When I tell my six-year-old twin girls that we are going to walk somewhere they usually push back at first. Walk? Mom, I don’t want to walk, they say, beginning to whine. Too often, they gravitate toward the usual pint-sized complaints …
- But my feet …
- It’s hot
- Why don’t we take the car?
- What about the boo boo on my knee (from a week ago)?
- I just want to stay here.
And we are only walking a quarter of a mile.
Once we’re out the front door (no small feat), I get them focused on the squares of the sidewalk. How fast can you walk a square? Can you count the squares? Soon, they are smiling and taking quick steps. We arrive to our destination quicker than expected and my daughters are surprised.
That’s how it works for a big task. Maybe you have a home or work project that’s looming like a mountain in front of you. It can stop you cold. How am I going to conquer that monstrosity? Who has time for THAT?
When it comes to the big things in front of us, the magic can be found in our perspective. Think of the whole thing and it seems like a big deal, almost insurmountable. Take just a square (a piece) at a time? Totally doable. In fact, you will make progress faster than you thought possible.
This shift in your perspective can make you feel a lot more cheerful about the things you want to do as an already overloaded parent.
You can …
read books again … and finish them.
spark your entrepreneurial genius and start a side hustle.
clean out the garage that looks like an episode of Hoarders.
make progress at the gym.
save more money or whittle down debt.
blast through a new Netflix series.
Whatever the big thing is for you: Small steps each day compound to big progress over time.
I have a big mountain I want to scale, and it’s something I’ve wanted to do since I was little: Write a book.
I’m also a business owner with full time work, and I'm a mom and wife. I used to think I needed a clear runway and a clear desk to write. I was on a search to find a free morning, afternoon, week or weekend to write. Turns out I never wake up and said, “Hey, this day is totally clear. I have absolutely nothing to do today. Today I’ll write.”
I felt defeated. And then a friend reminded me: "What if you wrote for 30 minutes? What if you got up before the house wakes up to write? If you don’t have 30 minutes, how about 10?" She’s actually kind of blunt (which I like) and she said, “Just freaking write.”
Oh, truth teller.
As Eat, Pray, Love, author Elizabeth Gilbert wrote in her book Big Magic, “Every artist longs for wide open space to create and almost no one gets it.”
She suggests using scraps of time here and there.
Yes.
Don’t underestimate small blocks of your time. If you just keep focusing on the next steps, you’re going to make rapid progress toward achieving your goals. You might even arrive at your destination faster than you think. And probably without any whining.
Sandra Bilbray is a nationally published writer, positive human, and publisher of Asheville Macaroni Kid. She lives in Asheville with her husband, twin girls and two dogs. Email Sandra at SandraB@macaronikid.com
