A journey of a thousand miles, must begin with the first step

We have all tried it. Otherwise we probably will. Having that feeling, that the world is crashing down on us and everything is against us.

Not a very nice feeling, but unfortunately we can’t run away from the fact, that life is both good and bad.

There is a saying, that trouble comes in bunches. And once you think it can’t get any worse, something else happens.

It is a great talent to be able to take a step back, and see the big picture. But sometimes the big picture is just too much, and the result is, that we can’t find our way out of all the problems, and get paralysed. In such a situation, it is better to just see things one thing at a time.

Let me tell you a story.

In very short terms and some time ago, I was in deep trouble. My guy left me, and one of the big issues in that was, that we ran a company together.

Now this is nothing new, and this happens to a lot of people. But what made me drown in problems was, that the guy just took off with a 15 min. warning and more or less went under ground.

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So what does one do?

I lost everything in 15 min;

My guy, A place to live (our home was in his name), My business (because we shared it), And my offices (no longer any business).

So a lot to get used to in 15 min, and needless to say, that I was devastated.

Now, the story didn’t end there. Since this guy was impossible to get a hold of, I had to arrange everything by my self, like emptying our offices, packing everything in what used to be my home, handling our financial stuff (accounting, contact creditors/debtors, handling bank papers and taxes etc).

And on top of that, I had an acute need to find a new place to live, and getting a new income.

So yeah. I certainly felt that the world was crashing down on me.

At first I could see no way out. Everything was one big mess and I didn’t have a clue on where to begin.

I finally decided to forget all about all the things I needed to take care of, and move home to my mom for some time. In this time I could get used to my new situation, which seemed to unreal to be true. I had to accept that things were as they were, and not concentrate on how I thought things should be.

After two weeks, it was still too much for me to cope with of course. So what I found to be working very well, was firstly to make sure I was ok. That I had slept my 8 hours every night, and that I was sure to take my breaks when things got too much.

Secondly, I started to concentrate on one ting at a time.

I had to start packing. And when you feel that life is over, as I did for a short time, 240 square meters of equipment is a lot to overcome. So the only way I could ever get through this, was by concentrating on one box at a time. I didn’t have 240 sq meters to pack down. I had only ONE box. And when that one was filled, I had a new box.

Box by box I got through it, and I can see now, that I made a really wise choice back then. One box. Nothing else. That was my ticket.

After this, I have used this way of handling things in many areas of my life, and it has proven to be much more effective. I don’t feel the same amount of stress as I used to. I’m less agitated and I smile a lot more these days, as every challenge is “just” another box that needs to be filled. And if the challenge is too big to face all at once, it can be divided into several smaller challenges, which can be taken one by one.

A journey of a thousand miles, must begin with the first step. Don’t cope with everything at one time. It cannot be done. At least not in a healthy manner. And it doesn’t help you in any way to see all the problems all the time. Take the problems box by box, and eventually you will see, that all the boxes are filled and the problems have been solved with less stress and pain.

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Author: Gitte Falkenberg