Slowing Down to Move Forward

 

Photo by William Phipps on Unsplash

My kids often joke that the three-toed sloth is my spirit animal. I’ve fallen into the trap far too often in my life that busyness = productivity when in fact busyness is often the enemy of productivity.

Bertrand Russell or John Lennon or someone else said, “The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.”

In his essay In Praise of Idleness (1932), Mr. Russell does say, “I think that there is far too much work done in the world, that immense harm is caused by the belief that work is virtuous, and that what needs to be preached in modern industrial countries is quite different from what always has been preached.”

Mr. Russell isn’t advocating that we all lay around all the time and do nothing but eat BonBons and watch Netflix. He is, however, trying to help us understand (from 1932) that we’ve been sold the idea that success means constantly moving (the hustle culture), but progress often starts when we slow down and reassess where we’re going.

The Hustle Culture Myth

Somewhere along the way, like so many people, I started to measure my success by how many items were on my to do list and how full my calendar was. Long hours, little sleep, and constant activity have been the hallmark of my life for way too many years. I’ve worn them as a badge of honor, but I have begun to question my own narrative a lot recently.

Way back in 2007, I tracked what I was able to accomplish by hour on a spreadsheet. It was painfully obvious that after 8 hours of continuous work, my productivity dropped, but I convinced myself that it just meant I needed to work more hours to get the work done.

Another missive from Bertrand’s In Praise of Idleness, “A great deal of harm is being done in the modern world by the belief that efficiency is the supreme virtue, and that idleness is a vice.”

Not all activity is progress, and not all stillness is wasted time.

The Power of Strategic Pauses

In 1921, a 14-year-old boy named Philo Taylor Farnsworth was plowing a potato field in Rigby, Idaho, when inspiration struck. As he looked at the parallel lines of freshly tilled soil, he imagined a way to transmit images electronically by scanning them line by line, much like how a field is plowed in rows. This idea laid the foundation for what would become the first fully electronic television.

To conceptualize something as complex as the “image dissector tube” as a 14-year-old, Philo must have been a bright young man. Yet, he didn’t conceive of that transformative technology in a lab. In fact, Philo would later have to do battle with the behemoth Radio Corporation of America (RCA) over patent rights to his invention.

A pause in a potato field led to the invention of the most remarkable thing produced in the 20th century.

A moment of stillness, wherever and whenever it occurs, can spark breakthroughs that relentless effort regularly fails to produce.

The Science of Rest and Reflection

I’m not a neuroscientist, but I’ve skimmed enough studies to know what we all instinctively get — our brains need a break. When we step back, we get better at problem-solving, creativity kicks in, and we actually work smarter, not harder.

Yet, hustle culture, especially in the Western world, has convinced us that grinding non-stop is the only way to succeed. Research says otherwise. Studies on the default mode network (DMN) — the part of the brain that fires up when we’re not laser-focused — show that when we unplug, we give our minds space to form new ideas, connect the dots, and make sense of everything we’ve taken in.

That’s why some of our best ideas show up in the shower, during a walk, or right before we fall asleep. Our brains don’t shut down when we stop working — they recalibrate, sifting through everything in the background.

Bertrand Russell said it best, “The modern man thinks that everything ought to be done for the sake of something else, and never for its own sake.”

If giving our minds room to breathe makes us sharper, then slowing down on purpose might just be the smartest thing we do.

Practical Ways to Keep Momentum While Slowing Down

Slowing down doesn’t mean abandoning progress — it means making room for better progress. For me, the problem has always been slowing down without feeling like I’m falling behind. FOMO is a real thing.

Time-blocking for reflection. Most people treat thinking as an afterthought, squeezing it in between tasks or expecting inspiration to strike at random. But what if strategic thinking had a dedicated spot on your calendar? Set aside time — whether 15 minutes or an hour — just to reflect, brainstorm, or assess your next steps. Some of the most effective leaders schedule “no-meeting” mornings or block out time to process ideas, ensuring they’re working on the right things rather than just checking off tasks.

Intentional disengagement. I’m guilty of not following this one. A few days ago I noticed that I was checking my phone up to 20 times an hour, stealing glances at it constantly (I literally just did it subconsciously while writing that sentence.) Constant connectivity makes focus a rare commodity. Set up tech-free windows in your day — no emails, no instant messaging, no notifications — to let your mind process without interruption. This could be as simple as leaving your phone behind during lunch, designating the first hour of your morning as a quiet work zone, or even going offline entirely one day every month. I might be surprised by the clarity I gain in these moments.

Micro-pauses. Suppose you find it completely impractical to leave your phone behind for even an hour. Stepping away doesn’t have to mean taking a week-long retreat or even putting your phone in the freezer for an hour. Even a few minutes of disengagement can reset your mind. Close your laptop and step outside for five minutes. Stand up, stretch, grab a glass of water. Studies show that short breaks enhance focus, reduce mental fatigue, and improve decision-making. If you feel stuck on a problem, don’t force an answer — walk away, let your brain reset, and come back with fresh eyes.

