There's a question I keep returning to. Not because someone wise handed it to me in a seminar. Because I've needed it enough times to make it reflexive.
"Is this happening to me... or for me?"
Simple sentence. Two words different. Completely opposite trajectories.
The Moment It Hits Different
I got passed over for a promotion I'd spent two years building toward. Not an ordinary step up... the one I'd restructured my entire approach around. Built the relationships. Delivered the results. Done everything right by every measure I had.
They gave it to someone else.
My first reaction was pure indignation. This is happening TO me. I ran through every grievance. The politics. The favouritism. My track record compared to the person who got the role.
I wasn't entirely wrong.
But I was stuck. Replaying the injustice, cataloguing every slight... wasn't going to move me anywhere useful. I sat in the story for three weeks. Three weeks where I was right about everything and growing at nothing.
The shift came when I forced myself to ask the other question.
What if this is happening for me?
Not "what's the silver lining." Not "pretend it's fine." Something more specific: what is this situation showing me I wasn't willing to see before?
This Isn't Toxic Positivity
Let me be direct about what this question is not.
It's not "cheer up, everything happens for a reason." It's not dismissing real pain or real injustice. There's a version of this question weaponised against people in pain... used to tell someone their suffering has a higher purpose, as though feeling hurt is a failure of perspective. I'm not talking about it.
Toxic positivity says: "Don't feel bad. It'll work out." This question says something harder: "You're allowed to feel exactly what you feel. And... what might this be teaching you?"
Both things sit together. You hold the pain and the question at the same time.
When I got passed over, I was genuinely hurt. Angry. Both were appropriate. And when I looked honestly at what the experience was showing me, I saw something I'd been avoiding: I'd been betting everything on one outcome in one organization... instead of building the kind of reputation and range following you anywhere, regardless of internal politics.
I'd been playing a narrow game and calling it focus.
The insight cost me a promotion. Worth more.
The Army Version
I didn't learn this from a leadership book. I learned a version of it in the US Army.
The Army specializes in putting you in situations you didn't choose, don't enjoy, and didn't want. A posting you resisted. A mission whose logic was never explained to you. A superior officer who had no business leading anyone, and everyone around you knew it.
You had two options. You took it personally and let it grind you down... or you extracted every lesson from it, built capability you didn't have before, and came out different on the other side.
The soldiers I respected most weren't the ones who never complained. Everyone complains. They were the ones who found what each hard experience was giving them. The difficult commanding officer making you ruthlessly precise under pressure. The isolation of a remote post forcing you to rely on your own judgment. The failure exposing a gap you'd never have found without it.
None of those people would have chosen their hardest experiences. Every one of them grew because of those experiences.
I carried the pattern with me into civilian life. Tech leadership. Career pivots. Organizations going sideways. The question shows up every time.
Why the Victim Story Feels True
Here's what makes "happening to me" so seductive: it's often partially correct.
You did get passed over unfairly. They did cancel the project for political reasons. The organization did take your contributions for granted. These things happen. The grievance isn't invented.
The problem is "happening to me" takes a partial truth and builds a complete story around it. It positions you as someone events happen to... rather than someone who acts on what they've been given. Once you're in that posture, you stop looking for what you do with it. You're too busy documenting the wrong.
I've watched talented people stall their careers here. Not because they lacked ability or drive. Because they needed the story of being wronged more than they needed to grow. The story gave them an explanation. The explanation meant they didn't have to change.
There's also research worth knowing. Studies on post-traumatic growth show meaningful positive change after adversity is not automatic... and not common. Researchers found genuine measurable growth in roughly 5 to 25 percent of people following serious setbacks. The rest absorb the hit and either keep moving or get stuck.
The "for me" question doesn't guarantee you're in the growing quarter. But staying in the "to me" story almost certainly keeps you out of it.
Saying "this happened for me" might feel like accepting blame for something outside your control. It isn't. It's refusing to let circumstances you didn't choose determine who you become.
There's a difference between fault and responsibility. You're not always at fault for what happens to you. You are always responsible for what you do with it.
How to Use the Question
Don't apply this in the moment. When you've been blindsided fresh, you're too reactive. Give it time. Hours sometimes. Often days.
When you have enough distance, ask honestly:
What did this show me about myself I wasn't seeing? The promotion I missed showed me I'd been playing a narrower game than I thought. The deal falling apart showed me the assumptions I'd been making about the relationship. What's yours showing you?
What did this force me to build? The cancelled project teaching you to pivot. The bad manager showing you exactly what not to do with your own people. The redundancy making you finally start something of your own. You wouldn't choose these experiences. They often install the most durable capabilities.
Where did my assumptions fail? The sharpest lessons live in blind spots... places where you were so confident you stopped asking questions. Setbacks are often the only force making you look there.
The question doesn't make the pain disappear. It gives the pain a direction.
The Longer Game
The people who default to "for me" end up in different places than the people who default to "to me."
Not because life treats them more gently. Not because they hit fewer walls. The walls are the same walls.
The difference is in what they bring out of each one.
I'm not making a mystical argument. I don't believe the universe is personally arranging your education. I'm making a practical one. When something hard happens, you choose what role it plays in your story. You decide whether it's evidence the world is against you... or data you work with.
Over time, this compounds. The person asking "for me" accumulates insight, capability, and resilience at a faster rate. Not because they're smarter or luckier. Because they're extracting value from every experience, including the hard ones... especially the hard ones.
Both options sit in the same moment. Even when everything is genuinely unfair. Even when you're right about every grievance.
One of them keeps you stuck. One of them moves you.
The practice isn't easy. It gets easier every time you choose it.
What question do you reach for when things go sideways?
I first encountered this framing through the work of James Ferguson, who developed it from his own experience with serious illness. His perspective on leadership and gratitude is worth your time.