It's a Dead-end

...so why do you keep driving down it?

We have all been stuck in situations, relationships, jobs, and cycles that we keep trying to navigate and we continue to hit the same dead-end... We expect that if we keep trying something is bound to change even when we know it won't.

You know what I am talking about, right? Those times you know no matter how much you try, how many different approaches you take, and how much you want it to be different, you're going to end up in the same place, stuck.

I need to be real with you, I see you, I see you trying, I know you don't know what you want or what is next, none of us do, and if I’m being totally honest I recently realized I was driving up and down the same deadened street for a while when it came to figuring out my job and what was next... so I say this with love, you look ridiculous.

I am all for trying, for giving things an honest and real chance, for doing the work, for putting in the hustle, the sweat, and the tears... but common' you need to know when enough is enough. Stop choosing to suffer, stop doing the same thing over and over again waiting for a different outcome, stop choosing be stuck, stop choosing to keep hitting the same damn dead-end. You know in your gut how this is going to turn out, so why do you keep doing it?

It's like driving down a street that's a dead-end, but you didn't see the sign before you turned down it, happens to all of us. So you drive down thinking this is your road, your path, then boom. DEAD-END. You reverse it out of there but then get back to the start of the street and instead of taking a new street, finding a new way, looking for an alternate route, you decide drive down that dead-end road again. And again. And again. I’ve been there, a lot, and I’m sure I’ll be back there again, so I know what you’re thinking, maybe if you drive down it one more time it will have changed, but common' we all know road work doesn't happen over night... it's still a dead-end.

At this point the neighbors are looking out their windows thinking "What the hell is this? Clearly lost. How many times are they going to drive up the street until they realize this is a dead-end? TURN AROUND!"

And now you need to make a choice. Do you keep driving up and down this street going nowhere but hoping somehow something happens or do you pull over, open up the GPS, and welcome any directions from the neighbors on how to get where you want to go?

It sounds silly, I know that, but it happens, and a lot of the time we don't realize that we are in these cycles ourselves. I was in a cycle with my career for two years... and I was willing to jump at anything just to jump, even if it meant jumping to something that I didn't want only to end up back on the same dead-end street because I didn't know what else to do. I was stuck.

I took the opportunity after noticing the cycle I was in with myself to pull over, to regroup, to make sure I had the right destination plugged into my GPS. I welcomed directions on how to get where I wanted to go and guess what happened? I got better directions, I pulled out of that damn dead-end street I'd been driving up and down for two years. I started to course correct. I got clear about where I was going, about what I wanted, and you know happened? Someone offered me a job, a job that was right on the road I wanted to travel, in the direction I wanted to go. I had to get out of that dead-end street, I had to reevaluate, I had to examine where I wanted to go, what did I want the scenery to look like on my way there, and then it happened... but I had to be willing to back out and course correct, and admit that I was absolutely stuck.

Are you on dead-end road? Have you been there for a while? It’s time to regroup, to reevaluate, to own that we are all a little lost, to get clear on where you want to go and then ask for some directions.