I have sleepless nights

Every successful person has experienced countless temporary setbacks, obstacles, and even outright defeats, in the course of his or her life. But it has been the ability to respond positively and constructively to these defeats and to bounce back that ultimately has assured success. This quality of bouncing rather than breaking will determine your success as well.

If you are a normal, intelligent person, you will organize each area of your life to avoid failure and disappointment as much as possible. You will think ahead and anticipate what could go wrong. You will then take the necessary precautions to guard against setbacks and problems.You will weigh and balance different options. You will select the course of action that offers the greatest likelihood of success.

Disappointment comes unbidden. Disappointment comes in spite of your best efforts to avoid it. Disappointment is inevitable and unavoidable. As sure as the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, you are going to experience disappointments in life. And the more goals you set and the more things you try, the more difficulties and problems you will have.

Since you can't always avoid disappointment, no matter what you do, the only thing that matters is how you deal with the disappointment when it comes upon you, unwanted and unexpected. Do you let it overwhelm you? Do you blow up, become angry, and blame or attack other people? Or do you roll with the punches, and respond effectively?

Successful people deal with disappointment by taking it in stride. Unsuccessful people allow disappointment to stop them. Successful people recover and continue forward. Unsuccessful people often quit and go back. Motivational speaker Charlie Jones says, ''It's not how far you fall but how high you bounce that counts!''

Most negative emotions are triggered by frustrated expectations.You wish, hope, or plan for something to happen in a certain way, and when it doesn't, you react with impatience and anger. This is quite normal. If you care about a result, you are going to be hurt if you don't achieve it.

The challenge is that emotions are triggered instantaneously. For this reason, you can have very little control over your emotions and reactions at the moment that something happens to you. It is too late. When the disappointment occurs, you will react instinctively and habitually, depending on your previous experiences. When things go wrong, it is too late for you to think of fine and noble thoughts.You simply react.

One of the best ways to change your thinking, and your life, is to prepare for disappointment in advance. Set yourself up to bounce back quickly by practicing mental prepreparation.

Mental preparation enables you to prepare internally for the inevitable disappointments of life and work, even though you do not know what they are or when they will come. This is one of the most powerful of all thinking techniques that you can use to gain and keep control of your emotions, assuring that they are primarily positive and constructive, no matter what happens.

This trial by endurance seems to go with the territory. Every time you try to be or do something more or different, problems of all kinds will arise in your path. If you are not prepared in advance, they can discourage you and drive you back into your comfort zone.

Instead of waiting for the inevitable problems to occur, you mentally prepare for these inevitable difficulties before they happen. You say to yourself: ''Today I will face all kinds of ups and downs, difficulties and setbacks, but I will not let them get me down. Once I start toward my goal, I will be unstoppable!''