First Steps (Audio)
Do you remember your first steps as a child? Probably not. Teetering with no true sense of balance, on muscles not yet developed, and doing something new, yet instinctual. I remember my kid’s first steps… And this made me remember the many “firsts” on many fronts. We’ve all experienced hundreds and thousands of things for the first time!
Some are my favorite memories. Others, well, not so fondly recalled.
Yesterday was the first full day of the new year. I saw many pictures of First Day habits, and if you had any connection to life in the South, then you understood cornbread, blackeyed peas with fatback, and cabbage. Supposed to bring a prosperous new year, or so they say! (P.S. I haven’t done this in years and do not think my years have been any less prosperous than others!)
Well. Today is the Second Day. What are you doing with your First Steps today? See how this works? Every day has First Steps. Your resolutions should be in full swing, although some say yesterday doesn’t count! Why not? Was it not the First Day of your First Steps?
So. Here’s my thought. There’s no time like the present to take First Steps and do what you know you need to do or what you resolved to do. If you failed to get started yesterday, then sing this Chad & Jeremy song:
But that was yesterday and yesterday’s gone
There’s no time like today to get yourself motivated. Do not feel like you have to do the whole ball of wax, but choose those things that can be handled with the motivation and time you have available today.
For me, it’s a purposed reading through the Bible this year. If I don’t set aside time to make it happen, and establish the habit that makes it missed when it doesn’t happen, then I’ll be several weeks into the year attempting to play catch-up and will just let it slide till next year.
This is the typical path of resolutions! But it doesn’t have to be you! Not if you add a little here and a little there!
Think About Your Learning or Doing Style
You cannot possibly know it all the first day! You do not learn a habit the very first time you do it! You learn what you can handle and grow into full knowledge over a period of time. You build a habit by the repetitive actions that become a part of your normal day.
This learning process has been around since the beginning of babies! This is the same way we learn to become adults. The prophet described this learning style hundreds of years ago.
But the word of the LORD was to them, “Precept upon precept, precept upon precept, Line upon line, line upon line, Here a little, there a little,” That they might go and fall backward, and be broken And snared and caught. (Isaiah 28:13 NKJV)
If you take on more than what you can truly do, you are likely to fail.
You don’t want a first-year med student operating a complex piece of surgery on a loved one, do you? If you are going to teach a subject, don’t you think you want to spend the time learning the material? If you ride in the Tour de France, don’t you think it first wise to learn how to balance on two wheels and build the stamina and strength it will take to compete?
Step At A Time
So. Take it a step at a time. Like I’ve said often about what I learned flying, “Plan your flight. Fly your plan.”
And as the oft-quoted pithy saying relates, “The first step is the hardest.”
Why? It’s hard to do what you are learning to do the very first time you do it! The first time I went downhill skiing was when there was no snow at the bottom, a 2,500-foot drop to the right, a steep hill to the left… I didn’t even know how to snowplow!
So. Start with your baby steps (Dave Ramsey, Financial Peace Universe), and you’ll eventually get to your stride.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
~Theodore Roosevelt
Okay. Now. Repeat after me… “One Day At A Time…” No. Don’t sing it to me. Sing it to yourself!