When it comes to your life, do you stick to the middle of the road? How do you handle the detours along the way? Get ready to walk through your fear and enjoy the adventure with these four steps to forging a new path.
Wouldn't it be interesting to look back at the experiences you've had in your life without judgment and without labeling them good or bad? From this lofty place at the midpoint in our lives, we've noticed in looking back that, ironically, good things often came from "bad" experiences, and sometimes bad things from "good." It really seemed to us that the road we're on in life can end very suddenly, and as we come smack up against a bright new yellow road sign, there is often no other choice but to "turn here." We would be foolish to label these detours good or bad. In the end, our experience has been that we are the women we are today because we'd been forced to make these turns onto new and better paths.

Cindy had a "turn here" moment when the economic downturn caused her industry to lay off nearly 1,000 people in a six-month period. There had been lots of hints that something like this might happen at her company, but she thought if she just kept her head down and continued to work hard she would somehow survive. Her fear over losing the job completely blocked out the fact that she hadn't been happy there for some time. Working hard and being good at her job didn't help, and through no fault of her own, she found herself hurt, angry and unemployed.

After the initial shock of being let go wore off, she began to realize that there might never be another job for her in the profession she'd worked in for more than 20 years. Casting around for a way to replace the income she'd lost, she soon came to the conclusion that she'd need to retool. Walking through her fear that she might not be capable of learning something new, she signed up for a six-month course in social media marketing and merged her background in marketing and branding with these new tools and techniques.

In those six months, she went from not even having a Facebook profile to teaching others how to brand themselves and their business. There were days when she thought her head would explode as she struggled to overcome the handicap of being a digital immigrant, but as the rusty parts of her brain became more accustomed to learning something new every day, she soon came to love this fast-paced new industry. Cindy now blogs, tweets, posts and vlogs multiple times every day and trains others to do the same thing. She's energized by learning new things and now realizes that turning left at this roadblock opened up a new, different and equally beautiful path.

So when we find a road sign in our path and we know we have to "turn here," we take a deep breath and get ready to walk through our fear. We now understand that this is simply a new opportunity on our adventure to being the best women we can be.

The 4 steps to forging a new path

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