Setbacks

Setbacks

Overcoming setbacks

Everyone fails sometimes or faces a setback in a particular aspect of business, because we, human beings, make mistakes and because business is really unpredictable. Most businesspeople continuously deal with adversity and failure, and you can be sure that a list of prominent people who reached rock bottom and filed for bankruptcy includes celebrated business gurus. Actually, at the company level, adversity, failure, setback are widespread. The same adversity is even common at the national level. Besides, the reality is that no matter what governments have implemented, there has remained an economic cycle that includes positive growth, but also negative contraction. There will be always unexpected, unpredicted major events…

Thus a key differentiator of success is not the absence of failure or adversity, but the ability to bounce back and try again. A key determinant of change in our world in absolutely unpredictable and unexpected.

But how do business people overcome setbacks ?

Many studies have attempted to uncover the common qualities of prosperous entrepreneurs. In fact, all these entrepreneurs a highly disparate bunch, with only one share trait which is perseverance.

There is no education like adversity (Benjamin Disraeli). Image: Megan Jorgensen.

Being prepared for a failure is a mental attitude you should acquire. In each forecast you make you should elaborate an optimistic, a moderate and a pessimistic scenario. This approach will enable you to prepare in advance for unfavorable outcomes. You can also create a setback pipeline. For example, you estimate that you have one chance in ten to succeed at a job interview. Therefore, it will require ten interviews before you receive a job offer, so you have to ensure you achieve at least this number of interviews.

There will be times when your business goes worth than even your most pessimistic forecast. When facing real setbacks, you need to keep things in perspective. There are also many people in far worse situation. In fact the world is full of disadvantaged people who with great courage and bravery overcome adversity against the most daunting odds.

As well as planning for damaging effects for your business, you should also look for emergent business opportunities. But change can be both good and bad for your business.

Anyway, even though failure happens to everyone, it does happen for a reason, and you need to learn from your mistakes. Business is constantly changing and there is no preferential or predetermined formula. Rather it is a process of trial and error. It is a matter of continuously learning what didn’t work at the time and what will work in the future.