Expos. Final Essay

Insightful Setback v. Self Sabotage
When success or reaching your goal is thought about, you might think about the final result, graduating from high school, or getting enough money for that new car. However no one thinks about failures that may occur during your journey to reach a goal. There are two courses of action that can be taken if an obstacle or failure is put in the way; either handle it with the perception of an insightful setback, or with a mind set for self-sabotage. I would much rather handle my failures using the insightful setback method, but people can often fall into self-sabotaging behavior with a simple pessimistic outlook. Insightful setback can be summed up as an instance when you understand your failure and learn from it, and self-sabotage is not using your judgment to keep moving forward and you just give up on your goal. “How to Turn Failure Into Success - The Way to Insightful Setbacks” and “Self Sabotage” both further explain how each work. Both methods of dealing with failure are similar, however, they differ greatly.
The article “How to Turn Failure Into Success – The Way to Insightful Setbacks” states the process of how to turn failure into accomplishment. Insightful setback is all about the way you look at your failures. If you look at failure as a friend, coach, or mentor you are using failure to the fullest. Let it teach you what not to do or what to fix. Look at it to forge your strength, through trial and error. A perfect example of this is the great scientist, Thomas Edison. Thomas Alva Edison, an American inventor from 1847-1931 invented many technological advancements, such as an early legislative vote recorder and telegraph devices. However, probably one of his most important discoveries was the light bulb, and the way that he discovered the light bulb is a perfect example of insightful setback. Thomas Edison tried over 10,000 times to create the light bulb and 9,999 times he failed and what he said was “I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.” Edison is the master of insightful setback; his goal to make a light bulb had many obstacles in his way. Every time he failed he just kept moving forward, after each failure he learned a way not to make a light bulb, he just continued moving forward to his destination.
Self-sabotage is something that we do to ourselves; we do this when we feel that we don’t deserve good things to happen to us. As defined by www.yeartosuccess.com, Self-sabotage is a combination of thoughts, feelings, and actions that create a roadblock to success by working against your own self-interests. Learn the reasons why so many fall victim to self-sabotage and how to avoid this sometimes-fatal mistake. According to the site “Self Sabotage” there are many characteristics that can give a tell that someone has a self-sabotage persona. Such as, a procrastinator, self doubt or putting ones self down, depression, trust issues, inability to finish projects, or worrying about what others think. When I think about self-sabotage I think about one age group and that is adolescents, teens, and young adults. The reason for this is because of school, as I am coming to graduate and the nearing days I can’t help but think about the goal I set for myself since I have started to school, graduate. Since I moved to Colorado in third grade I have been going to school with the same group of kids, roughly 200 to 250. However it has just set in that only 150 are graduating on Sunday, “where have those others gone?” might be a question thrown around. Although many have moved away or switched schools there also a few that have just quit, these are the kids that are affected by self-sabotage. I have seen this through my own eyes, whether the obstacle is a baby or just poor performance in school, those individuals give up at the slightest rough patch. They call it quits when they get embarrassed and think, “What do people think about me?” they do not pursue their goal or try to get help, they just throw in the towel. This is very common in high school, and even more common in college. “College?” you say, “but college is only for those individuals who are great academically, people who go to college are ready to learn.” If you think this you are sadly mistaken there are many students who drop out because of obstacles that seem insurmountable, but they don’t pursue or ask for help and they fail. A common between all failures in school is the personality of the person, each person just thought, “Well I can’t overcome this, I shouldn’t be in school,” but this is what gets people into trouble. They don’t believe they deserve to graduate and make a better life for themselves, they don’t try to overcome obstacles, they trust roll with them. That one bad grade isn’t the end of the world, you just need to try harder and learn from what you did wrong. An example in my life of this is my brother, he is a hard worker, and I feel can make it though anything. However, school and college was never easy for him. While in college he started off with D’s and other low grades, and he thought that he was a horrible student, this was him getting stuck in quicksand. What I mean by this is the harder he tried to fight the deeper he sunk, and the only way he was going to get out was to tell himself that he deserves to succeed and to pass college. This is one of those stories that doesn’t have a happy ending, in the end it became an insurmountable task.
