On the value of setbacks

 Setbacks don’t feel good. Let’s start by acknowledging that. When we’re actively working towards something, towards getting better at something, and we suddenly hit a wall or situation that stops us from being able to continue to practice or do the things we know will get us closer to our goals or closer to the performance we want to have on something we care about.

So, at face value, setbacks are bad things because they seem to impede progress. But there’s tremendous value in those setbacks, and setbacks are immensely valuable learning tools if we just learn to re-frame them as such.

There are 2 main sources of value for setbacks:

• they tell us where we’re weak - knowing where we’re lacking and weak is immensely useful information. Because it gives us an opportunity to focus efforts on making it better. It gives us the feedback we need to to re-define our training or approach to specifically focus on those areas in service of long term progression and mastery, ensuring we keep balanced
• They force us to practice patience - when we have setbacks, we know our progress will stall or be delayed. So that forces us to be patient, to acknowledge that our main goals will take longer to reach because we found a bump in the road that we must clear before we can continue our journey at the speed we were before. To know that “our day” is still going to come, because we’re assuring it through discipline and habit, but it won’t be coming today or tomorrow

As example, I’m coming back to jiu jitsu training after a long time being out. And coming back, within the first week had a bad injury on my shin. Yes, I wallowed and felt sorry for myself for a day or two, I’m just human like everyone else. But then I saw it for what it was. It was feedback of where I’m weak and that’s useful. So for over a month I’ve been focusing on daily, slow and steady training of my shin, ankles and feet and I’m now much stronger there which is now allowing me to focus again on the jiu jitsu performance and not on other limiting factors. And now, another training incident has shown me I’m weak in my oblique abs. So the work starts again. And as I go, other weak areas will present themselves, and I get the opportunity to become stronger. And I also get the opportunity to practice patience, knowing that setbacks are part of progress and I should both expect them and have a strategy to deal with them.

So, Rafael, know that setbacks are an integral part of progress. It’s how life works, and they  will happen and keep happening to you, as they do to all of us. They’re not bad or wrong, they’re just obstacles that stand in the way so they become the way (as Marcus Aurelius, the Philosoher King said). Deciding in advance how you’ll deal with setbacks, will make you happier and more fulfilled individual that can handle whatever life throws at you, and that’s a good goal to have that will make life happier to live.