We’ve all had one of those days (or several) when things just don’t want to fall into place. As a creative individual, especially if you are in business for yourself, those kind of days are part and parcel of the real world. A roadblock which stops you from achieving your goals or objective can manifest itself as many things – lost contracts, customer misunderstandings, ideas not panning out as expected etc., and can make for a bad day all the way around – if you let them. Usually when one roadblock falls in front of us, depending upon how we perceive it and follow through with actions and efforts to remove it, we will either succeed and move ahead or we’ll find that there are several more blocking our path in short order.
I tend to view roadblocks, those things stopping me, irritating me, frustrating me – as signs. Road signs if you will that are telling me clearly that the direction I am trying to go or the methods I am trying to implement are actually either not worth my time and effort or they need to be revised and dealt with differently. Despite the clear signs sometimes however, I choose to ignore them and continue to forge ahead. It isn’t until I’ve exhausted every attempt that I decide perhaps the roadblock is trying to tell me something and I’m just choosing not to listen.
A small start-up that I’ve consulted with on several occasions was having a grand time with roadblocks awhile back. The owner was frustrated and disappointed that things he’d wanted to implement just didn’t want to go anywhere. Every time he turned around there was another stumbling block in his way and these where beginning to affect his business negatively. When he called me he was to the point of shutting the business down completely. He’d had enough and in his opinion things weren’t going to get any better. Read the rest of this entry »
