The three stories that make it worse

Psychologist Martin Seligman studied how people explain bad events to themselves. Three patterns make setbacks hit harder: permanent ("this will always happen"), pervasive ("I am bad at everything") and personal ("it is all my fault, nobody else played a part").

People who explain setbacks as temporary, specific and partly about circumstances tend to recover faster and try again sooner. This is not about lying to yourself or blaming others. It is about accuracy: most failures have several causes, some yours and some not, and they apply to one area of life.