Alexander’s Struggles 11 – The Power Of Small Steps

Hello everybody,

You all know that I am struggling with my start into work after university. Yes, Corona makes it even more complicated but I believe that it’s still my responsibility and a bit my failure. Hence, I try to move forward and just do my best.

In the last weeks, doing my best meant to solicitate to everything that I think could be okay. And it seemed to work. I will have again a video-interview this week. So, taking smaller steps worked for me. Instead of looking for the perfect starting job, I focused on my first impression and if I can learn there something and it helped me.

This felt like a gigantic epiphany-like moment. I always knew that I tend to think too much and focus too much on the future. But I never realized that I tend to focus on such gigantic steps that I simply cannot reach them because of that. Hence, I should always focus on the next, smallest step I can take. And by doing so I can move quickly from step to step and progress with less effort.

But I tend to try doing the opposite. I tend to focus on the bigger goal, vision, or grand finale. While it’s more useful to do the small steps good to move forward. I will try my best to keep this moment in my mind and focus from now on, on small steps that I can take easily. And hopefully, all those small steps will compound over time and lead me to something great.

 When I talked to a friend that day, he showed me a picture. That picture showed two ladders.

On the left, a ladder with small distances between rungs and a person on top of the ladder. On the right, a ladder with too big distances between the rungs to reach them and a person standing below the ladder, trying to reach the first rung.

When I saw the picture, I thought that the person on the right could be me. I try to reach for the next rung but I aimed too high. I just cannot reach it. However, if I focus on a rung that I can reach and then on the next and so on. Then, I can reach the top. Even with less struggle and I would get, over time, more done.

I guess that we all have our realizations. What was your last one?

I hope that you could take a reminder and some motivation out of this post.

All the best

Alexander