setback you had in the past and as you read through this newsletter, reflect on what could have happened by using the methodology that I describe below.
More important than failing is what you learned from the failure and how you recovered from it.
Learning and recovering from failure are 2 traits of successful leaders.
Here are 7 hacks you can use to recover from a setback or failure.
Find your learning and gift. Once you have failed, you have two options really. You can either whine, blame the entire world, regret that you did not do enough, complain to every possible person working with you. This will be a miserable time for sure.
Alternatively, you can decide that after the moment of disappointment, you want to focus on the learning from the setback, and also the gift or opportunity it presents to you.
The gift or opportunity could be something like:
- A new skill or knowledge you identify you need in order to fare better next time.
- The realization that failing somewhere gives you more opportunity to succeed elsewhere. For instance, if you lost your top client to your competitor, the opportunity may be that you have more time to take care of your #2 client and make sure they don’t leave.
Question for you: What is a learning or a gift for you, from your own setback?
Focus on your next move. Once you have identified your learning or opportunity, you need to focus on making that learning or opportunity happen.
This is where you need to work on a plan where you set specific goals for yourself, with clear outcomes and deadlines. When designing this plan, make sure you focus on what matters to you, to be in a better position next time you face the same situation for instance.
To come up with goals that you will achieve no matter what, I suggest using a model like S.M.A.R.T. or any model you feel comfortable with.
At the end of this newsletter, you can also get information about my online course that guides you through a solid process to set up goals that you will achieve. Join this course if you’re interested.
Question for you: What might have been some steps in your plan for you?
Go one step at a time. After you have planned your goals to work on the learning or opportunity you have identified for yourself, don’t think of this as a huge mountain in front of you that is almost impossible to climb. Rather, focus on taking small steps, integrating your learning, and celebrating each small step and achievement that is bringing you closer to the positive outcome from the setback.
Question for you: What should have been your first step after you failed and that would have put you back on track?
Accept compromise to rebound higher. When I failed medical school, although I had some ideas of what I wanted to do (something that had foreign languages and business in it), I also knew that despite my strong desire to enter a top French business school, I could not afford to fail a third time in just 3 years.
I had to compromise then. What I did is I signed up for a vocational training certificate at a less prestigious school in France, which gave me a diploma after 2 years. With that diploma under my belt, I then had the security that I could either start working now or take more reasonable risks to join more prestigious schools and earn a master. I chose the second path and got a Master after 3 more years of study. Altogether, my compromise “cost” me only one more year of study compared to me following the standard path of going to a prestigious French school – at a much higher risk of failing again.
The benefit though was that this path later allowed me to do my MBA at one of the top US business schools. I have never regretted having to compromise here.
Question for you: Where should you have compromised to rebound higher?
Don’t deviate from goal. With any goal we set, it’s easy to lose track or motivation. This is human. We get distracted by other things (especially at work). We find the goals not so thrilling after all and after a few weeks, we just give up.
My point is, don’t give up. Stay locked on your goal until you have achieved it, because this is your best opportunity to really learn about your setback and to make progress.
There are plenty of things you can do to ensure you don’t deviate from your goal. For instance:
- Align any goal with your core values, so that this goal becomes so thrilling and resonating with you that nothing will stand in your way to achieve it.
- Plan specific time in your calendar to work on your goal and whatever it is that you have identified in order to recover from your setback and learn from it. It could be 30 minutes of meditation, or 1 hour of discussion with your mentor or coach, or quiet time for you at work with no calls nor meetings.
Question for you: Where have you seen yourself not focusing on your learning after a setback? Where did you miss the opportunity to focus on your goals?
Listen to your inner self, not others. When you fail or face a major setback, it is easy to stay embroiled in negative feelings. What’s more, you will be in no shortage of people telling you that “You should have known better!” or “I told you so!”
Well, as much as we’d love to have people around us talking to us, most of their comments will be judgmental and in the end not helpful at all.
My suggestion is to keep these people and their comments at bay. You don’t need to be judged, neither by them nor by you.
Instead, focus on what is important for you, the positive side of the setback, what you are learning from it. And use this as a compass to move forward.
You, only, know what you are up to and need to do to make that setback an opportunity instead of an eternal regret. Don’t let other people control what you should do or how you should feel.
Question for you: What comment or feedback from others would you rather not had in the past, after a setback? How would listening to your inner self have helped you more?
Create some routines. If you really want to address your setback and get the most out of it, it is important to create a routine for analyzing what happened, work on some goals you may have set for yourself, get on with the learning, and then make the most out of this setback with whatever action you have accomplished.
There are many ways to create a routine. For instance, when I failed medical school, my routine included reviewing where I could have been better, what gaps I had BEFORE entering school that I could have better identified, blocking 2 to 3 hours per week to work on what I wanted to do next in life, and talk to friends about their own experience after the Baccalaureate and exchange our views, successes and failures.
My routine also include going outside with friends more, running, and using my time differently instead of being 100% focused on school.
These steps were key for me to realize I was not alone in failing after the Baccalaureate and that certainly also helped in staying focused on my goal of attending a school to study business, to continue learning about what I could do better if I was again in a similar situation.
Question for you: What is a routine you could have implemented after your setback, to ensure you stayed on track?
Remember, failing happens to everybody! This is OK to fail. What is key to understand though is that every failure or setback in life or at work brings an opportunity to learn something and to take action. If you do that, especially in a leadership role, you’ll have an edge over people who keep lamenting and whining about their own failures.
I wish you a great read. I’ll see you next Saturday!
TL; DR (Too Long, Did not Read)
7 hacks to recover from a setback
- Find your learning and gift.
- Focus on your next move.
- Go one step at a time.
- Accept compromise to rebound higher.
- Don’t deviate from goal.
- Listen to your inner self, not others.
- Create a routine.
Whenever you’re ready, there are 3 ways I can help you:
1️⃣ Work 1-1 with me to step up as the authentic leader you aspire to be.
2️⃣ Hire me to help you build a high-performing team.
3️⃣ Start with my affordable digital courses on Mastering Difficult Conversations for Leaders and Goal Setting