19) Take Life “Bird by Bird” and “Brick by Brick”
It is all too easy to get intimidated (and depressed!) by the myriad steps required in big undertakings like learning a language or transforming one’s body. The key is to focus not on the distance between here and your final goal, but on just one—and only one—step at a time.
“Thirty years ago my older brother, who was ten years old at the time, was trying to get a report written on birds that he’d had three months to write, which was due the next day. We were out at our family cabin in Bolinas, and he was at the kitchen table close to tears, surrounded by binder paper and pencils and unopened books about birds, immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead. Then my father sat down beside him put his arm around my brother’s shoulder, and said, ‘Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.’” ~Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird
“You don’t set out to build a wall. You don’t say ‘I’m going to build the biggest, baddest, greatest wall that’s ever been built.’ You don’t start there. You say, ‘I’m going to lay this brick as perfectly as a brick can be laid. You do that every single day. And soon you have a wall.” ~Will Smith, The Charlie Rose Show (skip to 3:23)
Next: 20) Learning How to Learn is Life’s Most Important Skill Return to the List
