I am not a good traveler — I’ve never been. At hour 10 on a 12 hour flight, I paced the aisles to try to calm my travel agitation. When the flight attendant asked me to take my seat, I grabbed her shoulders, looked at her with crazy eyes, and emphatically said, “You don’t want me to take my seat!” She received the message loud and clear — I don’t travel well.
Recently, I was returning from visiting my son in Carlsbad, New Mexico. To get out of town, I had to drive through oil country. This particular two lane highway was incredibly congested with 18-wheelers, pick-up trucks full of oilmen, and trucks delivering large machinery. This slow moving caravan of oil-field related traffic tried my patience. I don’t travel well. Once we broke through the heavy traffic and began to move, we abruptly came to a complete stop. Inch by inch we moved two miles in 1-1/2 hours. A serious wreck with a fatality requiring investigators to gather data and evidence before releasing the traffic. Eventually we made it to the next large town — 2 1/2 hours away. It took us five hours. FIVE HOURS! I do not travel well.
I believed we would never make it to our destination. I was certain there was no way out. I most definitely wanted to quit. This is not what I signed up for. I’m out.
Roadblocks are external circumstances beyond our own thoughts and emotions. Roadblocks could be getting a diagnosis for your child, working on a less than ideal team, or certain restrictions inhibiting the progress of your idea. When roadblocks come up, most of us see them as a signal to quit rather than just part of the process. When we remodel our homes, we expect dust and disturbances. In fact, we resign ourselves to it. It’s just part of the sacrifice to get where we are going. The same is true of roadblocks. It’s not always going to be easy — sometimes we are going to have to persist in the face of obstacles.
"History has demonstrated that the most notable winners usually encountered heartbreaking obstacles before they triumphed. They won because they refused to become discouraged by their defeats." ~BC Forbes
I did make it to my final destination. It took longer and required an attitude adjustment. When you get down to it, all I lost was a day to travel. But if I’d quit, I would have lost so much more.
What roadblocks have you wanting to quit? What mindset adjustment do you need to make to resist quitting?