Do You Make the Most of Detours When Faced With Roadblocks?

I tend to do a lot more driving during the middle of the work day tha
I used to when I was employed in my corporate career. When you are a sole proprietor and meet your clients at various public locations that will happen. One of the things that I have come to learn is there are a number of roadblocks and detours a daytime driver may need to take into account on their travels. Daytime is often when workmen have streets blocked for utility work or suburban road repair on quieter or less traveled streets. If one is driving near a school zone when students are arriving and departing, while not detoured, one is certainly slowed down on their journey.

Roadblocks and detours can also happen in our everyday life, even when we’re not in an automobile. Our steps on a career plan get impacted when perhaps a meeting we were hoping to have is cancelled. We schedule our day’s activities and run into larger crowds than we expected at one location or another. Or an unplanned obstacle becomes made known to us when we attempt to accomplish a task.

No matter how well we plan or how much we don’t want them to appear, unexpected happenings will always be part of our life. While the unexpected itself can be unsettling our reactions to what hasn’t been anticipated really determines how we move forward from what has happened. For instance, using the example of the daytime driving detours, there are several lessons to be learned. One is that instead of planning to leave oneself just enough time to get to their destination based on no obstacles being present, one learns they should leave several minutes earlier just in case the unexpected occurs. Sometimes the detour you are made to follow introduces you to new ways you never thought of before. When faced with the same situation again, an individual may find that what they learned during the need to do things a different way, may actually become the way they prefer to do things on an ongoing basis as they move forward.

Roadblocks can put our emotions to the test. Do we look at each one we come to as a personal affront only to ourselves and as such take on a victim’s mentality when faced with them? Or do our emotions push us toward anger, where we feel trapped by the block and believe that we’re never going to get past it? Perhaps we’re one who can put a more positive spin on what we’re facing. Maybe we rationalize the moment as one which has happened at that time, which we can’t control and as such we accept if for what it is. When we’re free to move on we just do so with the understanding that we’ll continue the rest of our routine the way we planned once we’re past the unexpected. Or we may even welcome the change in a plan to refresh and refocus ourselves. We truly do have a choice in how we choose to react.

Therefore, whether you come across the roadblock in the steps of your job search, your desire to move forward to that next position in your current company, in your short or long term plans for your personal life, or even while you are behind the wheel of a car, reflect on it for what it is. It is most likely a temporary situation. It is often a learning experience so that when faced with a similar situation in the future, we may plan a modified strategy. It may lead to an awareness of new ideas or new paths to get you where you want to go. Most of all, even the greatest of planners is going to run into something unexpected and out of their control happening at one time or another. It’s not the roadblock that necessarily stops us, but our response to the detour and how we choose to move forward from where it leads that truly has the greatest impact.