When I was a kid, I loved to play basketball. The fact that I was as tall as a skyscraper and as skinny as a beanpole contributed to my natural propensity to play the sport. In elementary school, I played for the Nuggets, and I still have teammates on Facebook that greet me with “Go Nuggets!”…and my Mom just passed along my navy blue jersey (along with every other sports uniform I’ve ever worn). There was something special about the bond that developed between a bunch of pre-pubescent boys who were learning to how dribble and run at the same time.
During these early years of my life, we lived near Western Kentucky University, and we attended almost every home game for the men’s and women’s basketball teams. Oftentimes, my Dad and I would leave our Nuggets’ basketball practice and head straight to one of the WKU games. I wouldn’t say that I dreamed of playing on the team…but what young fan wouldn’t want to envision themselves down on the court in front of all those fans?
A few years later when I started junior high school, I assumed that I would try out and make the school’s team with ease. Why wouldn’t I? I’d been playing basketball for years! Despite the fact that I was the very first kid in my junior high school to own a pair of high-top Reeboks, it turned out that the kids from the other areas of town were a little bit better than me. My new fancy shoes didn’t help, and I got cut.
A huge setback to my basketball career!
I still blame that massive mustache-wearing coach for ruining my inevitable momentum toward the NBA. I spent that summer on a cross-country vacation with my grandparents, and I’d envision his face as I practiced my shot at every trailer park basketball hoop between Kentucky and California. I did make the 8th grade team, but ended up being the white guy on the bench through high school…not enough “hops” in these long legs.
That summer after I got cut from the 7th grade team, I was so angry at that coach. I blamed him for not seeing my skills or potential. I blamed him for my setback. I didn’t even stop to think that I needed to seriously increase my confidence on the court.
Have you had any setbacks recently?
You probably have…if you’re human.
Every one of us encounters challenges that cause us to experience a reversal in our forward progress. Maybe you’ve been focused on a project at work and all of a sudden something comes out of nowhere that you didn’t even expect. Perhaps a member of your team resigns or you lose your budget or the market changes in some way.
Setback.
We can experience momentary setbacks that may be easily overcome within a matter of moments, but there are also monumental setbacks that require us to overcome great odds over a protracted period of time. These may be in the areas of our finances, health, career, and relationships. In order to get a better understanding of my own setbacks, I want to do some thinking and writing on the subject over the next few weeks. You’re welcome to listen in and join the journey.
First of all, let’s take a step back to understand what may have caused the challenge. No matter what setback we encounter, there seems to be four potential sources…
- Situational setbacks – setbacks that are part of living in a world that isn’t perfect…natural disasters, accidents, illness, and the like. No one is to blame. These are just situations that we all experience, and they end up setting us back in life.
. - Self setbacks – setbacks that are caused by our own decisions…whether out of ignorance, stupidity, rebellion, or laziness. In other words, we brought the setback on to ourselves by a decision we made.
. - Someone setbacks – setbacks that “someone” has brought upon us. This individual has intentionally or unintentionally brought a negative impact upon our lives, and we’ve experienced a loss in the process. Although this is a valid source of a setback, oftentimes we’d rather just blame someone else for our problems rather than seeing our own need to take responsibility.
. - Supernatural setbacks – setbacks that have a supernatural source. For those who are of faith, these difficulties may be a re-direction from the Divine or an attack from the Dark Side. Many spiritual fruit-loops blame either side way too often, and many non-spirituals miss this source altogether.
Although it may be easy to initially pin the “blame” on a particular event or person, it is rare that there is a single source to our setback. More often than not, I’ve played some sort of a role in whatever difficulty I’ve experienced…perhaps not the initial issue, but maybe in my response. The question is, “Am I willing to get honest and take responsibility?”
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