When Ross was employed as a Site Supervisor, one of his team members used to joke that it was a “Set Up”, when things didn’t go according to plan. 

This always amused and impressed me because he was able to make light of the situation. 

In my recent studies to become a certified coach of David Bayer’s Phenomenal Coaching Methodology, he too referred to the concept of being set up.

David’s take on the set up is that it is part of what he calls The 4 Blessings of Failure: 

1. Education (we learn something from the experience) 

2. Redirect (life’s infinite intelligence is pointing out that we are off course) 

3. Reflection (time to look more deeply into ourselves and understand more about who we are) 

4. The Set Up (all of the above). 

You might be wondering where this is going and why I am sharing it with you, so let’s digress for a bit. 

Steve Jobs is often quoted as saying, “You can’t join the dots going forward” but if you look backwards you can always see how perfectly life has worked out. 

Both of these teachings really hit home to me this week as I realised for the first time on a really deep level that my life (and yours) has been one big complete Set Up.

You know my purpose in life is to inspire, educate and support you to be, do, have and feel what you want. I couldn’t live into that if I was like everyone else. I couldn’t travel the world and learn and share with you if I had had children. I couldn’t learn as much as I have and share it with you if I had maintained the same job or lived in the same place for the past 30 years. I couldn’t be there for you if I had a big family that needed support. 

If I look at my life (and yours too) from a different perspective, I can imagine myself on the other side deciding to come to planet earth to fulfil on my mission. In order to fulfil on this mission I’d have to have certain experiences. Whilst I’m here living the experience I don’t necessarily have the insight and certainly don’t enjoy all of them, however if I (and we) join the dots, we can see how life is always working for us and it is one big giant set up. 

So my objective for this week’s thought is to have you reflect on your life. Join the dots. Look back and see how things have always worked out for you, even when you might not have enjoyed the experience and if you’re not enjoying the experience right now, have faith, that this too is all part of the set up and that you are right where you are meant to be and that this too, shall pass.