A few months back I was perusing through memories in the form of cards, photos and letters, and came across something I wrote on the back of an envelope in 2007. It was a list of new year’s resolutions to make my life better. Even in my early 20s I was inherently invested in improving my circumstances in one way or another but lacked the wherewithal to set myself up for success. Instead of choosing just one thing to focus on, I had an extensive list including items like drinking a glass of milk every day, taking vitamins, paying off debt, saving money, doing 20 sit-ups per day, and the list went on and on. It’s no wonder I failed to follow through with anything on the list – I was over-complicating my positive change by trying to do too much at once.
A famous quote comes to mind from Tony Robbins, “We overestimate what we can do in a year and underestimate what we can do in a decade.”
When faced with the many options on how we can improve our lives, we are sometimes paralyzed by the availability of choices to make. The overwhelming sensation of the decisions before us can, in fact, lead us to do the opposite – nothing at all, thus becoming counterproductive to our overall progress.
Tiny improvements, over time, lead to big results. You don’t have to tackle everything you need to change in your life all at once, you can take it just one manageable step at a time. The key is to start, somewhere! You don’t run a marathon by leaping from the start to the finish line in one magical swoop with effortless ease, you put one foot in front of the other. Eventually, all those steps accumulate and lead to an accomplishment you can celebrate.
It goes without saying that there will be
times where something gets in your way
and halts your progress. This can come in a variety of forms; from illness, to relationship issues, economic uncertainties and the like. There’s a saying that when you’re on the verge of making a profound change in your life, unexpected things happen to test your willpower and whether or not you’re ready for the change, something that’s happened to me more than once and always with a lot of frustration. If you can rise above though, pick yourself back up and keep going, the rewards are substantial because, not only will you be continuing on your path of improvement, you will have also grown as an individual and gained strength in the process.