Big dreams

Big dreams make us feel inspired and excited about the future. How to make them a reality? By thinking small.

Imagine you want to run a marathon. You get excited by just thinking about how fit and healthy it is going to make you. You dream about crossing the finishing line, having all your friends cheering you on. What an achievement that would be!

One slight problem, you haven’t run since you were seven.

And people tell you there’s a huge list of things you have to do first. You need to get the right shoes, the right clothes, the right smart watch, an app to track your progress, make a running playlist (you’ll need running headphones too!), read a couple of books about running (so you know what you’re doing) and find some inspiring podcasts (to keep yourself motivated). How are you going to find time in your already busy schedule? You started looking at running shoes once – browsing took forever and you gave up in the end. It’s been two months and you still haven’t started.

But what if you simplified the whole thing and just started, even if the first step was super tiny? What if you just went outside and ran for 20 seconds? Without any special shoes or clothes or apps. Just as you were, in your normal, everyday clothes. If you were to keep it up and add 20 seconds every day – within 2 months you’d be running for 20 minutes! And once you start, the motivation to do all the other bits follows. You can sort out the shoes, the clothes and the playlists after you start running. You might even realise that you actually don’t need most of the things from your original list.

So before the overwhelm takes over and you give up on your big, wonderful dream, ask yourself: what is the tiniest first step I could take today? And then go ahead and do it – even if it seems pointless or too small. Every marathon starts with the simplest of actions – putting one foot in front of the other.