What’s the tiniest thing I can do to move in the direction I want to go?  

By Belinda Sauer

While it’s human nature to be a creature of habit, most of us still have things we’d like to change. But starting something new or eliminating something from our daily routine is hard! Routines are comfortable, stable. Just the idea of making a change can seem exhausting.

I recently read about a woman who wanted to start running again. She made a goal to run a half marathon. That’s 13.1 miles.

She got new shoes and put in three good days of modest runs. Then, poof! Sore and tired, she stopped. Thirteen miles suddenly felt impossible, much less one.

She didn’t run again for weeks.

Then, she had a thought: Just. Start. Small. She put her running shoes by the door. A few days later she put them on, went out the door and stretched. Days later she began to run, going about a block. It was enough.

She kept at it day after day. One day she ran a little farther. She realized she’s done it not for the sake of going farther, but because it just felt good to keep going.

Eventually she was running real distances, feeling good. Still, the distance didn’t matter; the time it took to get in a groove didn’t matter.What did matter was that she had begun — and kept going.

She’d done the tiniest thing she could do. And soon she was once again enjoying something she loved.