Dealing with Setbacks

The greatest teacher, failure is... Yoda, Star Wars The Last Jedi

As a writer, setbacks are common. It could be the obvious like a publisher/agent rejection letter or a bad review,. Or the setback could be more subtle like just not being able to find the words for what you want to say. They can knock big lumps out of your confidence or they can subtly chip away at it. Either way, setbacks need to be dealt with healthily before they begin to overwhelm us.

I recently had a pretty big setback. I had been hired to work on a project which I thought was going great but out of the blue I received an email saying I was no longer required. It was pretty devasting and sent me on a bit of an emotional spiral. All of a sudden I was questioning myself to the extreme. I felt useless, like I was a complete failure. I was snappy and distant with my family and I just wanted the ground to swallow me up.

These were emotional responses, of course. They were reactions rather than thoughts. For those that know me, I have a bit of a history with this. As an INTJ, I tend to ruminate and my thoughts easily spiral. When I went through a period of Compassion Focussed Therapy, I was taught a little about how to engage with myself during these types of episodes, so I thought I'd share how I go about this in case it helps anyone reading.

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Name the Emotions

Being kind to yourself is always the first step and I initially try to separate the emotion from the thought. This separation allows me to observe my feelings without judgment, creating a space where I can reflect on them more objectively. I find that naming the emotions I experience is a crucial part of this process.

In this instance, I felt embarrassment, shame, frustration and fear. And there was a lot of fear. Fear that I wasn't good enough and that I'm wasting my time.

By identifying and naming the emotions it not only acknowledges what I am feeling but also helps me manage those emotions effectively. Instead of allowing negative feelings to overwhelm me, naming them helps to diffuse their intensity, making them easier to handle. Crucially, it returns a feeling of empowerment and control, and by being kind to myself during this process, I can start to reassert my self worth and resilience.

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Accept an Appropriate Level of Responsibility

Once I've named my feelings and separated them out at least to some degree, from my actual thoughts, I can can start analysing the setback more objectively. I'm definitely someone who naturally blames myself when things don't go to plan. But I sometimes fall into the trap of blaming others around me as well. When I received the email, I was angry, thinking they hadn't explained it to me properly or were setting unrealistic expectations etc. The reality was that my work just wasn't good enough. I'd spread myself too thin with too many projects and not enough time to complete them and my work wasn't up to the standard it should have been. It's painful to admit, but it's the truth.

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Reframe your Thoughts

The realisation and the acceptance of that level of responsibility was important but not the end of the journey. It matters what you do with the realisation. Failure can and should be used as a lesson, a template for what to do differently next time. For me, I realised that I needed to be more focused on specific projects rather than saying yes to everything and then not having the capacity to fulfil it all properly and I feel a lot better as a result. It's so easy to spiral down the rabbit hole and make bad decisions based on emotion. It is hard, especially when setbacks can happen often but there's often something positive to take from a negative situation.

Much love!

Alex