As you pursue your goals, the journey will not be smooth one. Things will go wrong, you will have bad days, and you will have setbacks. Can you stop these setbacks coming? No. Not always that’s for sure. What you can control though, is your reaction. I’ve observed 3 distinct types of reaction to setbacks, and the good news is that we get to choose which reaction to have. Basketball is a good sport to use to illustrate this. It’s particularly evident when coaching kids, they wear their hearts on their sleeves and their reactions are very visible.
In a basketball game the main setback is being scored against. Now in football or rugby for example, when the other team scores you get a bit of time whilst everyone heads back to the halfway line to get your head back in the game. In basketball it’s different. When the other team scores, the ball is effectively back in play, so your reaction is very important. The first type of reaction is what I call the ‘blamer’. “Who was marking him?” “Whose fault was that, because it wasn’t mine”? It’s always somebody else’s fault: a team-mate, the referee, the coach, someone else is always responsible for the blamer’s lot in life.
The second type of reaction is just as destructive but a little harder to see, a little more passive. It’s what I call the ‘sulker’. As the sulker is scored against, his head goes down. Sometimes only momentarily but it goes down all the same and vital seconds are lost. “Woe is me is his internal cry.” The third type of reaction, the one we are looking for, I call the rubber ball. If I throw a rubber ball at the floor what does it do? It bounces straight back, without hesitation. This is the guy who as the ball’s coming through the net he’s catching it, stepping behind the endline, passing to his team-mate and physically, verbally, emotionally driving his team down the court at full tilt. This is the reaction we’re looking for. This is the reaction of successful people. This is the reaction we can all choose to have.
See if you can guess who this is:
- He failed in Business in 1831
- He was defeated for the state legislator in 1832
- He failed in business again in 1833
- His fiancée died in 1835
- He had a nervous breakdown in 1836
- He ran for congress and lost in 1843
- He ran for congress again and lost in 1848
- He ran for the senate and lost in 1855
He’s rubbish this bloke isn’t he?
He ran for vice president and lost in 1856
He became president in 1860
The answer is Abraham Lincoln! Talk about bouncing back!
Sometimes the difference between life’s greatest achievements and the world’s most staggering failures is that ability to keep bouncing back. The best thing about our reaction is that we can all consciously choose it. So when you’re setting out to achieve your goals, watch out for setbacks, and when they show up, observe your reaction. And if you find yourself blaming or sulking, choose to bounce instead. Because the more you consciously choose to bounce, the quicker it’ll become your default reaction.
Categorised in: General