My coach Greg put up a post the other day about an episode of his Coach2Coach podcast where he’d interviewed another coach, Julie Brown. At one point he asked her what her one message to listeners would be.
She said: “Every obstacle is an opportunity.”
The timing could not been better – that was exactly what I needed to hear that day.
We’d just got back from picking up a new car to replace our old one with something more suitable for our daughter to learn to drive in. It’s a lovely little car, but on the way home it started playing up.
Warning light on the dashboard.
Just f’ing great.
And almost instantly all the old familiar stuff bubbled up. The internal catastrophising. Weekend plans suddenly hanging in the balance. Thoughts speeding up. Breathing changing. That “get out of my way” feeling.
It felt like one more thing.
Another thing to deal with in a line of things that afternoon. We’d just spent a sizeable amount of money on it and hadn’t even made it home before something went wrong.
It’s not supposed to be like this, is it?
I felt really disheartened. Deflated. Despondent.
Come on, Patrick… where’s the opportunity in this?
I almost felt like I needed to find one just to pull myself out of whatever mood I’d fallen into. But I’m slowly noticing that doing more isn’t always the thing that helps.
I could feel myself getting caught up in familiar thinking. The old conditioned stuff that shows up when things don’t go to plan. Thoughts that seem incredibly real in the moment, even though they’re often painting a picture that’s far bigger and darker than what’s actually sitting in front of me.
I’m still figuring this out, but I’m noticing that sometimes the thing that helps most isn’t forcing a better thought or solving the problem immediately.
Sometimes it’s just letting things settle.
Doing something else.
Slowing down.
Breathing.
Then eventually the rushed, clouded thinking starts to clear on its own and what comes next seems easier to see.
In my case it was just looking into what the issue with the car might actually be. Thinking about what the next move was, and when. Maybe it was something to park over the long weekend and pick up again on Tuesday.A pity, but that’s life.
But Julie’s words really were the tonic I needed that day. Not because they magically changed anything about the car, but because they nudged me in a different direction.
I’m getting a little better at spotting these moments where I slip into familiar reactions. That space between something happening and everything that follows afterwards.
I’m noticing it more.
And maybe sometimes that’s enough.
Patrick Hickman 