The Redirect

I grabbed my purse and water bottle and said goodbye to my puppies as I headed out to my workout class. Once I opened the car door, I remembered my heart rate monitor, so I headed back inside.?

On a trip to Arizona to see family, I started doing that mental check on the packed suitcase. Only to realize I did indeed forget my toothpaste. No turning back as I was sitting at the gate, and thankfully an easy item to buy once I land.

I was walking the long distance from my architecture studio to Temple Hoyne Buell Hall, only to remember I needed my notebook for my presentation talking points. The discovery of the missing item was halfway to my destination, so I learned what a fast walk/run can look like as an agile college student to make up time.

I stared down at the acceptance letter from the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign. After my first semester in graduate school, I had plenty of reasons to consider moving back to the Midwest. I deliberated for quite some time, but eventually decided to stay in Colorado.

I’ll forsake the appearance of forgetfulness in some of these stories so I may highlight a critical point for this article:

Redirection requires decision.

In some cases, the turnaround is possible and necessary. In others, the ability to do it has expired. And the time given to make the decision can be a split second or months.

The redirect in our careers can look like this:

• A better offer and opportunity
• A layoff that you weren’t expecting
• A layoff that you did expect
• A promotion
• A return to higher education
• A need to care for a sick child or ailing parent
• And more…

For some odd reason, we judge rather profusely the choice of the redirection, and we even judge it when the choice wasn’t ours. Let’s stop the judgment and embrace the redirect.

Redirection is the moment in time when there is a turning point. It’s what we do in the subsequent steps forward that truly matter.

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