Live by Design – Impediments
“Sometimes the things we think are the impediments are actually the path” Bob Goff
Impediments are hurdles keeping you away from being your best self.
Having aspirations to be your best self was the first step followed by gaining clarity on your purpose and knowing your true reality. Taking actions to achieve what you aspired for is the part where most of us stumble.
Impediments are obstacles that cause us to stumble and blocking our path to achieving that aspiration of a meaningful, balanced and above all a happy life.
No matter how meticulously you plan your journey to success, you will face unexpected obstacles. Though it would be amazing if there aren’t obstacles on the path to success. But if that path was straight and without any hurdles would you even enjoy that journey?
I guess not.
I am sure you all have driven on interstate roads and how boring it could be driving nonstop on an almost straight path unless you are driving on hilly roads. Remember the last time you did that and you were feeling sleepy. It’s not just the tiredness of the journey, it is also because you are just driving on and on without much happening around.
If you have some idea about the concept of FLOW by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi you will be able to relate with this. FLOW as per him is a highly focused mental state conducive to productivity. You are most optimized when challenges match your skills and that’s when you experience FLOW. When skills are higher than the task challenges then you will experience boredom. Worry, and anxious when it’s opposite.
“If challenges are too low, one gets back to flow by increasing them. If challenges are too great, one can return to the flow state by learning new skills.”
But the reality for most of us is different. When we are anxious, overwhelmed most of us do what we have always been doing in such situations “quit.” And when the challenges are low then we are comfortable in that situation and rarely do we try to change it.
According to Stoics philosophy nature has made everybody equal. It has given everyone all that is required to lead a truly desired life. Despite this, a whole lot of us are stuck mainly due to those obstacles and the majority of which are in our own minds. We give in to those obstacles instead of dealing with them.
There are basically two types of Impediments each with different sets of challenges
- Personal – Most of these are psychological and are part of our personality, our thought process, behaviours, habits formed through our experiences in life.
All of us came into this world with a blank mind and things change as we grew. We gather information from the world around us adding new meanings and assumptions to those experiences and drawing conclusions from them in the form of beliefs and biases. These get hard-coded into our brains resulting in behaviour patterns and habits and serve as subconscious autopilot that we follow no matter how they impact us. Whenever a similar situation arises mind works towards empowering those beliefs.
Since we don’t realize that, we don’t change it and continue to live with it for our whole life. All our reactions to situations, events, interactions are then driven by those beliefs and biases. Some may be serving you well and others limiting your immense possibilities. Manifestation of same could be in
- Hesitation
- Self-doubt
- Overthinking or being hypercritical
- Worrying too much
- Procrastinating
- Hiding
- Fear of failure
- External – These are social and environmental obstacles impacting your life. Some in your control but mostly outside of your influence and control. Often, we spend a lot of energy and time in dealing with those obstacles that are out of our control…
I can’t give you a better example than the one you are experiencing now. All of us are stuck in our homes due to the recent epidemic.
This reminds me of Murphy’s law “Anything that can go wrong will go wrong”. What you do when these impediments arise defines you and your outcome.
Just because some situations are out of your control does not mean that you give up. What is in your control is how you react to these situations, but to get to that you need to overcome your personal obstacles first. It’s very easy to say that nothing is working around so can’t do anything.
The inner obstacles are more difficult to conquer because they are a part of your personality and altering those can lead to immense possibilities. Key to doing that is
- Awareness of Impediments impacting your life
- Keeping faith in your capabilities. You are capable of doing much more than what you think
- Control what you can control and leave the rest
- Move forward by taking actions. You will fail at times but that shouldn’t stop your path to being your best self
It’s not that those aspirations were impossible to achieve, what sets us back are the Impediments that come in the way to your glory.
This is part six of a series of eight posts. To know more about the transformation journey and the process watch out for the next post……
Author: Abhishek Budhraja
In case you have any suggestion, you can contact the author on contact@abhishekbudhraja.com or leave a comment below!