Slow Down Fast Personal Coaching and Lifestyle Design

If you are alive on this planet, you will encounter obstacles. You just can’t escape them. You can have the most well-thought out plan or strategy of where you want to go and how you want to get there. But along the way, unexpected twists and turns show up in the form of obstacles and challenges. They are detours on our direct route to our goals. We can’t escape these obstacles, but we can face them and watch them turn into opportunities.

However, only you can turn your obstacles into opportunities with your mindset. How you choose to react or act in the face of challenges is always up to you. I know, sometimes it doesn’t seem like you have a choice. That’s because we’re conditioned to think certain things mean something. If this, then that. We’re so conditioned, we forget that we have choices about how we perceive various events in our lives.

For example, if you were to set out on a trip from San Francisco to Las Vegas and your car broke down in the middle of the trip, you would see this as a problem or obstacle. If you choose to react, you would get angry, frustrated, and maybe blame your spouse for not having the car checked out. If you chose instead to act, you would get out your cell phone and call the Auto Club and get your car towed. You might find out this was a minor problem of a broken hose that could easily be fixed. But while the mechanic was changing the hose, he found a more serious problem that would have caused greater damage if gone unchecked.

So while you might have been a few hours behind schedule, you averted a major disaster. Your obstacle became an opportunity to have your car put into a better condition for the rest of your trip. I’m sure if you look at various challenges that have arisen in your life, you can see where there were possibilities of new opportunities rather than seeing the obstacle as the end of the line.

In addition to choosing the mindset of seeing obstacles as opportunities and not letting them irritate and stop you, it’s also important that you don’t deny that they’re there and try to ignore them or go around them. Like continuing to drive while your car is smoking which will only make the situation worse. So the first step then would be to accept the problem or challenge. Anything else, like denial, resistance, suppression, anger, attack, or ignoring it will keep you stuck.

Consider this new way of looking at life’s detours and see where you can find opportunities in your obstacles. It will not only make a difference in the results of your endeavors, but you will have a much brighter attitude and therefore attract lots of great opportunities to you. You just have to be aware, accepting, and willing to choose! It’s always up to you.

NEWSFLASH: I’ve added another chapter to my life by joining C.A.S.T. Recovery, a Los Angeles based outpatient drug rehab program which specializes in designing highly individualized recovery plans with appropriate professionals to support a client’s health, accountability, and success.

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