The Grieve-Then-Switch Setback Protocol
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~days to results
- Steps
- 6
- Confidence
- —
Dan Carter's method for recovering from a major setback, built from a career-defining injury at the 2011 Rugby World Cup. The protocol rejects the common instinct to jump straight to positivity. Step one is to actually grieve — deal with the emotions immediately, because Carter has watched people who skip this get bitten further down the track. Step two is a hard time limit on the grieving: for him, 24 hours, longer for more severe setbacks, but never open-ended moping. Step three is to flick the switch deliberately into a positive mindset. Step four is to interrogate your purpose or identity standard — his question was 'what does an All Black great do in situations like this?' — and step five is to reset goals against that standard, across both the immediate rehab horizon and the multi-year one.
Origin
Extracted from Deep Dive with Ali Abdaal
How to run it
- 1
Grieve — actually deal with the emotions
Carter names this as the first tool. Far too often he sees people hit a real setback or disappointment and immediately move on positively, insisting it's not that important. He warns that not dealing with your emotions straight away bites them later.
Pro tip Carter is candid that he's not a nice person to be around during this window — his wife knows to stay away for 24 hours while he's grumpy, angry and processing.
- 2
Put a hard time limit on it
There has to be a switch to flick at some stage. For Carter it's 24 hours, and can be a little longer depending on the severity of the setback — but there's no point moping around the hotel room for the next two weeks feeling sorry for yourself.
Watch out The limit is what stops grieving becoming the new permanent state; without it, step one swallows the whole protocol.
- 3
Flick the switch into a positive mindset
When the window closes, deliberately change your mindset into a positive one. This is a conscious act at a set time, not something you wait to feel.
- 4
Ask what your standard demands here
Carter's purpose really helped him through the setback via one question: what does an All Black great do in situations like this? The answer generates the behaviour — rehab this injury better than anyone has rehabbed it before.
Pro tip Phrase the question around the identity you're committed to, so the answer is behavioural rather than emotional.
- 5
Reset goals, short and long horizon
Ask what goals you want to set now, covering both the immediate rehab and the longer term. Because an All Black great plays for ten years or longer, Carter signed a new four-year New Zealand contract to get himself to another World Cup.
- 6
Ask what the team needs from you now
An All Black great puts the team first, so Carter asked what the team needed from him while injured. He helped the player replacing him in his position, then helped the next one when that player was also injured, down to the fourth-string number 10.
In the wild
At the 2011 Rugby World Cup on home soil, Carter got the call the day before the last round-robin game to captain the All Blacks for the first time after three years as vice-captain behind Richie McCaw. He did the press conference, then the captain's run, finishing as always with shots at goal. On his last kick, at the moment of impact, his groin tore off his pubic bone and he dropped to the ground. It was his third World Cup, he was 28 and in his prime, and he declined to even look at the scan results — he already knew. He asked the doctor in the car whether his World Cup dream was over, was told yes, and cried the whole way back to the hotel.
→ Carter applied the protocol, and 12 months later in 2012 was named World Rugby Player of the Year.
Once injured, Carter asked what the team needed from him and set about helping his replacement at number 10. That player also got injured, so another was brought in and Carter helped him too — and eventually the team was down to a fourth-string number 10. That fourth-choice player went on to kick the winning goal in the World Cup final. Carter, who could not play a minute of the knockout stages of a tournament he had spent his career chasing, had contributed to the win through the one lever still available to him.
→ New Zealand won the 2011 World Cup; the player Carter helped kicked the winning goal.
Common mistakes
Going positive immediately
Carter's most emphatic warning: people hit a setback and jump straight to 'it's not that important', positive mind right away. He's seen it bite them down the track precisely because the emotions were never processed.
Grieving with no end date
The mirror failure. Carter is explicit that there's no point moping around the hotel room for two weeks feeling sorry for yourself — the switch has to be flicked at a pre-set time.
Only resetting the short-term goal
Rehab goals alone would have returned Carter to the same career trajectory. Asking what the long-horizon standard demanded produced a new four-year contract aimed at the 2015 World Cup — which became one of his best tournaments.
From the transcript
“far too often I see people have a really setback disappointment and they just they move on really positive ah it's not that important”
“so I do that for 24 hours I flick the switch that's when I change my mindset into a positive one”
“what does an all black great do in situations like this so my purpose really helped me through uh through this the setback”
From the episode
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