The Ultimate Guide to Dealing With Setbacks (Especially When You Feel Like Quitting!)

Do you feel like you are facing a setback in your life right now? Are you tempted to just give up because the thought of having to start over feels way too overwhelming? If that’s you, I strongly believe that you didn’t stumble upon this blog by chance. Whether a friend shared this with you or you happened to see it as you were scrolling – God is trying to speak to you. So keep on reading because your perspective is about to be changed forever.

Look, I don’t know what exactly you’re going through. I don’t know what your current situation looks like… but maybe you feel like giving up or like everything you’ve worked so hard for is falling apart, but what I can tell you with absolute certainty is that God STILL has an incredible plan for your life! It may not seem like it now, things may not make sense, but what if in order for you to step into the next door God wants to open in your life, in order for God to elevate you to the next level, He first has to make sure you are actually prepared and ready for it? What if you need to grow in your strength first because what God wants to do in your life is so great that it will require you to be stronger than you’ve ever been? What if…

But what if you decide to quit right now? What if you allow this feeling of being overwhelmed and discouraged stop you from picking yourself up and starting over again? Well, I’m going to share a few points to keep in mind whenever you are tempted to give up.

Before I get to those points… you’re probably thinking, “well it’s easy for you to say if you didn’t have to start something all over that you spent valuable time working on” Well… I actually did. In fact, I still AM in the process of starting over! Just recently I lost an account with over 200,000 followers that I used to spread the Word of God on. I still remember that sinking feeling in my stomach when I read the notification on my phone that said my account was permanently banned. I was shocked. I thought, “This isn’t FAIR. I didn’t do anything wrong. All of my content was encouraging and uplifting people in their walk with Christ, giving helpful relationship advice, WHY?Why would they ban my account just like that?” To make matters worse, I had quite a bit of money in the app that I never transferred over to my checking account that I now couldn’t get back. Apparently, once you get banned they have the rights over YOUR hard worked money. Any donations from people, any earnings I made from previous videos and content, ads – EVERYTHING was gone. I could never get it back. And if that wasn’t enough, all of my content – over 300 videos – were permanently gone too. I never thought of saving most of my videos as I felt they were secure within the app… so now, the countless hours I spent creating all of my content to help and encourage others was now mostly gone too.

“So now what”, I thought, “where do I go from here?” I’ll be honest, when that happened my initial reaction was: I’m done. All my hard work, over a year I spent every day working on it, creating content to help others in their walk with Christ, in their relationships, to educate, to uplift & encourage them, all of my money I earned/was earning all of a sudden came crashing down. It was gone in a split second. It was unfairly taken from me. I didn’t do anything to deserve it, yet I couldn’t change it.

So if you’re dealing with some rough setbacks in your life right now, here are a few points that helped me get rid of the “giving up” mentality that almost immediately wanted to take over and replacing that with faith and trust in God even in the midst of chaos.

• God is Not Taken Back by Surprise

Whatever hardships you’re going through, whatever setbacks are fighting to keep you from moving forward, whatever struggles you’re facing – none of it took God by surprise. What does that mean? Good news! If God isn’t taken back by your situation, it means He is still in control despite the current obstacles you’re facing. This is why God tells us to cast all of our anxiety on Him because He cares for us (1 Peter 5: 7)… and if none of this is taking God by surprise then guess what? That must mean that since God is still in control, and He knows the plans He has for you, then this too (yes, I am talking about this setback you’re facing right now!) is going to be used by God for good in the end.

For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

Jeremiah 29:11

Sure, you may not understand how God can possibly be able to use your current setbacks for good, but that’s the beauty of it. That’s where trust and faith come in. God’s thoughts and His ways are far greater and higher than any thought or plan that we can come up with on our own. God is calling you to cast your cares and anxieties on Him because He already knows the end result – and you already have the victory.

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.

Isaiah 55: 8-9

• Swap Mentalities

Of course it hurts. Any setback and challenge we face is going to sting, but the sooner you understand that dwelling on it is only setting you back even more, the better off you’ll be. It’s up to you to make the decision to not allow yourself to dwell over your current difficulties and obstacles, but instead give it to God and ask Him to help you become productive with your time instead.

