Baby Steps

At least one more post about our choices and keeping them.

The 1991 film, "What About Bob?" illustrates what I'd like to talk about today.  It's a very fun film about a man with many phobias and a tendency to drive his therapist crazy.  Our anti-hero, Bob, is referred to Dr. Leo Marvin, who we find is on vacation with his family.  Upon meeting Bob, Dr. Leo writes him a prescription to take a vacation from his problems,  thinking he will leave.  Unfortunately Bob decides to join Dr. Leo and his family on their vacation.  This leads to many funny moments.

In the movie, Dr. Leo has written a book named "Baby Steps."  This is based on his theory that  problems are solved by taking very small steps and building on them until the problems are conquered.  Since then I have actually heard psychologists use the term "baby Steps."  It is actually sound theory.   We often become overwhelmed with problems and by breaking them down into the smallest steps to move toward resolution we can eventually make the problems go away.

If we apply this to choices we make in life, or goals we want to set for ourselves it works very well.  The reason most of us set goals and fail to reach them is we set them too high.  We become overwhelmed with the size and difficulty of what we are trying to accomplish.  If we back up  and set attainable goals that we are sure we can reach we can then have small successes and build on that success.  For example, lets say someone decides to read The Bible from cover to cover.   They get out their copy (most families have copies laying around that have never been read) and start looking at it.  The shear size of the thing is enough to make most of us give up before we start!  So instead of seeing the huge goal we need to break it down.  A quick glance on line will give us a number of plans with charts to read The Bible in a certain period of time.  Most are one year programs.  If you're LDS, ask any Seminary Teacher to give you the reading chart they give students.  This may work for many people.  A lot of us will still find the long term goal somewhat discouraging and will give up after a few days.  Or as life happens to us we may miss a few days and this causes us to get frustrated and give up.  Breaking this down further and further we can get down to saying we will read for five minutes tomorrow.  If I were counseling a person to do this, I would have them report how they did.  Then I might ask them if they thought they could do the same for a week.  Building on this success we might try another week or even two.  Researchers say that something repeated for 21 days becomes a habit.  So after three weeks we have developed a habit.  Of course, we can build on this and extend the time spent reading.  According to one chart I looked at it takes about a half hour of daily reading to read The Bible in one year.  And taking our mind off the big goal, a half hour of scripture reading a day is not a bad habit to develop.

To sum up,  take a big goal and divide it into steps.  If the steps are still too hard break them down further.  Eventually we will get to the baby steps that we can do.  Each person must figure out for himself what those baby steps are.  Some people can manage bigger steps than others.  After we succeed build on that success until the steps aren't so hard.  Above all, KEEP STEPPING!