There are a million steps to the finish line... you know that though, right?
Today I did a very hard thing. I went to see a lawyer about a bureaucratic problem from another state that we've been dealing with for years. It was scary to drive to the office and meet the attorney and my stomach was in a pit all morning. But then he got on the phone with the office in charge and it looks like it can be solved pretty simply.
But the solving of it wasn't about getting the appointment or having them call. It was the many small steps that it took to get there.
It was starting to see a therapist to begin to deal with hard scary things and not avoid them
Combing through all of our papers and organizing them into easily accessible files
Making several calls to many other people, departments and organizations before trying a local attorney
Keeping the problem in my planner and working on it little by little each week in fifteen minute increments to not overwhelm myself
Being in a financial place to call an attorney
Giving myself the permission to know I couldn't fix this myself and I needed help
That's a LOT of steps to getting closer to being done. And they were not in order. And some took a ton of time and some were quick and easy. And some were awful and painful.
And here's what I want to remind you... life is a lot of steps and sometimes the things you are doing don't seem like they are relevant to the finish line, but if you are consistently working on something you will get there eventually - it isn't always straightforward. And that's ok. You know this. Right?
I think we forget that when we are looking at everyone else's finish line. We think that they just ran straight towards it and won. I'm pretty sure if you asked them they would tell you it wasn't so easy.
What about you? Do you have a big scary thing you are working on? What would it look like to take the next step?
To celebrate someone getting to the finish line I am celebrating by doing a giveaway of my friend Jane Elzey's book from her new series: Dying for Dominoes! I got you the whole swag bag that she is giving away. The book is a fun romp through the Ozark mountains in search of a bad husband's killer... he may be bad, but they have to clear the names of all the friends involved.
Head over to my Instagram, leave a comment on this post with your favorite read from this year and I'll choose a winner on Friday and announce it here! Big cheers to Jane, I've been cheering her on for 10 years to publish her book and she did it and is working fast and furiously on the next one in the series. It was not a straight line for her to get to the finish line... but that just made the adventure (and the writing) so much better!
xo - Jackie