How to Pick Yourself Up After a Big Setback

Advice from the other side.

Your setback doesn’t leave you; it becomes part of your story—one of resilience, love, and strength.

Continuing to publish after I said I was taking a break has felt wrong in every fiber of my body. When we sunset (close, fail, end, or evolve) something important to us—something that was a huge part of our identity—the expectation is we handle it privately and quietly.

As a result, we don’t have many examples of how to end one chapter and build another. We think we’re supposed to just get on with it when in reality, that’s not how it works for even the most stoic. 

Setbacks are part of the human experience. “Setback” doesn’t cover the full range of experiences, but it speaks to me at this moment. Yours could be a pivot, dead end, or roadblock— met in the face a death, divorce, illness, financial trouble, a cross-country move, or job loss.

They are all points of no return, where, in a moment, we realize everything has changed. Yet we distance ourselves from those who are in the throes of it as if it is contagious. (This is a distinctly American/Western experience but relevant, given our reader demographics.) 

Continuing to be seen in “public” by writing week after week felt wrong on a social norms level, but worse, it felt like opening the door to my own identity crisis and inviting people to watch the entire process. I felt I should be hiding until I was ready to emerge, fully in my new form, ready to take flight again. I felt I should hide the struggle. It all felt like something I should be ashamed of.

A part of me is still dealing with these feelings. That I should have hidden the messy parts of this career transition. One part of me regrets sharing so much, and the other part is grateful I did because I needed to see it in my darkest hours. I needed a lighthouse while at sea, something to orient towards, whispering in my ear: Yes, this is normal— the loss, the shame, the fear. It takes time; you are okay; keep going.

While I’m still shaky from the discomfort of being this exposed, I trust there are a lot of people who needed to witness my experience to know they weren’t alone in theirs.

I want to mark the conclusion of this chapter of my life with what I now know about picking yourself back up after a big setback. Because I didn’t stop sharing, and the messages I receive from readers tell me that it was exactly what they needed when their own lives became unrecognizable, too.