On Setbacks in Life

One thing that’s been on my mind lately is setbacks in life and how to bounce back from them. Life will never be perfect, and everyone encounters adversity at some point or other. What separates people from one another is how they choose to respond.

As a regular runner, I sprained my ankle and strained my peroneal tendon around six weeks ago, which threw a major wrench into my fitness routine. I had been running regularly for the past three years (I hadn’t really been injured since my hip flexor injury in summer 2023), and all of a sudden I couldn’t run at all! I could have just rolled over and complained about it, but instead I decided to shift my focus to self-improvement in some other areas of my life that I had wanted to spend more time on anyways, like swimming, skiing, pottery, and dating. When life gives you lemons, make lemonade!

There’s a concept called the abundance mindset that I’ve been thinking a lot about lately. It’s the idea that "there are sufficient resources, opportunities, and success for everyone, fostering a perspective of gratitude, growth, and collaboration rather than fear or jealousy". In the context of this injury setback, I could have complained that I was losing valuable days of training that I would never get back. But a better way of viewing it is that I have a whole lifetime of training ahead – it’s merely being postponed by a few weeks.

Instead of viewing things as "I have to start all over", I choose to view it as "I’ve learned more about how my body works". Instead of viewing things as "I lost all my fitness", I choose to view it as "I will return even stronger than I was before with my new knowledge". Now I’m even better prepared for a lifetime ahead of keeping fitness a sustainable part of my life.

Finally, one last method I use to overcome adversity is to view things through the lens of the growth mindset, or "the belief that abilities and intelligence can be developed through dedication, effort, and learning from mistakes". There’s a Spanish quote that I once read on Twitter many years ago that has always stuck with me, which is "unas veces se gana, otras veces se aprende" – it means "sometimes you win, and other times you learn". Challenges, rejections, and obstacles in life should be viewed as learning experiences rather than failures.

These are some of the things that have been on my mind lately. As I return to running, I would like to continue to approach it from the perspective of gratitude ("I get to run" rather than "I have to run"), and I’d also like to carry all the new takeaways I’ve learned through this saga as well. Is there a setback that you’ve encountered recently in your life, and how did you respond to it? I would love to hear your story. As always, feel free to reach out and until next time!