Setbacks and distractions can seem like recurring guest stars in our lives. If it is not one, it’s the other. They can be both the cause and effect of one another, which makes dealing with either frustrating. Setbacks will happen. Distractions will continue to present themselves. What do we do? Are we expected to sit and allow them to place repeated pauses in our journeys? We will address both separately to gather the ability to deal with each. Killing two birds with one stone is usually a fool’s errand. Our plan here is to rid ourselves of an uninvited guest in our lives, not bank on one in a million occurrences.
Setbacks are the reason many people quit. On any journey, a setback is discouraging, and multiple is detrimental to our confidence and desire to continue. Yes, some of us have the attitude to push through repeated setbacks. The majority of us have not developed the strength to overcome pauses or reversals in progress. For those who haven’t, we need to discover how we’ll deal with it. There is no one way. How we look at that is up to us. We can see it as a positive, knowing that there are endless methods that can solve this problem. Alternatively, we can see this fact as yet another setback because there is no “map” to follow. When we look at options in this way, a quick fix will be to narrow the choices immediately.
Back to finding what works for us, it can be expecting setbacks. They aren’t welcome, but they are part of the journey, so we don’t allow ourselves to get too frustrated when they occur. We can ignore the lost progress. In this approach, we should tell ourselves we are where we are. Here we need to continue as if no loss of progress occurred. This approach lowers the chance of being discouraged. Another option would be to see them as a test. Make it a game. They are the bosses of the level you are currently on. Overcoming setbacks propels you to the next level of your journey. We will have to go through the same tier a few times before we triumph.
We can avoid distractions. Unlike setbacks, we must allow distractions to become an issue. They are always there, but we have the power. The power is our attention. Looking at the situation, we should see distractions are not uninvited guests. We actively choose to move our attention from our goal to whatever that distraction is. Life happens. There will be distractions worth losing focus like family needs, temporary health issues, or vacations. Outside of circumstances of that nature, we are choosing to give attention to less important things. We are walking around with the desire to achieve goals and actively choosing to do something else that doesn’t get us closer. It may have the potential to take us further away. Why do we do this? We may not realize what we are doing. After bringing this behavior to our attention, things can be better. Giving our attention to anything is a choice. We must make better choices.
In closing, dealing with setbacks and distractions is a bummer. They don’t present immediate positives, but they can make us better. Learning what works for us in dealing with setbacks enables us to combat quitting before the feeling presents itself. We can address the certainty of roadblocks with a new outlook. That outlook can morph into the excitement of knowing progress awaits us. All we need to do is overcome this unwanted guest. Distractions are like cars with no gas. If we don’t supply the distractions with gas (our attention), they cannot alter our journey. We have more control than we allow ourselves to believe. Our attention is just that, ours.
Food for thought. You do the dishes!
