I went for a walk this morning down to the rocky section of the beach. The whole beach is covered in thousands of rocks. Large and small, smooth and jagged.

 

There’s rock pools spread around throughout and it’s always interesting to look at for me.

 

Walking over rocks isn’t always easy. You have to watch out for the ones that are wobbly or slippery and make sure you’re going to have a stable place to step so that you don’t fall.

 

When I looked across to where I wanted to go, there was probably 50 metres of soccer ball sized rocks to make it over to get there.

 

For a moment I hesitated and wondered if I could really be bothered to walk over that many more rocks.

 

But I figured I had time, let’s do it.

 

I put my head down and started making my way across. Planning out each next step within a second of the next.

 

It’s not like regular walking where you look straight ahead at where you’re going. I had to concentrate on each move.

 

Head down, focus, step by step. One foot in front of the other.

 

And before I knew it, I was across. It took less than a minute.

 

What had felt like too many steps was nothing when I just took one step at time.

 

(Coincidentally, if you’ve ever struggled with meditation, walking over rocks is a form of meditation because you need to focus on your steps, just like focusing on your breathing. So it’s great for clearing the mind.)

 

Sometimes the gap between where we are with our goals and where we want to be seems all too hard. It’s easier to stay still or go back.

 

But when we put our head down and focus on taking one step at a time, before we know it we look back and have achieved so much in a short amount of time.

 

The key is to focus on that next step.

 

Knowing your big picture goal is important. But don’t stare at it longingly feeling frozen by the enormity of it.

 

Just look at the next step, focus, and take it. THEN the next one.

 

Make sure you break each step down into small pieces so that you can get easy wins that add up over time.

 

What is your next step that you can take today? Are you taking at least one small step each day towards your goals?