One Decision At A Time

One Decision At A Time

To the outside world it wasn’t that big of a mountain. But it was my mountain and when you’re standing at the base of a mountain you’ve never climbed looking up towards the peak can feel quite daunting.

Mountains come in different shapes and sizes. Some are physical in nature, a great many more are the emotional and psychological inner mountains no one else can see. Embracing life-defining decisions can be even more daunting than standing before any physical mountain. 

The process of getting from where you are to where you want to be is the same no matter what kind of mountain you are climbing. It’s the decision to start, it’s the decision to keep going. One decision followed by the decision to keep moving forward and then the next decision to do the same. One next step at a time. One decision at a time.

Will I take one more drink to keep numbing the pain? Will I decide to sleep in instead of get up early to exercise? Will I keep tolerating their behavior because I tell myself it’s just easier? 

Every moment gives us the opportunity to decide if we are willing to move forward or if we are willing to stay where we already are.

We don’t have to climb the entire mountain at once. We just need to be willing to take the first step and then the next one after that. 

Not always an easy process. But that’s the process. No matter the mountain you’ve chosen to climb.

One decision at a time.

Photo by Lindsay Henwood on Unsplash

Square One Is Much Different The Second Time You Start There

Square One Is Much Different The Second Time You Start There

I’m sure the heat didn’t help, but the results reminded me of how far I’ve fallen.

Saturday was the day. With my body all stretched out and my running shoes firmly attached to my feet, it was finally time to get back to running. After several sedentary months of working through various ailments I was ready to move again.

I didn’t move very far.

The course was a familiar one, a three mile loop around the neighborhood I’d been running for years. And while I knew running this loop in its entirety for the first time in months would be quite challenging, my months of inactivity were simply no match for my lofty expectations.

Sometimes the body reminds the mind who the boss is.

The run became more of short periods of running between long periods of walking. And I wasn’t happy about it. I’d not run in months, but I am a runner, and I should simply be able to run because that’s what runners do, right? I flashed back to when I first started running eight years ago. I remembered the struggle of simply running the distance between two telephone poles, and now here I am with years of road miles behind me and I’m back to Square One.

When I started running a few years back, I did so embracing a degree of patience. I knew starting Continue reading “Square One Is Much Different The Second Time You Start There”

Playing Big By Playing Small

Playing Big By Playing Small

New Year’s Day.

I’m invincible.

I’ve been fine tuning my resolutions. My intentions are confidently set and I’m ready.

“This year will be different” I confidently tell myself. “This is the year I stick to my resolutions.”

Because I usually don’t.

Maybe the best resolution is no resolutions at all.

I’m not quite sure why I have such a challenging time with resolutions. I know there are things I want to change and things I want to accomplish, and there are things I tell myself I no longer want to do. Yet within a few weeks the resolutions I enthusiastically and boldly ran into the new year with feel like work.

They never make it to February.

Change, even change we tell ourselves we really want, can often be quite difficult. We’re often undoing things that we’ve spent a lifetime doing. Change is always much easier Continue reading “Playing Big By Playing Small”