Keep It Moving: A Tale of a Good Relationship With Obstacles

Credit: iq concepts @fotaglia

When you are working on something and it falls apart after hours and hours of investment, what is your first reaction?

After venting and thoroughly expressing my disappointment for a short period of time, I usually just Keep It Moving!

Really.  No joking.

Keep It Moving.

Life is too short to allow obstacles much time.

Obstacles come in many shapes and forms but are always identifiable by their ability to block our view from the goal. Obstacles obscure but never fully block the road to our goals.

Unless we let them.

My partner and I recently had a business opportunity crumble before our eyes over the course of a weekend. It was not pretty. I'll spare you the gory details but I will share this...

The sun had not set on the Sunday of that weekend without me already dusting off our original plan that we were executing against when our "obstacle" got into our view last fall.

The obstacle that we had was a good one, a gift. It did a few things for us....

1. Solidified our original commitment.
2. Strengthened our belief in our abilities.
3. Kick started us toward what we REALLY needed to be doing.

You see, I have a a fantastic relationship with obstacles. I'm constantly faced with them yet they never get the best of me. Even the big scary, expensive ones....I never take my eyes off the prize, the goal. I "keep it moving" toward my goal. Period

My favorite analogy is one that I can't believe I still see in this day and age... have you ever seen those people basically parked on the highway under the viaducts when it's pouring rain sideways? I can remember the first time I saw this driving on my own. I was tempted to stop and join them but just couldn't. To my surprise and now my delight - the crazy storm was really just a few clouds and stopping under the viaduct kept those folks from where they were going. Even temporarily, it was a waste when the road was clear a few miles ahead where it was lightly raining or not raining at all.

That's how I see obstacles... a raincloud that must be driven through.

What about you? What is your relationship with obstacles?