Just Do Something

Many of you who have been reading my blog for a while will remember last spring when I made costumes for my church's Easter play.  If you missed those, you can click here to read those posts (scroll past the Halloween costume posts).

Those costumes were definitely the most challenging sewing project I have ever tackled.  They were challenging for so many reasons.  I worked on them for multiple hours per day, everyday, from mid-February until the very end of March.  I would have been quite challenged to just make one of those costumes.  But I had to make three.  With difficult fabrics, patterns that weren't the right size, a billion trims and details, and sewing techniques I had never done before.

Every single day, I looked at the pile (room full...) of costume supplies and thought, "There's no way I can do this."

It was true.  There was no way I could complete those costumes that day.  But I could do the next step on the current costume that day.

So every single day I went through the process of being overwhelmed, taking a breath, and just pressing forward on the very next step.  I just focused on the single next step on the instructions for the current costume.  That's how I made three of the most challenging projects in the allotted time.

I had to just do something each day.

At the same time that I was working on the costumes, I was also trying to lose weight.  Bleh.  I'm even tired of the word weight.  Such a life-long struggle for me.  And last year I found myself at my heaviest weight ever.  I was fresh off of several failed attempts to jump start my weight loss as well.

I was overwhelmed with the knowledge that I needed to lose about 50 pounds.  How could anyone lose 50 pounds?

So every single day I went through the process of being overwhelmed, taking a breath, and just working on what I could do for that day.  Each day, I could meet my Spark People goals for my food intake and meet my exercise goals for the day.  I didn't have to lose all the weight in one day. 

I just had to do something each day.

This principle applies to whatever you're working on right now.  If you're trying to be more organized, clean one thing today.  Your silverware drawer, your bills stack, one dresser drawer, your car, etc.  Just pick something and do it.  Every time you enjoy that new organized/clean nook, you'll be motivated to do one more tiny space.  And pretty soon, all your little (and big) spaces will be organized.

If you're trying to cook more, choose one new recipe to make for dinner today.  Tomorrow you can work on planning one week's worth of meals.

If you want to lose weight, log onto Spark People's website or download their app (or find a similar one), and figure out your goals.  Tomorrow you can start logging food.  The next day you can start finding ways to burn your calories for the day.  You get a sense of accomplishment each day as you look at your daily goals and see that you've landed within your range.

I think you get the idea.  Sometimes it helps to back up and look at the big picture.  Sometimes you have to focus at the immediate task at hand and ignore the enormity of the big picture.  When it comes to reaching big goals, I'm a task-focused kind of girl.

Now it's your turn.  What can you do TODAY to get you one tiny step closer to your goal?

Jessica