I was chatting to one of my friends yesterday about his 30 year business career. During the course of this conversation one statement in particular he made  stuck in my mind.

“I don’t have failures, just setbacks”.

In my opinion this is a counter productive way to think. Everybody fails at something at one stage of their lives. Failure is a part of learning. It’s a part of life.

A setback, however, is when you lose time due to unforeseen circumstances. A setback is a hiccup; an annoyance that gets in your way on your journey to your goal.

Let’s put it this way, would something that you choose to view as a minor setback stick in your mind as a life lesson, or would something that you view as a complete cock-up be more prevalent as a life lesson? I’m betting the latter would be true for most people.

A failure is a failure.  If you have a goal and you don’t achieve it, you’ve failed.  It shouldn’t be viewed as a  setback, a minor inconvenience or an opportunity to blame others for what went wrong.  Accept the failure, learn from it and if you can swallow your pride, educate others on how to avoid making the same mistake.