How to Keep Obstacles From Taking You Down

 

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the discomfort that shows up when you’re on the verge of something – and how the instinct is almost always to push it down rather than feel it through. This is what that looks like in one very specific, very common situation: getting hit by an obstacle you didn’t see coming.

Do you ever find yourself tripping over obstacle after obstacle? Your day is going fine, you’re in a meeting, and something out of nowhere catches you off guard and spins you up. Later you think, “Why didn’t I see that coming?” or “Why did I say that?” Or maybe it’s someone who triggers you without meaning to. Whatever the obstacle is, it usually takes you down precisely because you didn’t see it coming.

I thought about this recently on a run, when I glanced at a tree branch sticking out of the ground – the same one I tripped over more than a year ago. It was a bad injury. Months of physical therapy before I could run again. And I couldn’t help but think what a metaphor that was for the obstacles that show up in our everyday lives, and how we actually recover from them.

Here’s what I’ve noticed: our natural reaction to hitting an obstacle – especially one we keep hitting over and over – is to slip into judgment. Judgment is when you tell yourself a story about what happened, and the story ends there. We blame the obstacle, or someone else, or ourselves. And once judgment sets in, the way we see the whole situation narrows. It’s tunnel vision. Judgment is like the period at the end of a sentence: this is what happened, period, end of story.

That’s actually the problem. Judgment keeps us from seeing the very things that could help us avoid the same obstacle next time – because by definition, the obstacles that catch us off guard are the things we didn’t see. The last thing we want is a response that keeps us from seeing more clearly going forward.

So if judgment isn’t the useful response, what is?

The opposite. Instead of narrowing our view, we want something that widens it – that helps us notice what we missed the first time. That’s curiosity. If judgment is a period, curiosity is the question mark at the end of the same sentence. Curiosity asks: What more is there than what I’m currently seeing? What can I learn from this? What does this have to teach me?

The quality of the question you ask determines the quality of the answer you get. “Why does this always happen to me?” rarely leads anywhere productive. A more genuine question – one asked with real curiosity – tends to open up something real.

Curiosity and the awareness it brings, together, create insight. And insight is where the real answer lives. Here’s the part that surprised me: getting curious doesn’t just open your mind. It opens your heart, too. And the heart is where creativity lives, where clarity comes from, where you find answers that go beyond what the mind alone can work out.

Why this matters for leadership

Everyone hits obstacles every day. If you, as a leader, get in the practice of choosing curiosity over judgment, you model that for everyone around you. And the more you practice asking yourself powerful questions, the more naturally you’ll ask them of other people too. When someone comes to you with a problem, judgment doesn’t lead anywhere useful – but curiosity does. You can help them ask the same kind of retrospective questions: What did I trip over? What does this have to teach me? What could I do differently next time?

Why we miss the obstacle in the first place

Often, we’re simply preoccupied – by our thoughts, or by emotions we haven’t processed. That’s exactly what happened to me on that run. I was upset about something else entirely, and rather than actually feeling that emotion, I was letting it run me instead. I wasn’t present enough to see the branch.

This isn’t unique to me, or to running. It happens to my friends, my family, the executives I coach – all of us, regularly. That’s part of why I recorded a guided audio to help people get back into a place of power, perspective, and curiosity when emotions are running the show instead of being felt and processed. If that’s useful to you, you can download it free at VergePractice.com.

In any case, I’m glad you’re here. Next time an obstacle catches you off guard, see if you can hold off on the period – and reach for the question mark instead.