Baby steps

Coming off a holiday celebration like Memorial Day left many folks with only four days left to slog through the work week. While the extra time off can seem luxurious in the moment, why does it feel even more stressful to get back into the routine on Tuesday, as if forty hours of demands still have to be completed despite eight hours less to do it in?

Getting the energy to roll out of bed every morning, hit the shower, grind through the day, and somehow do a bunch of other stuff (like exercise, errands, and scrounging a meal or two) presents its challenges. Things would be easier if the weekend came every third day.

But, alas, a three-day work week will never be. So what’s the alternative? Putting one foot in front of the other — doing the thing dead ahead without getting overwhelmed by the entire road stretched out in front.

Authors experience this kind of thing on a daily basis. Take a novelist who completed Chapter 12 of her work in progress. What a celebration! Nearly 40,000 words in the can, so to speak. The bigger picture, however, presents a more daunting journey. The book likely will span 30 chapters before it’s done so the current milestone isn’t even halfway there. What a difference perspective makes.

And the writing process does not always move in a linear, positive direction. For instance, the novelist may realize a beloved character gets diagnosed with cancer in Chapter 10 (yeah, writers tend to torture their protagonists), so revisions need to happen in the prior pages to plant the seeds that foreshadow the pending illness to readers.

Other times, authors get busy or stuck and can’t make the kind of word count goals they hope to week after week. There’s nothing like leaving a main character hanging (perhaps literally from the window of a burning building), unable to get back to save them from imminent peril (that’s when writers feel guilty from dreams about their characters yelling at them to get back to the manuscript for the rescue).

The work of writers (and anyone else for that matter) requires stamina and persistence. Focusing on “small wins” instead of the long view provides all kinds of benefits, as the oft-repeated Chinese proverb encourages: A journey of 1,000 miles starts with a single step.

In fact, honoring small wins can improve self-confidence, boost self-esteem, and increase motivation, not to mention providing much needed encouragement to stay on track or simply get going in the first place. (source)

If finding the courage to face the day (or a work in progress) feels intimidating, start with a baby step and sprinkle in a little grace and self-care along the way. Somehow it’s comforting to know others face the same kinds of difficulties. Turns out we’re not broken, just human.

And when that January holiday comes around, consider Martin Luther King, Jr.’s inspirational words (for those big and small battles fought on a daily basis): “You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.”