Have you got your own Maginot line?
The Maginot Line was a line of bunker defenses along the French border. It was built before World War I to repel German attacks. The French felt safe behind this insurmountable line of fortifications. What did the Germans do in 1914? They unexpectedly bypassed the Maginot Line via Belgium. Since then, the Maginot Line has been a metaphor for expensive investments and a deceptive sense of security.
Sounds familiar, right?
Maybe you place too much confidence in your education to keep you employed. And then you find yourself made redundant by new technologies. Or maybe you have been enjoying a period of relative stability only to find it all shaken by some factors you have zero control over like a pandemics.
Thing is, major set-backs can happen at any time due to all sorts of reasons. And many of us find that for all our foresight, our defenses are very vulnerable or that we have been fortifying the wrong bunkers.
The good news is that the reverse is often times true as well. When dealing with problems, for example, we mobilize all our power to face and destroy them, when the wise thing to do would be to find a roundabout way, like the Germans did. Who says that you have to go right through a problem in order to resolve it?
Have you heard of the Law of Reversed Effect? It is about making too much effort that ends up only reinforcing the problem. The more you try to resolve it, the less likely you are to succeed. If the Germans had attacked the Maginot line directly, they would have failed! They were smarter than that.
As a change coach, I help people figure out where they have been trying too hard. I also help the re-evaluate their defense bunkers and see where they need to fortify, where to retreat, where to seek a way around an obstacle. And may be, the obstacle that forces you to seek alternatives leads you to the very short-cut you have been looking for.
Anyway, this is what a coach is for, to help you find the safest and shortest way to where you want to be.
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