Now, realize that every major thing is composed of smaller, individual components. Think of a car. There is no such singular thing as a car. A car is made up of several smaller parts that work together, and the sum of those components working together create a car. The purpose of that analogy is to demonstrate that when having some large goal in mind, in order to accomplish it, it has to be broken down into smaller, more manageable pieces that one can realistically do on a day to day basis.
People continually seek ‘success’, but how often do they get discouraged from improving themselves significantly because they have these massive ideas of what success constitutes, but never know how to break it down into smaller steps that can be actualized day by day? Is it easier to consume a steak by trying to swallow that steak whole or by cutting it into smaller pieces?
Breaking things down into smaller components is a very important skill to learn. As the cliche goes, a journey of a thousand miles starts with but a single step… and to go further, the entirety of the journey will be a series of taking one step after another. A journey of a thousand miles sounds like a monumental feat to accomplish, but when you think about it, we all end up walking what equates to several journeys of a thousand miles over a lifetime, but we simply don’t realize it. Every day we are taking steps as we walk, but we never count those steps. They are undirected.
How many steps will we take over a lifetime? The only difference between our everyday, undirected walks and a “journey of a thousand miles” is that the latter starts with a destination in mind and those steps are DIRECTED towards that destination. On the other hand, most people walk around aimlessly, which is why they don’t end up anywhere, despite taking just as many steps. Instead of stepping forward with a particular destination in mind, they often walk around in circles, walk-forward a couple of steps and then walk back 5 steps. So although they have taken just as many steps as one who has engaged on a journey of a thousand miles, they often get nowhere, because they never have a destination in mind and never direct their steps towards that destination. So then, the key is to combine a destination with an ability to break things down into smaller, more easily-accomplishable steps and to start walking.
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