It pains me to think of this, but there is an entire generation of people rising through the ranks of life right now who will never know the experience of stopping to ask for directions.
Road trips in my day involved a lot of planning so as to avoid getting lost. This involved paper maps which the front-seat passenger would unfold at key junctures and spread across the dashboard confirming the journey was on track, the route marked early in the planning stage by fluorescent yellow highlighter. It was a project.
Now Siri estimates our ETA down to 0.1 of a second warning us of any potential delays, from cattle crossing to disabled vehicles.
Traffic annoys me. Even with Siri as a co-pilot it's a forgone conclusion that any road trip will encounter a jam of some sort. Knowing this doesn't make it any less annoying. I get tense when I see brake lights en masse, or maybe a silent but flashing police siren indicating trouble ahead.
There is a traffic term for when cars are forced to slow down and merge, before eventually feeding back into all lanes and picking up speed again. It's called the pinch-point. The place or point where congestion occurs, or is likely to occur.
The pinch point often brings up feelings of discomfort or inconvenience. Yes, it certainly does.
If you've been reading my newsletters for a while now, you can probably guess the direction I'm driving this communication. Are you new here? Then buckle up.
When it comes to your life, career, or relationship, what is your pinch point? Where or when do things get congested, forcing you to slow down?
How do you mitigate the congestion, or prepare for the feelings that accompany it?
How do you work through it, and get things flowing again?
As your coach, I would love to help you identify the pinch points in your life and career, helping you get ahead of possible challenges and periods where the everyday feels like a struggle.
Or perhaps you're there now — feeling stuck, like earlier progress has come to a halt. Either way, my job is to help you move through it, get you back on track and sailing in the right direction.
Ready to get started? I'll bring the yellow highlighters.