Embrace The Detour

Are you avoiding the detour?

We could see smoke on the horizon, and as we approached the highway, we saw a staggering amount of traffic backed up. There must have been some type of accident from the sight of the smoke and the standstill traffic.

It was bad.

My husband said, “We’re not going that way, we’ll be sitting in traffic forever,” as he proceeded to drive right past the onramp into strange and unknown territory.

“We need to get back to that place where the carwash was,” he said while the GPS tried to reroute us back to the original plan.  

The carwash? How on earth was I supposed to know where that was, much less how to get there?

These were not normal circumstances—let me explain.

While we were in Calgary on vacation last month, we bought a house. We moved in a couple of weeks ago, and we do not know our way around the city yet. Thus, listening to the GPS is the safest and surest way to navigate—at least for me.

My husband, on the other hand, was determined to go a different way. Next, he said, “This is how we learn the lay of the land.” 

Sure enough, as we kept driving, the GPS adjusted and… instead of sitting in traffic for hours, we were now back on course with a new route, far from traffic congestion that took only 16 minutes to get home.

Why am I telling you this?  

I’m telling you this because last week I wrote about getting off the “X” and how it can be a life or death situation in your business. If you haven’t read that, go read it here.

In fact, this situation in the car happened the very day I published that blog. And while we were driving, I recognized my natural instinct to follow the “safe route” or, better said, stay grounded on the “X”.

I would have sat in traffic and wasted hours of my life trying to get home because I wasn’t willing to consider a different option.

This happens in business too. 

You do things the same way over and over again, even when it takes longer than it should. And you’re not getting the results you want.

What would happen if you tried taking a detour instead?

What would a departure from the normal way of marketing, selling or organizing your work look like?

The old expression, “What got you here won’t get you there,” is still true. What has gotten you to where you are right now, is not going to bring you to where you want to be by the end of this year, or by the end of 2021. And in 2020 you may very well feel like you’re stuck in a traffic jam.

What detour can you take to get back on track to reach the destination you set for yourself this year?

I challenge you to spend some time thinking about what that might look like for you. Tell me what you’re thinking in a comment below.