Not Quite What I Was Planning…

is the name of a great book about six-word memoirs (https://www.amazon.com/Not-Quite-What-Was-Planning/dp/0061374059). Six words that a prompt a story and your imagination does the rest. Buy the book, you will enjoy it.

“Not quite what I was planning.” This certainly sounds like my story. My life turned out pretty different from what I was planning. And that does not mean it is a bad thing or a good thing, it’s just different. And this is ok.

Why did this happen? Were my plans too ambitious or not ambitious enough? Or I expected less and got more. Perhaps I was looking for meaning and realised that meaning finds you (not the other way around).

Should I be disappointed with how things have turned out? Absolutely not. Things are pretty good; they just turned out differently to what I planned. And whoever said that our plans are right to begin with? Am I better or worse for it? It doesn’t matter. I am exactly where I should be.

Try it. Say it slowly – “Not…Quite…What…I…Was…Planning…” These words are a great leveller. They give you context, perspective and inner peacefulness. They reconcile you to your reality. And this allows you to move on and deal with the situation at hand. Say them again. Absorb them.

Now, let’s move to step two, “ok, so what are you going to do about it?”