February 2026 | Handling Setbacks
January 29, 2026
We experience time linearly: we move from the start of our story through all the pages to the end. The goals that we set for ourselves are conceived in a similarly linear form: start a new profession, grow, succeed. We expect our plans to unfold in that beginning-middle-end fashion, but the truth is that they rarely do so.
In reality, our attempts to realize our goals are not usually straightforward. More often than not, along the way to achieving our goals we find ourselves faced with challenges we had not foreseen and some of those challenges can end up setting us backwards on our path. Setbacks can make us feel angry, frustrated, and lost. They may even make us question if we should continue at all.
Setbacks can take many forms. They can be an attempt that results in a failure; they can be other parts of our lives running off the rails and taking away time and/or resources from our goal; they can be illness or stress; or they can simply be feelings of insecurity or doubt creeping in. Like a chute in Chutes and Ladders, our progress is upended, we slip down and find ourselves at a point we thought we’d passed long ago. Worse, potentially, because when we were at this point before, at least we were excited and eager to succeed, while now we may be feeling deflated and depleted. So, how do we move on from setbacks?
First, pause. Take stock of your feelings. Are you angry? Sad? Disappointed? Those feelings are all natural reactions to things not going the way we’d hoped they would.
Next, take a breath. This breath might last a moment or it might last a month, depending on what you’ve been trying to accomplish and what setback you’re experiencing. If your goal is to knit a sweater and you dropped a stitch, take a walk around the block and then come back and try again. If your goal is to run a marathon and you sprained your ankle, you’re going to need more time before you restart. Some timelines are much more amorphous and that’s where things can become tricky. Let’s say you’ve been working towards a promotion at work, putting in long hours and out-performing peers for years, but you’re passed over. You’re upset, probably hurt, and you can’t just try again easily on a set schedule.
In all setback cases, but especially the amorphous ones, when we feel adrift the best place to focus our attention is on our values, those deeply personal guiding principles by which we navigate our lives. When faced with setbacks, returning to our core values reorients us to the reason for having goals in the first place. These values can help us envision a way forward.
It’s important to remember that, no matter the setback, you haven’t actually been thrown backwards. Why? Because even if you have to start all over, you have something now that you didn’t at the beginning: all of the experience and insight you’ve gained along the way. This is the ‘it’s the journey, not the destination’ adage. Goals are destinations we work towards; even though success makes us feel good, it's fleeting (and often feels nothing like we expected it would). Often, the time and effort spent in pursuit of our goal is where real satisfaction lies. The ‘doing,’ not the ‘has done.’