Yes, the first thought evolves around changing the direction of your vehicle. With all the recent fires in California, detours are almost commonplace.
While most detours are not expected, some are planned. There are instances, when you may have time and decide to see where a road will take you. Instead of taking your normal route, you decide to see if another way may end up being a shortcut.
Detours also happen in other areas of life. College plans have taken a detour for numerous reasons. Poor grades, a family illness, the loss of a scholarship or an unplanned pregnancy are just some of the detours that prevent a high school senior from attending college in the fall.
Some couples desiring to have a child or the individual longing to find a soulmate face a seemingly endless detour.
Plans for growing old with a spouse can be detoured by a sudden death or divorce. Business owners have faced one of the biggest detours of all time with the current pandemic. Potential business owners have had their plans for opening detoured.
Generally, when we think of detours or see a sign indicating “detour ahead” the initial reaction is either anxiety or frustration.
There are other ways to think about and look at detours. When you have an obstacle preventing you from getting what you want or where you want to go, you should look at the detour as a way to avoid the pitfalls or potholes that may not be apparent.
Detours may be telling you that you aren’t ready for what you are trying to achieve. Detours may be providing you with the experience you’ll need to handle future adversity that will come after you achieve what you are seeking.
Detours allow you to see and experience things you would normally miss. However, this is only true if you allow yourself to enjoy the tour of your detours. If you are going to be constantly frustrated by the detours, you’ll never be able to learn from the experiences that you can find on each and every detour. That’s right, there is a lesson in every detour.
While seeking a soulmate, you may have to “kiss a lot of toads to find a prince.” The lessons here could include not everyone is as they appear to be or that you may have too high of expectations. You may be looking in the wrong place for the criteria you are seeking.
In business, the detours your company is facing may indicate you are missing signs surrounding your leadership team. Are they capable? Are you providing proper guidance? Are expectations clear? Are you accepting unacceptable results?
If your college career takes a detour regardless of the reasons, it could be a sign you weren’t mentally prepared for course work or maybe college was someone else’s dream for you.
When you allow yourself to enjoy the tour of your detours, you put yourself in position to find your soulmate in an unexpected place. You discover the shortcut to your office. You discover that you didn’t need a college degree to be successful. You discover a new community being built or a small family-owned restaurant with the most delicious food. You’ll come across the college you heard of but didn’t know where it was. You’ll find another place to get gas when you are running low.
While you are being detoured, if you use the opportunity to seek and find, you’ll be surprised at what you can discover. You’ll be amazed at how much you can grow and learn. You will go from anxious and frustrated to grateful and humbled as you look back on the detours of life. You will see that those detours led you to where you are and eventually to where you want to be. You’ll use the lessons from your detours to prepare you for future obstacles that will allow you to hold onto what you have achieved or to propel you even higher.
Every crisis you face in life is simply a detour on the way to your goals. No one is immune to a crisis. We all face them and will continue to face them. A detour does not prevent you from achieving your goals. A detour only delays them. The exception to this is your mindset when faced with a detour. If your mindset is that the detour is a dead end, that you cannot overcome it, that your delay is permanent, then you are right. Your goal, your dream will end. You will end up on the dead-end street.
The key is to ensure your mindset views every detour simply as a delay in reaching your destination. Each detour is an opportunity to see new things, to see things from a different perspective, to grow and learn.
Remember, there is greatness within you. You must choose greatness. It won’t develop on its own. I believe in you!
“A detour doesn’t change your destination only your path to get there.“
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Published by Bryan M. Balch, Results Coach
Helping Individuals and Businesses Achieve Desired Results