If you have ever felt like you were finally moving forward, only to feel yourself slide backward a week later, you are not failing – you are human. As a Clinical Psychologist and founder of Psychosocial Intervention Kenya, one of the most common things I hear from clients is a version of the same fear: “I thought I was past this.” The truth is, almost no meaningful change happens in a straight line.

Why Setbacks Feel Like Failure

We are taught to picture growth as a rising line on a graph. So when we have a bad week after a string of good ones, it can feel like proof that nothing has really changed. In reality, most psychological and behavioural change looks more like a wave than a line – forward motion, a dip, a plateau, and then forward motion again. The dip is not evidence that the progress before it was fake.

Reframing the “Two Steps Back”

A setback carries information, not just discouragement. It can show you which situations still need support, which coping tools need practising, and where you were perhaps expecting too much too soon. Treated this way, a difficult week becomes data rather than a verdict on your character or your capability.

This matters just as much outside the therapy room – in job searches, business growth, recovery from loss, or rebuilding after a hard year. The giant leap forward people eventually describe is almost always preceded by several quiet, unremarkable steps back that never made it into the story.

So this Monday, if you’re counting a setback against yourself, try counting it as part of the process instead. Progress that includes a few steps back is still progress.