An obstacle is something that blocks your path or prevents or hinders your progress. If there’s one thing that’s certain in life, it’s that things won’t always go the way you want them to or according to your plan. Like many people, you may think that’s always a bad thing. But obstacles and setbacks are part of life. They don’t mean anything in and of themselves. That doesn’t mean they don’t have an effect on you, but you’re the one who imbues them with meaning.

Obstacles can be external or internal. The external ones can range from a traffic delay on your way to an important meeting to an uncooperative family member or co-worker to serious illness or a natural disaster. My temperament is such that it’s easy for me to experience life itself as one giant obstacle. In Enneagram terms, I resist impact from the environment and there’s a lot of environment to go around. So I have considerable experience coming to terms with the nature of obstacles, including the fact that my attitude is not always helpful. Maybe you can relate.

A few other ways you can be your own biggest obstacle are by:

• failing to get all the information or acting on unverified assumptions
• dropping the ball (not following through on something)
• communicating or behaving in a manner that results in an undesirable outcome
• having unrealistic expectations of yourself and others

Of course the major obstacle, at least when it comes to behavior change, is your own brain, which is intent on maintaining the status quo. If you fail to recognize this particular obstacle, you’re in for a rougher ride than you need to be as you try to figure out why you keep doing what you’re doing when what you want to do is something entirely different.

One Interesting Thing about Obstacles

Imagine reading a story or watching a movie in which the protagonist faced no obstacles. Would you read a novel or enjoy a movie like that? People who write for a living are betting you wouldn’t. A rule of thumb for writers is there should be some element of conflict on every page. The more conflict, the better. The more obstacles the characters have to deal with, the better.

When something goes wrong in your life, just yell: “Plot twist!” and move on. —Anonymous

Conflict and obstacles make things interesting because they’re unexpected. They also force you out of your comfort zone. You can be proceeding through life on autopilot (System 1), driving along a familiar route, when suddenly you notice a mudslide has closed the road ahead. System 1 calls on System 2: What should we do now? If what’s on the other side of that mudslide is something you really want or someplace you really want to go, you’ll try to figure out another way to get there. Which brings us to…

One Useful Thing about Obstacles

I’m not going to claim obstacles are opportunities or tell you they’re gifts or blessings in disguise. You can interpret them that way if you like, but obstacles are just obstacles: things that get in the way of what you want to do or where you want to go. I’m also not going to insist that obstacles (or overcoming obstacles) make you stronger or tougher because maybe they will and maybe they won’t.

There is one significant benefit obstacles can provide, however, although not everyone benefits equally. Experiencing an obstacle can help you think globally—step back and see the bigger picture—not just about the obstacle you’re facing but in regard to other unrelated situations or unrelated tasks. As a result, you’re more likely to come up with creative solutions in a variety of different settings.

The basic cognitive processes elicited by obstacles help people to find more creative means towards their goals. —Janina Marguc, University of Amsterdam

But there are two caveats.

First, in order to reap this benefit, you have to be motivated to follow through with what you’re doing. If you’re not already motivated, you’ll be more likely to see an obstacle as an excuse for slacking off or giving up than as a spur to action or invention.

Second, you’re more likely to think globally as a result of encountering an obstacle if you have what is referred to as low volatility. Art Markman, Ph.D., writing in Psychology Today says:

People who are not that volatile tend to engage with a task and stick with it even when it gets difficult. Those people who are highly volatile tend to skip from task to task to task.

For the latter group, encountering an obstacle does not make them more likely to think globally. That makes sense, given that volatile means excitable, unpredictable, or irresolute. If you’re highly volatile, you prefer to move on rather than stick around feeling uncomfortable or temporarily discouraged.

But even if you tend toward high volatility, you can make it more likely you’ll achieve a goal or create or change a habit if you do the legwork up front to make sure you really want what you’re going after—that your desired outcome is extremely desirable. The more motivated you are, the less likely you’ll be to give up in the face of an obstacle.

The most practical and realistic approach to take when you want to achieve something is to assume the path ahead won’t be a smooth, straight line. Then you can figure out ahead of time how to respond to the twists, turns, and bumps you’re bound to encounter.

If you get as many of your ducks in a row as you can, you’ll be in a better position to deal with the obstacles you will inevitably encounter. And if you encounter one that’s an actual deal-breaker, it will be easier for you to identify it as such, stop beating your head against that particular boulder, and scrap your plan without guilt or regret. That’s worth a little upfront effort, isn’t it?

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Part of the series A-Z: An Alphabet of Change.