Men don’t get lost, they explore.  Every guy in the world has held a fury of emotion inside when they know that they are not driving on the right path to where they would like to be. Every woman in the world can recall suggesting to a male driver that they simply “Stop and ask for directions.” Ironically, the guys never pay attention to a woman telling them where to drive, yet we are thrilled to pay $300 for a GPS system with a female voice which…tells us where to go. Go figure!

Yesterday evening I landed in Seattle, WA and was preparing to drive to Yakima where I’m speaking today. With my trusty GPS programmed with my destination, I was off into the mountains for what should have been a beautiful 2 hour journey. Except it didn’t take 2 hours, it took nearly 4.

Despite the fatigue creeping in that always accompanies changing time zones, I knew that I had closely followed the directions that the GPS shared with me. I even stopped several times and checked the Googlemaps app on my iPhone, just to see if my GPS had a momentary lapse of sanity. After two hours of nonsense and frustration, I pulled over and was going to either fix my GPS or throw the damn thing into a gorge.

When I checked the settings, I realized that it was programmed to stay off of major highways. When Shelly and I go on leisurely drives, we normally like to drive on a more scenic route than most interstates offer. I obviously forgot to remove this filter on the device, and once I did; the interstate was right around the corner and I was checking into my hotel. The GPS wasn’t wrong, it was just guiding me in the direction that I needed to go while avoiding what I had told it to avoid.

Aside from feeling a “special kind of stupid” at that moment, I had a killer “Ah-ha” moment upon waking this morning regarding my nighttime journey through the mountains of Washington State. Our belief systems are just like the filters on my GPS. They could be filters about money, relationships, education, business, or nearly anything. Usually those filters have been programmed within us for so long, we are comfortable with them and don’t really notice that they may really be holding us back. My suggestion to you is that you take a close look at your beliefs on a regular basis to see if they are serving you or hindering you. Often times you will not be the best judge of this so grab a friend or mentor and have them help you.

When you remove the filters that hold you back, your life will pick up speed and purpose!