After speaking with Tamara Kamara last week during our Detroit Startup Day tour, I felt a sigh of relief. I had just gone through the most stressful week of this semester and I needed a little inspiration. All of the speakers on the trip had good advice, Tamara’s words that resonated with me the most.

Currently Tamara is a successful supervisor of the city of Detroit’s web team. However at one point in time she was a pregnant 19-year-old college student who decided that pregnancy wasn’t the end of her college career. During our meeting I asked her how one stays focused when obstacles show up?

Her advice was to keep moving forward and know your goal. Things don’t always go according to plan and no one can stop life from happening. But one bump in the road isn’t the end. If you know your goal, then that’s all you need. You might not get there in the time you expected but it doesn’t matter as long as you get there.

I think at times when something doesn’t go how we wanted, we just give up and move on. I’ve been guilty of losing focus when things are not going according to plan. Now I see that when obstacles show up, it doesn’t mean giving up on your plan. It just means creating a new one and a new one, until you’ve finally reached your goal. If there’s a change in the plan then change your plans. Stay focused. There is not one specific way to achieve a goal.