You have to swap your defeated, wanting to quit mentality for a “this isn’t going to stop me, it’s only going to make me stronger and work harder” mentality. THAT is how you build strength and get stronger. THAT is how God elevates you to next level. Throwing yourself a pity party won’t add any value to you, it will only take away! Having that “poor me” and “this isn’t fair” mentality is not only a waste of your time and energy, but it is one of the most destructive things you can do for your growth and purpose.

I’m not saying you don’t have valid reasons to feel the way you do. It may very well truly be absolutely unfair what you’re going through. You could have been honest, had all the right motives and intentions, wanted to help others and STILL find yourself in an unfair situation… but God sees. He knows everything and in due time, IF you do not give up, you will reap your harvest.

Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that He may lift you up in due time.

1 Peter 5:6

• Understand That God Will Use Those That Open Themselves Up To Be Used

God may want to use you, but in the end He will use the person who opens themselves up and allows God to use them. This means that if you choose to remain stuck on your setbacks, not willing to move past them, giving up at the sight of difficulties and when things don’t go your way or according to plan – then God will use somebody who chooses to trust Him and have faith in Him to turn things around for good to accomplish His purpose. YOU get to choose which person you will be.

Are you going to let temporary setbacks and hardships keep you from being used by God? Or are you going to make the decision to say, “You know what? Yes, this sucks and yes this is unfair BUT I’m not letting this stop me. I know the enemy must be working so hard to bring me down because what God has for me on the other side must be that mighty and great!” When God sees your faith and trust in Him despite of what your current situation looks like, He sees that He is capable of doing a mighty work through you.

• The Lie of “I Lost Everything”

This one hit hard. I remember crying to my family when I lost my account, all of my content, money, time and the sense of security I built from it and then, with tears rolling down my face I said “I feel like I lost everything.” My sister gave me a quick reality check. I’ll never forget what she told me: if my everything was everything I put into my account then yes, I did lose everything… but if my everything was God, then I could never possibly lose my everything.

That’s when I quickly realized that the enemy was trying to get me to believe the lie that “my everything” was found in something other than Jesus. In a way, it was as if I had built my identity through social media and the “work” I was doing for God. Thankfully, God allowed me to quickly snap out of that lie and help me understand that God is far more concerned with the relationship He has with me rather than the “work” I tried to do for Him. God is my everything and no matter what happened, no matter what I lost, I still had everything in God and that never changed.

• The Suffering is Temporary

The great news is that the suffering you are facing right now is temporary. No suffering will last forever. What you do in the midst of your suffering will determine the results you see come out of it. This means that if you allow the trials and suffering to bring you down, make you give up and stop pushing forward then you are allowing the enemy to win. You are allowing the obstacles the enemy throws your way to conquer you as opposed to letting them make you stronger and give you endurance. However, if you decide to remain having faith and trust in God through the setbacks and storms you face, you WILL see a victory on the other side of it – guaranteed! Don’t just take my word for it though, read it for yourself in the Bible:

And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.

1 Peter 5:10

God promises us that after we have suffered a little while, meaning hey, you are going to suffer, you are going to face difficult setbacks you don’t know how to recover from BUT after you have suffered a little while, God himself will RESTORE you! He will lift you up and you will see the great plans He has for you come to pass IF you do not give up!

I’m convinced that God has something so much greater and better He wants to do in your life and through you which is why you’re suffering so hard right now, but please, I’m literally pleading with you – please, do NOT let the enemy win!

Go to God right now and tell Him, “Lord, I trust you. I may not like my current situation. It may hurt, but I trust you.”

In Conclusion

The last thing I want to let you know is don’t be surprised if you get that overwhelming feeling of discouragement or desire to quit comes back again. In fact, expect that it probably will come back to haunt you again. That’s what happened to me. After I started over, created a new account, starting creating new content, etc. all of a sudden I was hit with the “this isn’t worth it” feeling. I wanted to give up again. I thought I had conquered all of those feelings, but they still came back even after I felt so strongly on the inside that this was just a test I needed to pass and that as long as I didn’t give up God would take care of the rest.

The key lies in acknowledging the fact that you probably will get discouraging thoughts come back to your head enticing you to quit, but do NOT spend any time dwelling on those thoughts. When you start to feel those thoughts rising up, stop and say a quick prayer to God asking Him to help you fix your thoughts on the truth (Philippians 4:8).

Remember this: if the enemy didn’t know all of the incredible and amazing plans God has for you then He wouldn’t be trying this hard to bring you down. Keep strong in your faith and trust in Jesus and whatever you do, DO NOT GIVE UP!