Have you ever heard the phrase, “line of site, path of travel”? It’s usually related to driving. For me the point was driven home, in its literal sense, when I attended a defensive driving course while I was in the Army. Yes, another Army story. I must be feeling nostalgic lately. Anyway, it means that where you are looking is where your vehicle is going to go.
Before I deployed, my unit sent us to defensive driver’s training. We had to learn all types of things in this course, but regarding driving, one of the biggest points they drove home was your line of site is your path of travel. The training was very intense and involved but basically at one point we had to drive through an obstacle course without crashing…until the end. So, while driving through the course we had a series of very tight cones to navigate through. There were areas of the path where we had to do a 3-point turn, other areas where we had to lay on the speed, and even areas where we were being shot at with paintballs. All the while, we were intended to keep our line of sight on our path of travel. See, if we had focused on the cones or the paintballs flying at us, we surely would have hit the obstacles, but with a clear vision of where we wanted to travel, it was possible to get through the course successfully.
This is so relatable to other areas of our life, though. Think about it from a mindset perspective. When we’re in a mindset of setbacks, failures, challenges being roadblocks, our path of travel is littered with these things. If we focus on the obstacles, we are sure to hit them and be impacted by them.
Alternatively when we’re ready to take on the day/week/ month…our line of site is clear. We have a distinct direction of where we are headed and even with obstacles along the way, they aren’t where we are focusing. The obstacle take a back seat to us reaching our destination. It’s not that we don’t have any or don’t see them, it’s just that they aren’t the focus. They don’t hold any power over us.
If you recall I mentioned that we had to drive through an obstacle course without crashing…until the end. At the end of the obstacle course there was a car we actually did have to plow into. They taught us just how to hit the car (obstacle) just right so the impact to it was significant, but the impact to our own vehicle was minimal. If we hit the obstacle head on, our car’s front end would crumple and the vehicle would become useless, but if we focused on approaching the car (obstacle) just right, the impact was minimal and the vehicle could continue on to the next journey.
In your own approach, what kind of an impact do obstacles have on you? Do they show up front and center, derailing your mission?
Or
Do they take a backseat to the path of travel, showing up only for a moment as obstacles you feel confident in navigating?
P.S. Have you signed up for my 21-day challenge yet? Start your free 21-day whole-self-care challenge