Skip to main content

One Step

Depending on your source, new businesses that fail within their first twelve months range from 20% to 90%. My own observations over the years (I have no solid data to back this) is that these failures are not from a lack of skill but from a lack of business-sense and of infra-structure. 

So here I am with my own start-up, and of course, I want it to succeed, but I'm a writer, an editor, and an HR professional. I'm not a small business owner.

Oh wait.

Yes, I am.

Last week, I spent a fair amount of time networking and learning about the business side of things. By Thursday evening, it's fair to say that I was a tad overwhelmed. 

I had listened, processed, and absorbed as much as I could. It felt like I had walked into a dense forest. Trees grew closely together and leaves scattered the ground. I could no longer see the path. I looked up. I looked around. Nothing but trees and leaves. Tall and beautiful and amazing in their brilliant fall colors but so many of them! 

I froze. I didn't pause. I didn't just stop to take a breath before moving on. I froze solid as an ice cube in Antarctica.

That's when my kind and patient husband reminded me (again) that I don't have to do everything all at once. I simply have to take one step. Lift up my foot, set it down a few inches - or millimeters if that's all I can do - from where it was in the direction of my goal. That's it.

Tomorrow I'll do it again.

And then again.

And again.

And in the wisdom of a young Kris Kringle, soon I'll "be walking out the door."

Life is chockful of decisions to make and goals to achieve. It might be as mundane as your dinner menu or as exciting as a new job or home or city or relationship. Whatever it is, break it down. You don't have to arrive at your destination in one giant leap. Pick up your foot. Put it down just a wee bit away in the right direction. As Emily P. Freeman says, do the next right thing. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Tricia's Return (my first ICL assignment for 13-17 year olds)

I stormed down the hall and slammed the door. I’d had enough! Dumping my books out of my backpack, I began shoving in clothes – anything I could grab. I dug through the junk on the floor of my closet and found my stash – my life’s savings. I shoved it on top of my clothes. In the midst of this frenzy, I heard a soft knock on my door. "Tricia?" It was my mom. “What now?” I couldn’t keep the anger out of my voice. She was just going to launch into another tirade. Her list of my shortcomings was endless, and I didn’t want to hear them anymore. I didn’t open the door; I climbed out my window, backpack in tow, grabbed my bike and took off for the bus station. Jeremy didn’t know I was coming. He’d be so surprised. I couldn’t wait to see him! We’ve been together for a year; but since his family moved to St. Louis four months ago, we haven’t seen each other. We haven’t even been able to talk much He'd made the varsity soccer team; and with all the games and practices, he hadn’t h...

How Do You Wait?

The barren one is now in her sixth month.  Not one promise from God is empty of power  for nothing is impossible with God. Luke 1: 37 The Passion Translation I've never thought that much about Elizabeth. Gabriel speaks here to Mary - the mother-to-be of none other than GOD Himself! Who has a thought to spare for this side character in THE story of divine visitation? God come to earth. Wow. Talk about a headline for the New York Times! Why does Gabriel even mention Elizabeth? I don't know, but I'm glad he did.  I read these verses with a different perspective this morning.  "The barren one." Elizabeth is now past childbearing years. It's not a secret. Everyone in her community knows she's barren (it's obvious). The life part of her life is over. There is no hope for her to have her dream - a life like her friends have. She's different from her family, her neighbors. In a time when children are everything, she has nothing.  And now it's too late...

Rethinking My Rightness

I used to label myself as a conservative Christian. Used to. Lately, I'm almost ashamed to even be called a "christian" (that lowercase "c" is on purpose). It seems that over the last eight to ten years, being "christian" has become more about being right than about being Christ-like. It's more about enforcing a perceived level of moral behavior that has nothing to do with a person's heart (what was that Jesus said about a "whitewashed tomb" in Matthew 23:27?). Being "christian" has become more about power, control, and supremacy than it is about loving your neighbor or your God. I'm deeply saddened by the current "christian" focus on the sins of others (LGBTQ anyone?), by the lack of humility, by the pain inflicted (knowingly and unknowingly) on those who are unlike us. I've recently seen the ugliness of my own whitewashed tomb. I don't like it. I cried to see that my heart contains such haughtiness an...