Take the First Step

Take the First Step

I've finally arrived back to Bali after a circuitous return from the UK via Bangkok and Singapore. It's good to be back among all my stuff, but in some respects I'd love to run away from my beckoning responsibilities such as unpacking; getting my children back into the school routine; catching up on my long queue of emails which feels like a backlog of planes waiting at Heathrow airport; getting back into the flow of my work tasks and goals (as well as remembering them); scheduling and synchronising my diary with upcoming personal and professional development workshops, coaching sessions and meetings; getting into a healthy eating  routine (went totally out of the window in the UK, although I do believe it's good to eat cream sponges, tasty cottage pies and drink luxury hot chocolates to survive in a cooler climate); summoning up the stamina to exercise again (why is it so much easier to get out of the exercise routine rather than into it?!); and returning to sorting out / finding places for the container of belongings that arrived from Singapore just before I left for the UK (I didn't realise I had so much junk).

There are times in our lives when we would like to abscond from our responsibilities and things that we know we should be doing, but haven't got around to doing. All it requires is taking the first step and then it isn't as bad or as big a task as what we had imagined (apart from sorting out my container full of junk - much worse than what I had imagined). Taking this first step reminds me of the analogy of climbing a mountain. My 3 daughters, my brother and his German Shepherd dog recently climbed the Black Mountains in Wales. Admittedly these mountains are only 811 metres high, but it was quite an achievement to influence my 5 year old daughter, who complained bitterly all the way up, to reach the top, as well as my 10 year old daughter who wanted to know if we could take the elevator when we reached the half way point (she has spent far too much time in urbanised Singapore!). Sometimes there are no quick fixes or easy ways out, such as an elevator miraculously appearing when we were struggling. Once we had started climbing the mountain we were reluctant to turn back no matter what difficulties we encountered, such as my 5 year old daughter who stubbornly lay down like a lead weight in one of those 'you can't move me' positions and refused to carry on.

In life too, it's simply a matter of taking the first step. No matter how hard or tedious the journey may be, it's a wonderful feeling when you finally reach the top and you can look back and admire what you have achieved. Sometimes in life, as on the mountain, you have to go back down. Having reached the summit, you will find that you have all the more experience and know what's ahead of you to go back down. In some instances this is easier to achieve than climbing up to the top. When we descended the Black Mountains, we decided that the best way to get down was to slide on our bottoms. We acquired sheep droppings, purple wimberry and green grass stains en route, as well as being attacked by some gruesome, prickly thistles, but it was so much fun. My 5 year old daughter enjoyed herself so much, she wanted to climb back up the mountain again and quickly seemed to forget all the pain that she seemed to have endured on the way up! Having climbed the mountain once, will give us the confidence to do this again as we learn how to deal with and know what is ahead of us.

What can you do today to take the first step? As Martin Luther King, Junior, quoted:

"Take the first step in faith. You don't have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step."

Take the first step in whatever it is you want to achieve or have outstanding and you'll be surprised how easily you can do it.

Janet

Take the first step by finding out further information from NoLimits about our personal and professional development and coaching services, please contact info@nolimitsasia.com