I was back in my Wednesday morning routine, running on a treadmill at my favorite fitness class with my favorite instructor, doing what I do. I pushed the button and let my feet start rolling but today I wasn’t feeling it. A couple minutes in and I thought, do I leave now or leave in a couple songs. I wasn’t going to push myself, I wouldn’t be getting my new best pace and I might even have to walk today. I thought to myself ” I should just go ahead and quit.” I was getting ready to turn off the treadmill, grab my stuff and leave but then she said, “you have to remember, moving forward is moving forward.”
This particular instructor has a way with words that usually gives me the strength I need to push myself in class, but that day it was something extra! It was the exact words at the exact moment that kept me going. “Moving forward is moving forward”. Simple but true words that I needed to hear in that moment and have thought about several times since.
It is often easy to stop ourselves before we even get started. We know what we should be doing to help our mental health, physical health, emotional health, but the end seems too far away, the struggle seems too big and we don’t have the energy to do it all at once. We often forget that smaller steps are what gets us to the larger outcome. These small steps could be calling a friend, getting out of bed, taking a walk or setting a boundary. While they don’t seem monumental or like we’ve accomplished much, we can’t forget that small steps take us to the finish line.
I decided to stay in the class and keep moving until it ended. It wasn’t my highest calorie burn or my greatest sweat, but I felt so much better and had no regrets in staying. I finished the class and I was stronger for it.
Words have a lot of power and in that moment it was all I needed. Sometimes we don’t have to go all out. We don’t have to run the marathon, we don’t have to meditate for an hour, we just put one foot in front of the other and keep moving forward. What is that small step you need to take to get going? What are the words you need to speak to yourself when your mind is filled with self-doubt? Write it on a post-it and put it on the wall, put one foot in front of the other, and let’s all start moving forward.