Train the Brave, 2nd Edition

CHAPTER 50Think big; start small; begin now

Having a deeply meaningful dream, goal or aspiration to work towards can profoundly shift your day-to-day experience of life. Whether it be building a business, raising your children, forging a career or climbing your own personal Everest, knowing what you want to achieve can help guide your day-to-day choices and infuse your life with a new sense of meaning and purpose. However, about two seconds after getting inspired, many people (like me!) go into immediate overwhelm.

Where to start? How to proceed? What if I can't? What if I fail? Maybe I'm kidding myself that I can do this.

Self-doubt can quickly wrestle ambition to the ground. While you may want to achieve something really huge that leaves you quivering at the knees, you can do yourself a big disservice if you try to bite off too much of the apple with your first bite. So, if you're overwhelmed at the thought of all that's involved in achieving a goal that feels massive, start by breaking it down. That is, break your big, lofty vision down into smaller, less daunting, shorter term goals and then into smaller, more doable, bite-sized steps.

COMMIT TO ONE STEP AT A TIME, HOWEVERSMALL THAT STEP MAY SEEM.

Starting small is how I wrote my first book, Find Your Courage. While I was passionate about the message I wanted to share (and still am), I had four children under the age of seven at the time. To combat overwhelm, I set myself a goal of writing the outline in 12 months, which ...