Get Unstuck by Changing the Direction You’re Going

Red light, green light

Remember the game red light, green light game from when you were a kid? I don’t actually remember what the end goal of it was. . .maybe crossing a finish line first? I do know that when it was “green light” you could run, but as as soon as “red light” was called you had to stop in your tracks.

I was introduced to the idea of “red light, green light” again a couple of years ago. A life coach I worked with used the concept to help me deal with change when my husband was dying. I was a full-time caregiver who was also looking for a full-time job. It was an extremely difficult period of my life to say the least. Managing my inner turmoil while trying to provide for my future, and even believing that there would be one after my husband’s death, was very challenging.

I came in second place for two different jobs, that at the time, I really wanted. I considered these rejections as signs that I wasn’t good enough, hadn’t done enough or somehow had said the “wrong” thing. My husband had passed away by this time and it was definitely one of the low points of that time period.

This great coach asked me to re-frame my thinking about this. She said, “When you’ve tried your best and have done everything you can at every level, you have to look at it as red light.”

Huh?

A red light simply means that for whatever reason that’s just not the direction your life is meant to take at that moment in time. “Don’t bang your head against a wall when you get a red light. In fact, don’t put any more energy into a situation that is clearly not working,” she advised. “The sooner you can recognize a red light, the sooner you can let it go and move in another direction. A direction where you’ll find a green light.”

Even if you don’t believe things happen for a reason, or work out the way they are supposed to, or that there may be a greater purpose behind what happens in your life, this concept still works.

Think about it. Sometimes we want something so badly, or are so convinced that we are on the “right” track, that we push and push ourselves even though nothing is working out. This doesn’t mean we have to give up on our dreams or goals. It just means that we’ve hit a red light. We need to stop, re-evaluate and change course until we find a path of “green lights” that move us in another direction–a direction that keeps us moving forward instead of stuck wondering why nothing is working out.

Reframing how we think about those places where we feel stuck or lost into the idea of a red light helps us to know that someplace out there is another path or road that does lead to a green light.

It takes courage to shift directions and find the ways in which we can move forward. Just as surely as we encounter red lights there will also be green ones that ultimately keep us moving down the road to reach our goals.

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It takes courage to shift directions and find the ways in which we can move forward.