Detours on the Journey of Life

The Detour

I carried on listening and was glad I did. It soon became clear that Namon had written a book called The Detour and the interview had been styled as a book review.

However, it felt more like a brief glimpse into Namon’s life story with the radio host inviting him to share some of the pearls of wisdom that he had gleaned from his experiences.

What Namon said would not have been out of place in one of our New Insights life coach training manuals. It resonated deeply with me and though some of the language he used differs from ours, the lessons and conclusions he draws are the same.

Roadblocks on the journey of life

In essence, he likens life to a journey of exploration, discovery and growth.

On that journey, we encounter a variety of what we perceive, at the time, to be obstacles or ‘roadblocks’.

These roadblocks appear to distract us, halt our progress, or knock us off track. Experiencing a roadblock can be profoundly frustrating and leave us disillusioned, hurt and perhaps feeling like we have failed.

Navigational instruments

Namon refers to these ‘roadblocks’ in more agreeable terms, as ‘detours’.

He points out that they are there for good reason despite how we may perceive of them at the time. They provide us with important learnings and act as instruments for navigating the journey of life.

According to him, the winning mind views these detours, not as failures, but as necessary inflection points or guidance beacons. They present us with new perspectives and new opportunities for growth and development.

New possibilities

Life continually presents us with a series of options. If we doggedly continue to ignore them and continue along the same old path, we begin to lose sight of new possibilities.

As he says,

“When you surrender to the idea of an option-less life, you disempower yourself.”

The true inner power that resides in all humans is the ability find opportunity in the detours we face. As long as we have life, we can achieve anything we desire for ourselves.

This applies to all people, no matter how happy and successful, or depressed and hopeless, they may be feeling.

Shaping one’s future

The starting point for shaping one’s future is a personal vision, or a crystal clear picture of a desired future state. A clear vision transports one into the future.

After what we call future pacing, or imagining oneself visiting and enjoying that desired future, one is naturally inclined to become less content with the current state being experienced.

That feeling is what we call ‘constructive discontent’ as it represents the driving force for the actions and behaviours we need to take to bring about improvement.

Firm belief in the existence of one’s vision as a real future state, is the catalyst that causes circumstances and events to align in your favour and work towards manifesting your vision.

As we like to say at New Insights:

If you can conceive of it you can believe in it. If you can believe in it you can achieve it.

Remove self-pity

But to maintain a firm and unwavering belief, one first has to remove all semblance of self-pity.

As Namon so eloquently puts it:

“When self pity enters, self discipline exits and when self discipline exits, it closes the door to self development. Stagnation is the result and that is simply a form of self oppression.”

I found myself driving back from my meeting and carefully digesting what I had heard. I felt a growing excitement to share Namon’s wisdom with readers of New Insights On Life.

Another opportunity

But I kept wondering whether and where I had come across Namon before?

I did a quick search in my sent mail and up popped a recent email exchange between Namon Abe Andrea and myself.

It turns out Namon had emailed me recently to express an interest in the New Insights life coach certification training!

Namon, if you are reading this, thank you so much for your inspiration!

May I suggest that life might just have served up another of its amazing opportunity-heralding detours! 🙂