Every person who has ever actively worked on self improvement and bettering themselves and their lives will have suffered setbacks. The most successful people in the world did not become successful overnight. They will almost certainly have suffered more disappointments, setbacks and even unmitigated disasters, than most people. They will certainly have had to be resilient and to have perseverance, persistence and determination.

Successful people will definitely have made wrong decisions and expensive mistakes, and taken wrong turns on their journey to success. Things may have been going extremely well and they then encountered events beyond their control, or made choices, which caused them to lose everything they had built up.

Often when we try something new, things can go wrong and everything may not go according to plan. When this happens, we may well question our abilities and ambitions, or think we were misguided in trying to a build a better life for ourselves and our family. Many people consider themselves failures at this point and just give up and retreat to their comfort zones.

However, it's worth remembering that the only way we can guarantee we will never fail is to never try anything. But just think, if we gave up at the first or second hurdle, or never tried anything new, we wouldn't be able use our computers, drive our cars, play sports - or even read, walk or talk!

Successful people are also disappointed and affected by setbacks, and certainly get knocked down more often than most, if only because they try more things. This may happen not once or twice, but dozens or even hundreds of times. But successful people refuse to stay down - because they are resilient and will not be denied their dreams and goals.

Many successful people had to go to extreme lengths to achieve their goals. Walt Disney was turned down for finance to build Disneyland by more than 300 banks. They all thought he was mad and that his vision for Disneyland would never take off.

Colonel Sanders had a great chicken recipe and believed he could teach people how to cook his chicken to increase their businesses. He spent two years driving across America, sleeping in his car, and calling on restaurants who weren't interested. He was often mocked and laughed at, and apparently he was turned down over 1,000 times before he heard his first yes!

The greatest inventor if the twentieth century, Thomas Edison was also one of the greatest failure of all time. For every invention of Edison's that worked, thousands of attempts over many years didn't work. But Edison didn't consider these failures.

He confidently expected to find the right solutions after he had learnt from and eliminated all the unsuccessful methods!

How many people would have had these levels of perseverance and persistence and would have been able to bounce back from so much rejection and disappointment?

These men had dreams they believed in and were committed to, and were prepared to do whatever it took to achieve their goals. They learnt from their setbacks and changed their plans or revised their approach, and did whatever was necessary until they got what they were aiming for.

It is, however, important that we recognise that resilience and determination are not the same as stubbornness. There is no point doing exactly the same thing again and again and expecting different results. We must be prepared to be flexible and to adapt our plans and goals accordingly.

Studies have shown that 95% of goals people set will be ultimately achieved if they learn from their difficulties and don't give up. Lack of talent or opportunity has almost nothing to do with people not reaching their goals and becoming successful. Instead, the main reason is that people lack the determination and persistence to overcome setbacks and obstacles.

Resilience is essential, and there are learnable techniques and strategies that can help develop this characteristic. Successful people know there are no failures because there are lessons to be learned from everything that happens to them, both good and bad.

In fact, it is usually our failures and mistakes - what we learn from them and how we react to them - that build our character and determine our levels our success. The only real failure is to give up altogether.

Self Improvement Quote of the Day

"The majority of men meet with failure because of their lack of persistence in creating new plans to take the place of those which fail." - Napoleon Hill