Take Baby Steps
One of the hardest things about making changes - to your life, to your health, to your golf swing - is that it’s easy to dream about the big end result, but oh so slow to get there. I can see what I want in my mind’s eye, I can conjure the feeling of success or health or satisfaction inside of me, and yet when I open my eyes I realize how far I have to go; that’s where I fall into the trap. See, it’s good to dream big. It’s good to have goals that pull us forward. It’s useful to practice visualizing what we want. The trap is that we - I - get discouraged by the seemingly uncrossable chasm between here and there, and so we (I) give up or do nothing or make excuses or procrastinate, and so nothing really changes.
It’s easy for me to blame the world (pandemic!) or the government (Republicans!) or the Universe (2020!) for my problems, and sure, external forces are at work. When I get wrapped up in how POWERFUL those forces seem and how FAR I am from my goals, it really is easier to just say “F it” and turn on Netflix. What I’m missing here by reacting emotionally and spending my time trapped in an unknowable future is that forward progress happens gradually, and starts where I am right now. Sometimes progress is one tiny, shuffling step forward at a time. Occasionally I gain some momentum and can long jump my way to some accomplishment. But the miracles only happen because I shuffled forward laying the foundation, getting myself ready to make the leap. Long jump is preceded by a lot of accumulating steps.
Ok, out of the theoretical and into the practical: How do we do it?
Step 1 is what it almost always is: Awareness. Cultivate it. Practice it. Pay attention, not to the outside forces but rather to what’s inside, even when it’s not pretty. Talk to a counselor or a trusted friend or your dog. Have a mindfulness practice, a spiritual practice, 20 minutes or 5 minutes or 2 minutes each day where you sit still and breathe and just feel your heart. Sound hokey? It’s not. It can be really hard, and necessary if you want to get to…
Step 2: Discernment. What’s important and what’s not? What’s worth your effort and struggle, and what’s not? What’s yours (emotionally, psychologically, energetically) and what’s not? What’s under your control, and what can you let go of because clinging to it is using up your resources and sucking your life force and you can’t do anything about it anyway? Hint: It’s the past, and the future. Begin to understand and learn from one and then let it go; have goals and hope but not desperation for the other, because you want to get to…
Step 3: Choice. Being free from the chains of the past and the fantasy of the future allows you to exercise that self-awareness and put that discernment into action in service of choosing your next move, your next action, your next (or maybe your first) baby step forward. I’ve heard a lot of people over the last year, when asked how it’s going, reply with, “I’m just takin’ it day by day,” sometimes because they’re in a real struggle and sometimes because with invasions and genocides and wildfires and Republicans and the Universe all in play, we have no idea what tomorrow or this afternoon or five minutes from now will bring. So, what can I do right now, in this moment, to shuffle forward? The size of the steps don’t matter, only that we make the next one. As Lao Tzu said: “The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” Speaking of steps…
Step 4: Ask for help when you need it. No one gets anywhere alone, and trying to do everything yourself is stupid and futile. Trust me, I’ve tried. It’s better to have a team in your corner, people - or even one person - to lean on when you’re tired, someone or someones to help bring you back onto the path or just carry your pack for a little bit. Even though the asking can be hard, the receiving gives you an opportunity to take the next step…
Step 5: Gratitude. For one thing, gratitude leads us to humility, which puts our ego in it’s proper place and allows us to make choices that come from a place of realistic self-belief, wonder, love, curiosity, and perspective rather than self-centeredness, callousness, cynicism, fear, and arrogance. But also, gratitude isn’t just a feeling, it’s an orientation to the world. Just like a pessimist always finds ways to be disappointed, optimists find ways to take good from a situation and grateful people are on the lookout for opportunities to be grateful. Just finding a little of this orientation will make your next step forward a little easier to take, and when you do…
Step 6: Repeat each Step, for each step.
As always, these are not exhaustive, nor are they some “6 easy steps to enlightenment” drivel in a self-help magazine (beware anyone who says they can fix you that easily). They are simply some things that work for me, and they’re constantly in process, usually all at the same time. It’s tough and sometimes not that pretty to remember to stay grounded and aware, but the payoff is a more interesting and fulfilling life. May we all have the courage to live it.