From My Inbox: The Size Of The Next Step Doesn't Matter

Yes, I'm one of those people who monitors their step count.

The length of my walks is frequently dictated by the length of the podcast I select. Recently is was an episode of The Daily – a podcast produced by The New York Times. I chose one of their Sunday Reads as these are typically longer, investigative reports (which of course, translates into more steps).

The episode I plugged into: “The Kidnapped Child Who Became A Poet”

Shane McCrae is a celebrated and accomplished American poet, whose ambition to have a life centered on poetry started in childhood (which for him, was a phenomenally tragic and brutal one). Yet, somehow he knew he needed to become a poet. With no idea how that would come about…he took what in hindsight, are small steps towards that audacious goal: he read, voraciously; he took classes at a community college; he applied for a prestigious MFA yet still went to law school because he didn’t know how he’d make a living being a poet and while in law school (Harvard) took classes in poetry…wherein his poetic ear was unleashed…he’s now published multiple books and is a professor at Columbia University - a long way physically for a child of mixed race parents, who was kidnapped by his grandparents and brought up in a violent, racist home but not far from where his ambition had spoken to him in his childhood.

You may be staring at your BHAG (big hairy audacious goal) right now, unable to imagine how the heck you're going to get from where you're sitting to accomplishing the goal. The voices in your head may be telling you the goal is too damn big, and it's unlikely to come to fruition, so why don't you tone it down and pursue something "realistic"?

Shush that naysayer by thinking really really infinitesimally small about that big goal. What's one thing you could do today to inch or stride a little closer to your goal? The size your next step doesn't matter, all that matters is taking the next step.

Read, watch and listen:

💡 Change your language, change your life. How Productive People Speak (Daniel Pink)

💡 Reset: The Art of Disappearing And the Consequences of Starting Over - Lucy's Story (Psyche)

💡 Reset: The Art of Disappearing And the Consequences of Starting Over - Bennie's Story (Aeon)

💡 Wellness 2.0: Who Do You Want To Be? (Hidden Brain)

💡 From the BYDN archive: Ambitious Goals Require Collective Efforts

Apply:

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Playbook for Your Future:

🚀 Need tactical and practical guidance on designing your next big, transformational step? My recommendation (a strong one, BTW) is Imperia's Intelligence Blueprint. Their Intelligence Blueprint helps big thinkers create a clear, actionable strategy for what’s next, capturing your ideas, leadership arc, and future direction - and I confidently say this is absolutely, unequivocally the outcome, as I'm working with Imperia to create my Intelligence Blueprint and I'm one very happy, less stressed, and on the road to smarter, strategic productivity, client.