Setbacks

Dear Tony,

I haven’t written in a while because I have had some of my own setbacks which I needed to deal with.

Setback. That doesn’t make my current project a failure. It doesn’t mean that I need to permanently restrict my activities or make drastic changes. It means exactly what it is. Set. Back. It usually means I need to take a few steps backwards, need to slow down, need to lie low for a little while. Need to regroup. It depends of the project, of course, but it usually only lasts for a week or so. Then I try again.

So why did it fail? For me, the most common reason is that I simply moved too quickly. I took on more than I can handle and I needed to withdraw and rethink my current duties. That isn't a failure. Or I was doing too many things with my current project and my other responsibilities. Or I wasn’t as prepared for the next step as I thought I was, and I needed to go back and rebuild myself some more. Or some crisis came up, and I couldn’t handle anything new.

Taking on new projects requires a lot of energy. Often I need to make my life as stable as possible and I need to withdraw from some other activities. I need to just concentrate on doing the first step, and then I need to rest. Sometimes I need to give the same attention and focus to the second and third and fourth step, too. But eventually I will grow accustomed to it. And if I don’t, then I need to step back and figure out what happened. If I need more time or a smaller step. But I usually learn something and make some progress.