Remove The First Roadblock

“Remove the first roadblock” this is the advice I give to people when they come to me with a problem they’re trying to solve. Often, we have a billion things we need to do especially on that one big project that has so many moving components. We get caught up in ALL the things we need to get accomplish to get the goal done, then we get overwhelmed, de-motivated and are unsure of where to start. The starting point is usually where you run into your first problem and/or decision. That’s your first roadblock and you have to get it out of the way before you move your actions and thoughts forward. Here’s a real life example.

Someone reporting to me needed to host a big training for one of our product offerings. We needed to make sure the room was full, that there would be an instructor, where the training would be and what time. But since this was the first training, she also needed to figure out how to market it, how to manage registration, how to manage the evaluation and a whole host of other things. The main objective “host a big training” had turned into 1000 little projects that felt like they all needed to be solved in that moment. Truth is, they didn’t. Just one thing had to get solved - the first roadblock. So I asked her “what is your first roadblock.” It was picking a date.

The first date option, we’d definitely have instructors available but it would be a quick push to do marketing and get students (aka we could have instructor and no students) the second option we’d have time to do marketing but not a confirmed instructor (aka students with no one to teach them). We worked through a pro and con list and went with the latter option. Once we cleared that first roadblock of picking a date, we could start to plan out the other roadblocks (finding an instructor, marketing plan, registration set up etc). It made it easier to focus on smaller chunks of the project. The training was a success and I know this person now uses that approach as she works through other things.

The first roadblock helps you to stay focused on what is in your immediate way that is preventing you from moving forward. It also helps you to make sure you don’t pile on a bunch of decisions when you really only need to make one. Think about your next big project or task, what’s that first roadblock you need to clear?