Why Overcoming Setbacks Is The Icing On The Cake.

Statistically speaking, upsets outweigh victories. We know that a car is designed to have effective shock absorbers because the driver will ride it on all manner of terrain. And if it is not an off-roader and is subjected to harsh conditions, the vehicle will break down. Many people can only take so much punishment before that ghostly feeling of defeat overwhelms them.

But life is not a dress rehearsal. It is real. So, setbacks will come upon us time and again. We must practice less the posture of empty celebration and embrace more the practice of purposed shock absorption. That is the ability that distinguishes salvageable success from irredeemable failure.

The world has no time for the sulking type. So, the advice to always wake up and dust your feet after a fall is the standard operating procedure here.

If you've never had a real setback, then you don't know what success tastes like. In fact, Sir Winston Churchill said: "Success is about moving from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm". The man who smiles after experiencing defeat is no psycho but a man experiencing postponed success.

Overcoming a setback is the icing on the cake because when you succeed, the cake and its icing are all yours. Thomas Edison, clearly, is the father of scientific resilience because after failing a thousand times less one, he invented the light bulb. He jokingly said that in the process, he'd discovered 999 ways not to develop the light bulb.

The iconic Abraham Lincoln failed severally in his bid for elective office at various levels. In his final attempt, he was elected president of the United States and remains the greatest of all time.

Nelson Mandela spent 27 years in prison for opposing apartheid. For his people, it was the perfect case of "absence makes the heart grow fonder", and his incarceration just fueled their faith in him. Eventually, he led the same country that had jailed him.

Christopher Columbus laboured to discover the sea route to India in the race to control the lucrative spice trade that had eluded European royalty for years. For Colombus, John Legend's lyrics: "even when I am losing I am winning....", from his song "All Of You", came true for he ended up in the Americas instead. Nonetheless, he is credited with introducing the new world to Europe.

The list is long but several things are true across the board for those challenges-infested turned successful people.

They've had to contend with negativity, fear, discouragements, unfairness and a catalogue of mishaps, before finding success.

Without overcoming setbacks, you cannot succeed. You must have the mindset, the mental strength and the physical drive to triumph. These attributes get you to smell the cake. It is in the trying that you finally get to see the icing on the cake.

Have a setback free week, won't you?