Narrow your focus

Starting any type of change can be overwhelming and intimidating. Sometimes this intimidation is enough to make us not attempt to start the change in the first place. Let's talk about this in metaphors. When you are strolling down the path of life, it is good to take all the scenery in. It can be blissful when you can admire all the world has to offer. However, when walking down the path of change, that blissful admiration can turn into stressful planning of how to accomplish your goal. That stressful planning may delay the start of the change.

When my middle son was about 2, we had sat down for a nice Easter dinner. For me, Easter dinner was not complete unless we had a nice ham. My middle son LOVES food. He is not picky and will try almost anything! Before this date, he had not tasted a spiral ham. As we sat around the dinner table, my son's eyes lit up with the buffet of food presented. We served him his plate of food. He went about eating all the food he was familiar with first. Then he grabbed the ham. He shoved that whole slice in his little mouth. He sat there and chewed and chewed. He didn't have a chance to swallow because the bite was so big. His cheeks were distended with mash of ham in his mouth. Every time we had tried to take some of the food out of his mouth, we were met with a look of certain doom as he squirmed his little body away from us. This continued for a good half hour. Eventually, one of us had to steady his head while another person hooked the slobbery pulp of ham out of his mouth. Needless to say, we were not his favorite people for the duration of the evening.

Just like the story, when it comes to making a change, we cannot take the entire slice of change in our mouths at once. We must take bites of the slice until complete. It seems simple because it is simple. It's easy to let all the changes in our life overwhelm us. But instead of looking at the whole, you need to break it out into parts. With each small change, you know that you are closer and closer to achieving your goal.

This is something that I have heard many times over, but it is also the basic step I tend to forget. So, instead of looking at how much it will take to get there, try looking at what you can do for now. What small goal can you accomplish? It's amazing at how fast you actually fulfill your goal when you just focus on one small step at a time.

Mona

"Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goals."
- Henry Ford