The number of times that things have not gone to plan in my life must now be in the many thousands.  With each of these disappointments or unsuccessful outcomes, there were many possible reactions:  I could be angry, disappointed, blameful, frustrated, resigned, reflective or grateful.

Over the years, I have decided that the best perspective to take was to ask the question:

What have I learned?

‘That result was a real let-down’. ‘That person’s carelessness did affect me’.  ‘The way I was treated was very unfair’. It is easy to dwell on the negatives, but I think it is better to gear one’s thinking in a positive direction, as most other reactions get you nowhere and perhaps even in trouble.

How can you do this?  It starts by how you frame the situation. Admit it if you made a mistake and are largely at fault.  Laugh at yourself, as there likely was some humour in your predicament.  Don’t awfulize and generalize that the result is now the new normal.  Don’t take it too personally.  Don’t give rejection too much authority. Acknowledge that blaming others is self-defeating and usually not the full picture. An interesting anecdote is that if you criticize others less, you will experience less trauma when you let yourself down.

Disappointments are opportunities to re-visit the WHY and HOW behind the event. Try re-framing failures as an unexpected result which can be avoided in the future.  At least you were trying!  A life without regular setbacks and disappointments is boring and uneventful.  If you don’t make mistakes it suggests you are in a rather fixed and comfortable place, but you may be stagnating and failing to grow in maturity because you avoid risks.

Learning from your smaller mistakes can encourage you to make better decisions in the future.  I often set up small experiments to see how something works.  I imagine a result and see if it occurs and when it doesn’t, it is a wonderful “science” moment to set up another trial-and-error exercise and figure out the puzzle.

Remember that successful people may have succeeded far more often than the ordinary person, but they’ve also failed far more often too!  Thomas Edison is remembered for the experiments that succeeded, but we forget how many time his experiments failed before he got there.

Asking, “What have I learned?” often and sincerely, like gratitude, is a useful tool to aid our well-being.

Reflection Source: www.Smallercup.org

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*:  Some of these ideas came from: Legendary Self-Discipline: Lessons from Mythology and Modern Heroes by Peter Hollins