One of the most important of the Presuppositions for me, especially in working with young people is "There is not such thing as failure, only feedback".  It is especially useful for young people who are struggling with motivation, self esteem, but it works for all of us.

When something doesn't go as we planned we tend to see that as failure. Depending on the seriousness of the situation we might then get angry, irritated, sad, depressed, worried, guilty or whatever.  None of this serves any useful purpose.  In fact, it can lead us to give up, exactly when we need to push on.  

But what happens if we see the situation as feedback rather than failure. A real life demonstration of how not to do something?  Instead of being wrong we've learned something. Instead of feeling bad we are free to form a new plan of action and try again.  Is this cosy, rosy-tinted 'positive thinking'?  Not exactly.

Edison identified about a 1,000 ways not to make a light bulb before he found a suitable material for the filament.  A number of best-selling books (i.e. million sellers plus film) were turned down by more than two dozen publishers before they were accepted for publication.  Then there was the poor talent scout at Decca records who rejected the Beatles as having no future in music! 

Perseverance is one of the most important traits we need to develop to overcome challenges, to maintain motivation and to succeed.  In several of our youth programs, this was kept on a poster in the room where we worked.  Whenever something didn't work, we would point to the poster, and ask what feedback we could gain from the experience, develop a new plan and go from there.

Try it, it is useful.