By Jamie Leno Zimron–
It’s really true: A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step. Also true: Keep putting one foot in front of the other and you’ll be off journeying, making progress and getting where you want to be!
These old adages are timeless, and they form a great basis for succeeding in developing great new habits. Most often, the hardest part of anything is getting started. Once you’ve taken that first step and have gotten yourself on the road, you’re on your way, and may soon find yourself off and running.
Let’s say you want to get in better shape. The idea of signing up for yoga or martial arts or Zumba classes, or committing to exercise 3–5 times a week may seem unrealistic, or just too much. So, I suggest that you go and do it—one time. Just once!
Go out for a walk, run, swim, bike ride or check out a nearby fitness class. That much is do-able, and will serve to get you going. Go one more time and you’ll have gone twice! You can turn twice into four times, and four times into eight, until once multiplies into many and you’re well on your way. You’ll have “primed the pump” until you start finding your groove, creating new neural-muscular pathways, and easily turning what may have seemed impossible, or just a dream, into real and good new habits.
Maybe you want to make a dietary change—easing off coffee or alcohol, eating less sugar but more vegetables, or consuming less processed but more organic foods. Start with one day of making the change you want to make. Just do one day. Chances are that you’ll wake up the next day and want to continue for day two. Maybe you’ll decide to do one day a week for one month. It’s the power of one and once that can easily open onto many and so much more. Simply get going. Break the ice. Initiate. Experience the benefits. Applaud your first efforts, and inspire yourself to double and triple and quadruple what you’ve set into motion.
If the going gets tough along the way (as it likely will), you might feel like quitting, or actually stop. Gently, but firmly, remind yourself to keep on just one more time, and another one more time, then once again. Enjoy seeing it all add up into positive results in your well-being and your life.
This is a great strategy to follow, whether you want to draw or paint, or sing or dance, or try cooking or golfing, or to start doing whatever it is that is stirring in you. It could be breaking a habit like procrastination by getting through your to-do list, one item by one item, until the list is all completed and you feel happily caught up and accomplished.
One person and one act can literally change the world. On a cold winter night in 1955, a black seamstress named Rosa Parks sat down on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama. When a white man boarded a few stops later, she refused to give up her seat to him or to go to the back of the bus as segregation laws of the time mandated.
Her single act of defiance inspired a 381-day boycott of city buses by black people, and led to the Supreme Court striking down racially discriminatory segregation laws. It sparked massive protest marches and full-blown social revolution. It helped to propel Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., into national prominence, and galvanized the American public and lawmakers to pass the historic 1964 Civil Rights Act and 1965 Voting Rights Act.
Of her one action one day, that quickly became a defining moment in American history, Rosa Parks said: “The time had just come when I had been pushed as far as I could stand to be pushed, I suppose. I had decided that I would have to know, once and for all, what rights I had as a human being, and a citizen.”
In 2013, a statue of Rosa Parks was dedicated in Washington, D.C., honoring her along with past presidents, Congress members and military leaders. President Obama, speaking at the unveiling ceremony, cited her “singular act of disobedience” and said, “Rosa Parks tells us there’s always something we can do … . She tells us that we all have responsibilities, to ourselves and to one another.”
Just this week one young gay man from Hawaii, Tadd Fujikawa, became the very first professional male golfer on the PGA Tour to officially come out. A decade ago, Fujikawa was a teenage phenom, qualifying for the U.S. Open at age 15, and a year later becoming the second youngest to ever make the cut at a PGA Tour event. Now 27 years old, he used Instagram to come out and share these thoughts:
“So … I’m gay. I’ve been back and forth for a while about opening up about my sexuality. I thought that I didn’t need to come out because it doesn’t matter if anyone knows. But I remember how much others’ stories have helped me in my darkest times to have hope … . My hope is this post will inspire each and every one of you to be more empathetic and loving towards one another.”
He continued, “The love and support have been overwhelming. I’m so glad that I came out. I can finally be the best version of me. I can’t wait for the day we all can live without feeling like we’re different and excluded. A time where we don’t have to come out, we can love the way we want to love and not be ashamed. We are all human and equal after all. So I dare you … spread love. Let’s do our part to make this world a better place.”
It takes courage and vision to be that singular individual who stands up, speaks out, takes action, breaks new ground, pioneers. One moment or decision or action can throw open doors, change the course of your life, and affect others in untold ways.
“The world” doesn’t have to be the national or global stage in order for any one of us to make a significant impact in the personal worlds we inhabit: our family, workplace, home, community, team—even inside our own body and mind. As the Jewish High Holy Days ended, the Hebrew new year 5779 began. The 10 days between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur were a time of inner housecleaning and orienting ourselves to how we want to be even better versions of ourselves, and live ever better lives in the unfolding year ahead.
I was reminded of this wonderful Jewish proverb, one of both my brother Mark’s and my favorites: “Ours is not to complete the task, neither are we free to desist from beginning.” And to paraphrase the great Rabbi Hillel’s classic questions: “If not me, then who; and if not now, then when?”
If today is the only day we have, then it must be the one to take action and to make a difference. You can change your world, and the world, with just one thought, one word, one action. One act of courage, of kindness, of vision. Just once, and you’re already on own your way, enabling everything to transform.
Jamie Leno Zimron is a 6th Degree Aikido Black Belt, LPGA Golf Pro, Corporate Speaker and Holistic Peak Performance Trainer. Contact her for private lessons and coaching, or to work with your conference or company: 760-492-GOLF(4653) and jamiesensei@thekiaiway.com
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