Have you ever made a mistake and found yourself thinking about it again and again? Maybe you missed an opportunity, failed at something you really wanted, lost a job, had a relationship fall apart, or simply made a decision that didn’t work out the way you hoped.
Do you replay the situation in your mind?
“What if I had done this?”
“Why did I say that?”
“I should have known better.”
“Maybe I’m just not good enough.”
If that sounds familiar, you’re not alone. Life is going to throw challenges at all of us. There will be mistakes, disappointments, setbacks, failures, losses and unexpected changes. We can’t always control what happens to us, but we can learn to control how we respond to what happens. That is where reboundability comes in.
What is Reboundability?
I like to think of reboundability as your ability to bounce back when life knocks you down. It doesn’t mean pretending that everything is okay. It doesn’t mean ignoring disappointment or acting like failure doesn’t hurt. It means allowing yourself to acknowledge what happened, learn from it, and then start Moving Forward. The problem isn’t always the setback itself.
Sometimes the bigger problem is what we do with it afterwards. We can spend days, weeks or even years replaying an event in our minds. We can beat ourselves up, question our decisions, worry about what other people think and convince ourselves that one failure somehow defines who we are. And when we do that, we can become stuck.
When Your Mind Keeps You Stuck
Imagine you’ve just lost a major sales opportunity.
You could look at it and say:
“That didn’t work. What can I learn from it?”
Or you could spend the next week thinking:
“What did I do wrong?”
“Maybe they didn’t like me.”
“I must have looked stupid.”
“I’m terrible at this.”
“I’ll probably never be successful.”
Can you see the difference? The first approach looks for a lesson. The second approach turns one disappointing event into a story about who you are. And that story can become the real problem. The more we repeat negative thoughts, the easier they become to repeat. Our confidence takes a hit, our focus disappears and we become less willing to take the next opportunity when it comes along.Instead of Moving Forward, we become stuck looking backwards. So how do we change that?
Here are 5 ways to build your reboundability.
1. Change Your Perspective
A setback doesn’t automatically mean you’ve failed. Sometimes it simply means that particular approach didn’t work.
Mistakes, challenges and disappointments are part of life. More importantly, they can become some of our greatest teachers.
Instead of asking:
“Why does this always happen to me?”
Try asking:
“What can I learn from this?”
What could you do differently next time?
What did this experience teach you about yourself?
What did you learn about the situation?
What can you take from it and use Moving Forward?
When you change the way you look at a setback, you can change what you get from it.
A failure can become a stepping-stone.
A mistake can become a lesson.
A challenge can become an opportunity to grow.
2. Don’t Assume You Know What Other People Are Thinking
One of the traps we can fall into after a setback is making assumptions.
You make a mistake and immediately think:
“They must think I’m incompetent.”
You lose an opportunity and think:
“They obviously didn’t like me.”
You fail at something and decide:
“Everyone probably thinks I’m useless.”
But how do you actually know what other people are thinking?
The truth is, we often create stories in our own heads and then treat those stories as facts. Before you start beating yourself up over what someone might be thinking, stop and ask: “Do I actually know this, or am I making an assumption?”
You can’t control what other people think. What you can control is how you respond, what you learn and what you choose to do next.
3. Stop Judging Yourself and Start Learning
There is a big difference between self-reflection and self-punishment.
Self-reflection asks:
“What could I have done differently?”
Self-punishment says:
“I’m an idiot. I always get things wrong.”
One helps you grow.
The other keeps you stuck. When something doesn’t go according to plan, take a step back and look at it objectively.
What happened? What was within your control? What wasn’t? What could you change next time? What lesson can you take from the experience? Then take that lesson and Move Forward. You don’t have to keep punishing yourself for something that has already happened. You can’t change yesterday. But you can use yesterday to create a better tomorrow.
4. Don’t Miss the Next Opportunity
Sometimes one disappointment takes up so much space in our mind that we don’t notice what is happening right in front of us.
You lose one opportunity and convince yourself that it was the opportunity. You don’t get the job and decide there won’t be another one. A relationship ends and you believe you’ll never find someone else. A business idea fails and you decide you aren’t capable of succeeding. But what if that wasn’t the end of the road? What if it was simply a change of direction? Sometimes a closed door can force us to look for another path. The important thing is to keep your eyes open. Don’t become so focused on what you’ve lost that you fail to notice what could be waiting for you next. Keep Moving Forward.
5. Accept What Has Already Happened
This one can be difficult. Acceptance doesn’t mean you have to like what happened. It means recognising that it has happened.
You can’t go back and change yesterday. You can’t undo the conversation. You can’t change the decision. You can’t make the mistake disappear. You can, however, decide what you’re going to do from this point forward.
Think about it.
Can you stop the sun from rising?
Can you stop the rain from falling?
Can you change what has already happened?
No.
So why spend all your energy fighting against something that is already part of your past?
Accept it. Learn from it. Adjust your course. Then keep Moving Forward.
Build Your Reboundability
None of us gets through life without being knocked around a little. We will all experience disappointment. We will all make mistakes. We will all fail at something. We will all have moments where things don’t go according to plan. That’s life.
The goal isn’t to avoid every setback. The goal is to become better at getting back up. Think about a child learning to walk. They fall over, get back up, take a few more steps and fall again. They don’t decide:
“Well, that’s it. I’m obviously no good at walking.”
They keep trying. They learn. They adjust. They keep Moving Forward. That’s reboundability.
So the next time life knocks you down, give yourself permission to feel what you’re feeling.
Then ask yourself:
What can I learn from this?
What is within my control?
What can I do differently next time?
And most importantly:
What’s my next step?
You don’t have to have everything figured out.
You just need to take the next step.
Get back up. Learn the lesson. Adjust your course. And keep Moving Forward.
[Picture – Stefan Stefanick – Unsplash]
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