When you are driving on the road to your destination you will get obstacles on the road. A road dug up. A fallen tree covering a part of the road, some animals squatting peacefully on the road etc. What do you do? You don’t stand cursing people or nature and become paralyzed. You are clear that you need to go ahead to reach your destination. You learn to flow around the disruptions without wasting much time or thinking it is a kind of setback to your plans.
What happens in our physical journey also happens on the other journeys in our life. Our path towards what we want to achieve - academically, professionally, personally, financially is never straight and never easy. There will be obstacles and disruptions in our path. Often we spend the time cursing, getting angry and raging against the disruptions. We agonize about why the disruptions are there. We lament how the disruptions are ruining our paths etc. If we set out on a journey anticipating no obstacles at all we are not being realistic. A smooth path is not an entitlement.
Instead, along with visualizing reaching our destination if we visualize the obstacles that may come in our path and have a contingency plan for that, then we will not be paralyzed by the disruptions. We were anticipating the disruptions and we know how to get around that. “What can go wrong with my plan?”, “What can delay my plan?”, “What obstacles can come in my path and how should I tackle that?” are good questions to ask ourselves on any growth path we want to take.
Flowing around disruptions is a skill that all of us can learn only if we envisage disruptions in our path.