Yesterday was a bad day.  We argued the night before about nothing really, and even before that things were not going well that day, so it was a real downer.  So yesterday lunchtime I found myself having to revisit my visualisation for my new life and trying to drag myself out of the doldrums and back to action.

How did I do it?

Well, given that I was so p****d off, it was not easy.  I started with my visualistion of my new life, which actually I have not written down in much detail.  I must do so, because I think this really helps in the hard times, that thing about dreaming and “seeing” the thing you are aiming at.  So I was visualising this and then I started thinking about what a huge mountain I have to climb in order to get to where I want to be.

I was reminded, apart from the need to think positively about it all, of an old Chinese proverb that says something like “every journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step”.  I was also reminded of something I read when doing (trying to do) the internet marketing full-time, about the average person always overestimating what they can do in a day and underestimating what they can do in a year.  This means, for me, a tendency to berate myself at the end of the day – looking back and thinking “well, there goes another day, and you only did THAT”.  What I often forget is that the many “THAT”s all add up over a year; two years; five years – and if you just do something, whatever you can manage, each day to move you towards that vision, then it is progress.

What stops me dead in my tracks, like a rabbit in the headlights, is when I think of that huge mountain I have to climb, and always see myself at the bottom of it, looking up at the vast slopes above.  It just seems too much and I think I will never make it.  I think the key is not to look up, but to look down, at your next footstep, the thing in hand right now that is achievable and will take you to the next step.  That way, you don’t get overwhelmed by the vastness of that mountain.

So, in thinking all this, I brightened up no end and was able to get back to work and make a little more progress.  Which was nice.