Sometimes you have to just pick a path, any path

And here’s why it will probably be ok.

I often work with clients who get very disheartened when the path or plan they’re following doesn’t turn out quite as expected. At the start of the project they often have a positive view of how the journey will be – beautiful, interesting and smooth, ending in sunlit uplands and success.

But as you know things are never as straightforward as you expect them to be, plans don’t work out, stuff happens and there are many twists and turns along the way.

Sometimes my clients get there in the end, it just wasn’t quite as they expected it to be. Sometimes they get stuck, bogged down in the reality of what they’re trying to do and flailing around trying to find a way out. Sometimes they just give up.

On a recent visit to a National Trust property we were amused to see the sign in the photo and, out of curiosity, we followed each of the 4 paths. One path was circuitous but lovely. Another was boring but direct and just took a few minutes. The third was very steep but gave us some great views and the fourth took us on a bizarre route through a field full of mud and cow pats on a path that seemed to have no redeeming features whatsoever.

But they all took us to exactly the same place. Yes, the exact same place. Here’s the lesson.

If you’re trying something new, if you’ve never been that way before, you can’t know what to expect. Your plan is basically a guess. So when things turn out to be different from what you expected why get disheartened and give up? Why not adjust the plan and tweak things? Why not change how you think about whatever is holding you back?

In his book The Obstacle is the Way, Ryan Holiday quotes Marcus Aurelius ‘Our actions may be impeded . . . but there can be no impeding our intentions or dispositions. Because we can accommodate and adapt. The mind adapts and converts to its own purposes the obstacle to our acting. The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.’ As always, it’s what we think about our situation that causes us the problem. But we can change how we think about whatever is getting in the way.

We thought the muddy path full of cow pats was horrible until we slipped and skidded, grabbed onto each other and fell about laughing. It became a lovely shared memory. We later found out that in the spring and summer it leads through a beautiful wildflower meadow, so we’ll go back next year.

The steep path was tough but gave us a bit of a workout and a chance to catch our breath while admiring some lovely views we might have missed while rushing.

The boring but direct path allowed us to get to the coffee shop a bit sooner than we expected.

Every path had an advantage, even if it wasn’t obvious at first and every path took us to where we wanted to go.

If you’re focussing on the disappointment, on what’s going wrong then you’re wasting time and energy that would be better spent appreciating how far you’ve come and looking for different ways to get wherever you want to go.

Give it a try!