Life doesn’t always go your way. Sometimes someone else gets the promotion, someone else gets the trophy, someone else shoots the big buck when they’re in your stand. Whatever it is – at some point or another things won’t go your way and that leaves you with two choices: you can either let it get you down and quit, or you can get up and work harder.
You always have a choice in life, always. You can’t always choose what happens to you, but you can choose how you react to it.
When things don’t go your way it’s the easiest thing in the world to give up, to throw the towel in, to quit – it’s almost too easy. You tell yourself it wasn’t what you really wanted anyway, you convince yourself something else would make you happy, you feed yourself lies to comfort your pain. You feel bad for yourself and you want to blame everyone else around you for your misfortune, but the reality of it is you don’t have anyone else to blame except yourself. You can point all the fingers you want but that won’t change a thing. How you react to it though will.
Beyoncé herself said, “Whenever I feel bad, I use that feeling to motivate me to work harder. I only allow myself one day to feel sorry for myself. I ask myself “What are you gonna do about it?” I use the negativity to fuel the transformation into a better me.”
You can give yourself 24 hours to feel sorry for yourself, but that’s it because while your life might feel like it’s falling apart the rest of the world is still moving. Time hasn’t stopped because you feel like you got screwed over. While you’re busy throwing yourself a personal pity-party, no one else joined because they’ve got their own lives, problems and celebrations to worry about.
Use your own misfortune and “failure” to motivate you to do better. You’re the only one who can change the situation you’re in. If you want it bad enough you will find a way to excel in the places you struggled before. You will work harder and longer, you will do all you can do to shine where you once lacked. You will focus in on your own weaknesses and you will start to only compete with yourself – to be better than the person you were yesterday.
Give up if you want, but I’m sure you will regret it.
You can decide you don’t want to go after your dreams anymore, waste away on your couch and give up on all the hard work and time you put in because things didn’t go your way this time or you can get up. You can decide you want to do better, to prove that you’re worth it, to prove that you are good enough and you can keep moving forward.
Set backs suck, but they’re a good wake up call to prove to you that you aren’t that great but you can be if you work harder and smarter. They are a slap in the face that you’ve been waiting for to push yourself further.
Your life isn’t over because of a set back, it’s a bump in the road along the journey and you will get through it as long as you keep working hard for it.
Now isn’t the time to feel sorry for yourself, now is the time to kick it up a gear and take it to the next level you never thought was possible. 
