How to Maintain Personal and Professional Growth After an Unexpected Setback

The promotion Paul had been working toward for a decade went up in smoke. Just when he thought he would become the owner of a massively successful financial services business, he was suddenly unemployed and had to start over again with his career.

Today, Paul is the CEO and founder of Sound Financial Group. His business is thriving, and he loves what he does and the time that it gives him to spend with his family.

However, when the rug was pulled out from under Paul, he had the option to either let this setback derail him, or he could see it as an opportunity for personal and professional growth. Paul chose to move forward, and as a result he was able to create a new business, one that worked even better for him and his family.

Life is full of unexpected challenges and setbacks. These can be especially disheartening when they happen in your career. But whatever setbacks you may be facing, there is always an opportunity for growth.

Below are Paul’s recommendations for how to continue to grow in your professional career and as a person after an unexpected setback.

A lot of entrepreneurs have been treated unfairly by someone: a business partner, a vendor, or maybe even a boss.

When life doesn’t go your way, you can easily jump to being angry at the people or circumstances that you feel are to blame. But holding on to your anger, even if it is justified, will only prevent you from moving forward.

Paul realized that being angry at the company that had mistreated him was doing him more harm than good. His anger had trapped him in the past instead of allowing him to move forward without bitterness.

Paul’s anger about his termination was inhibiting his growth as a person: “What I realized is I could be mad at them for it, but if I don’t take away something that I could do differently when faced with a similar circumstance in the future, I got no better.”

Being angry can feel good in the moment, but try not to hold on to that feeling for too long. Being angry does nothing to change your circumstances and can prevent you from moving forward and maturing both yourself and your future business.

While an unforeseen challenge can be burdensome, setbacks are usually followed by surprising blessings. It is natural to focus on the negative, but if you focus some of your attention on the positives of your situation, it will be easier for you to continue to move forward.

If Paul hadn’t been fired from his position, he would not have been able to spend extensive time with his father, who only had a year left to live. They were able to go on a road trip as a family and spend invaluable time together. Because Paul was no longer managing dozens of employees, he could focus on being with his family.

If Paul’s career had developed as he expected it to, he would not have been able to take time from his job to be with his father and their family.

What are some unexpected blessings that have come from challenges that you have faced in your life, and how have these blessings helped you to grow?

While a setback is frustrating, it gives you an opportunity to reevaluate your career and rebuild your business the way you want it to function.

Before Paul got fired, he was working fulltime during the week and often did extra work on the weekends. Once he began working for himself, he realized he didn’t have to continue working that pace in order to provide the life he wanted for his family.

Paul recommends building your business around your lifestyle ambitions, rather than building your lifestyle around the success of your business. This means setting goals for the kind of life you want for yourself and your family first, then looking at your business to see what you need to do to achieve that lifestyle.

Paul said he often sees entrepreneurs who are stuck in a cycle of making their businesses bigger and better, and these business owners end up sacrificing unnecessary time and money just to grow their company.

If you as an entrepreneur are marking your success in terms of the size of your business rather than the achievement of the lifestyle that you want, your company will never be big enough. You will always be chasing after more employees, more revenue, and a bigger business. While growing a business is desirable, make sure that your company isn’t outgrowing your ambition.

Are you able to produce the outcomes you want for your family? Is your business taking up more of your time than it is worth? How can you change your work to reflect your priorities?

The biggest lesson Paul has learned is that there will always be circumstances that are beyond his control. For Paul, his faith helped him come to terms with not being in control.

Sometimes the uncontrollable elements of our lives are what propel us toward a better future. When you acknowledge that you are not in control of every circumstance in your life, you open yourself up to new possibilities that would never have come about if your life had gone perfectly to plan.

When Paul was fired, he was able to go in a new direction that was more beneficial for his career and his family.

Paul said, “It’s really funny how these enormous things that just seem unbeatable in the moment actually ended up as the building block for what makes our life work really well later.”

Growth does not always look the way you expect it to. Challenges and setbacks are an important factor in your growth as a person and a professional, as long as you are willing to learn from them.

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