Never give up; you never know until you try.
I hope you won't think me a nag if I write again about something most of us need periodic reminders of--setting manageable goals, broken into several steps instead of one giant leap. We've all done it: decided to do something then tried to do it all at once. We wanted to "get in shape," so we tried to run 5 miles the first exercise session; we found that even if we did manage to run that much the first time out, we couldn't walk the next day. We set the bar too high, ignoring the basic scientific fact that we can't do everything at once.
This week, a couple of my students set nearly impossible goals for themselves for what they wanted to accomplish in class. I told both of them that while I was glad they set the bar high for themselves, I wanted them to reach their goals without killing themselves in the process. I shared a story from my life, acknowledging that I, too, sometimes fall into the trap of wanting and even trying to do too much at once. I hope they (and I) will take that lesson to heart. We need to challenge ourselves, but if we try to do too much at once, we get overwhelmed and nothing gets done, or what does get done isn't done well. Then we end up taking longer to do something than we would've taken if we'd gone at it slowly and steadily.
Don't overwhelm yourself. Slow down. Take one step at a time.
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