This is the biggest difference between insightful setback and self-sabotage, how to deal with failure or obstacles. Insightful setback basically means to learn from your mistakes and don’t give up. While self-sabotage is the exact opposite, you feel that you don’t deserve what good things you have and when you meet a failure you feel that you deserve to fail. There are differences in the way people feel about themselves, as well. An insightful thinker will think about how to achieve their goal, they will overcome obstacles and learn from failure. A self-sabotage thinker will have four key characteristics. One, they will have a fear of success, two, unworthiness, or the feeling that you don’t deserve good things, this may be due to a poor self image or a low self-esteem. The third characteristic is the lack of ones belief in its own abilities, whether it is thinking you are not smart or that your goal is out of reach this is self-sabotage. The final one is not knowing your true desires, this goes along with college, such as choosing your major to satisfy your parents, or even people who work for paychecks and not for the love of the work. These are total opposites, each one has a new prospective on ways to deal with failure and obstacles, and each solution fall on different sides of the spectrum.
Both of these are similar in the way that they both deal with failures and obstacles, at some point in a person’s life they may be used, and both of which can always change. From “How to Turn Failure Into Success – The Way to Insightful Setbacks” it explains that both are ways to problem solving, however, one has a positive outcome and one has a negative outcome. A much bigger similarity though is that every person will end up using both at one time or another, whether you like it or not. There is such a broad description given by the article “Self Sabotage” that it is hard not to be considered a saboteur. No matter how well a person is at overcoming and succeeding they may sometimes fall under the spell of self-sabotage. This, however, leads into another similarity described in both articles. Not one of these outlooks is set in stone; you are always allowed to change. If you have a sabotaging outlook, this does not mean that you can not change, this only means that you may be digging yourself deeper, but you can always go back and take a new perspective on the situation. You should check yourself before you wreck yourself.
With these two articles, “How to Turn Failure Into Success – The Way to Insightful Setbacks” and “Self Sabotage” I would take the side of insightful setback because who wouldn’t want to always succeed in their efforts and reach whatever goals they set for themselves? Insightful setback or self-sabotage, take a look for yourself, drop the bad habits and look at your goals from the stand point that you deserve them, that you can overcome failures with your abilities and that you are worthy of success. Almos Alcott states, “We climb to heaven most often on the ruins of our cherished plans, finding our failures were successes.” heaven can be interpreted as being our goal and only by climbing up and over our failures can we ever hope to reach where we want to go. This quote by Colin Powell, “There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure.” Only those who fail and work hard to overcome that failure will be able to succeed, and those who give up after failure will never know what it feels like to achieve a goal. Failure can take two faces, your best friend or your worst enemy, but its your choice, insightful setback or self-sabotage. I believe that to be successful one must go through the hardships and overcome failure and obstacles.
“How to Turn Failure Into Success - The Way to Insightful Setbacks” and “Self Sabotage” these articles speak of the routes that can be taken to deal with failure or obstacles. They tell what is needed to do or what is needed to be changed, to either be insightful or be a saboteur. I will end with a quote by Leo F. Buscaglia, “We seem to gain wisdom more readily through our failures than through our successes. We always think of failure as the antithesis of success, but it isn’t. Success often lies just on the other side of failure.”
Works Cited
"5 Signs of Self Sabotage." Greatest Inspirational Quotes for Every Event and Stage in Your Life. Web. 19 May 2010. .
Dictionary.com Find the Meanings and Definitions of Words at Dictionary.com. Web. 17 May 2010. .
Google"); For(i=0;i, Ads By. "How to Turn Failure Into Success - The Way to Insightful Setbacks." EzineArticles Submission - Submit Your Best Quality Original Articles For Massive Exposure, Ezine Publishers Get 25 Free Article Reprints. Web. 12 May 2010. .
Khurana, Simran. "Thomas Edison Quotes." Quotes Quotations. Web. 17 May 2010. .
"Quotes like There_are_no_secrets_to_success-it_is_the_result." Find the Famous Quotes You Need, ThinkExist.com Quotations. Web. 19 May 2010. .
"Self Sabotage Article." Building Self Esteem. Web. 11 May 2010. .
"Self-Sabotage." Year To Success: Success, Wealth, Financial Freedom, Happiness. Web. 19 May 2010. .
"Success & Failure Quotes :: Quoteland :: Quotations by Topic." Quoteland.com - Quotations on Every Topic, by Every Author, and in Every Fashion Possible. Web. 19 May 2010. .