Reframing “wasted time” as an investment. Productivity culture has convinced us that every minute must be accounted for, but some of the best investments in creativity and long-term success look, on the surface, like doing nothing. Leisure — reading, taking an aimless walk, enjoying a hobby — feeds problem-solving, fuels inspiration, and prevents burnout. The next time you feel guilty about stepping away from “real work,” remember that the mind does some of its best work when it’s not actively trying.

Small, intentional pauses don’t slow you down. They prevent burnout and wasted effort, making sure that every step forward is in the right direction.

Look, slowing down isn’t failure — it’s strategy. Learning when to pause can make the difference between running in mental circles and moving forward clearly and with purpose. It doesn’t mean losing momentum. It means making sure you’re running in the right direction.

A Pause, Not a Surrender

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

Wilfred Owen was a well known poet around the time of World War I. He wrote:

“Light many lamps and gather round his bed. Lend him your eyes, warm blood and will to live. But death replied, ‘I choose him.’ So he went, and there was silence in the summer night. Silence and safety, and the veils of sleep. And then, far away, the thudding of the guns.”

There’s something haunting in his words —a contrast between the quiet and what comes next. Silence before the storm. A pause before the battle.

In a privileged place during a privileged time, most of us living in the United States have never experienced war the way Owen did, bust most of us know the feeling of standing on the edge of something hard, knowing that there is an “effectual struggle” ahead. Sometimes, that moment right before we have to move forward can feel eerily still. If we’re not careful, we might mistake that stillness for defeat.

Crossroads and Course Corrections

A few years ago, I found myself in one of those moments where a pause felt a lot like losing.

It started like a lot of my stories do, with a run. I don’t run much anymore, but when I did, I ran with the same group of guys for years. We’ve had plenty of conversations over the years that go well beyond pace and mileage.

On one particular morning, one of my friends and I were running alone, and that morning was something different entirely.

My friend brought up an article I’d written, The Thing About Crossroads, and we started talking about pivotal moments in our lives — times when we’ve had to make decisions that would change our trajectory. He told me about his teenage years, about a moment when he stood outside a church, ready to walk away, only to hear a quiet but unmistakable whisper:

“If you leave now, you may never come back.”

It stopped him. He turned around, walked back inside, and that decision shaped the rest of his life.

I started sharing my own stories. I told him about my kids and their struggles, most of them commonplace for kids of that age. I told him about one of the most profound defining moments I had, sitting at Grandma Dee’s kitchen table, a crossroads I hadn’t thought about in years in years.

And then, without warning, I broke.

I stopped running. The weight of everything I’d been carrying hit me all at once. Standing on a canal trail behind houses near my home, I sobbed while my friend stood beside me, his hand on my shoulder.

For a brief moment, I was embarrassed. I hadn’t planned for this. I hadn’t scheduled an emotional breakdown into my morning run.

But I let it happen.

I let the weight press down on me. I let myself pause.

Then I kept going.

The Difference Between a Pause and Surrender

We have a tendency to believe that progress only looks like movement; always pushing forward; always doing more. Yet most of us know instinctively that’s not how life works. Sometimes, the most important moments come when we’re not moving or doing or trying to be anything other than what we are in that moment.

Dylan Thomas wrote:

“Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

Yet sometimes, a fight is not what we need. The soldier in Owen’s poem doesn’t fight when death calls. He doesn’t rage or resist. He just goes. The battle still rages on in the distance.

But we’re not talking about death. We’re not talking about the vicissitudes of old age. We’re talking about rest.

Not every pause is surrender.

Stopping to reassess, to grieve, or to feel the weight of the moment don’t mean giving up. They mean acknowledging where we are so that when we move again, we’re moving in the right direction.

Crossroads almost never come with flashing signs. Sometimes, often, they look like sitting at a kitchen table, realizing you’re not where you need or want to be. Sometimes they look like standing on a trail, catching your breath as tears run down your face.

And sometimes, they look like silence before the thudding of the figurative guns.

The fight’s not over until it’s over, but that doesn’t mean you have to charge into battle before you’re ready. It’s okay to take the pause and gather your strength. Then, when it’s time, move forward again.

Wonder Will Always Get Us There

 

Photo by Joshua Earle on Unsplash

I think I was eleven or twelve years old when one of my younger brothers and I decided that we could fix our broken lawnmower. My recollection is that it was the first gas-powered lawnmower we owned, and it was given to us by someone who had purchased a new one.

I remember the taxing work of using the push-style lawnmower, the kind powered the force of the person pushing it.

Being pre-teen boys, however, our intention wasn’t to fix the lawnmower to spare ourselves the difficult work of returning to the push-style. We’d grown up with that, so going back to doing it that way didn’t require any imagination.

Our plan was ambitious: turn an old lawnmower into a motorized go-cart. For weeks, we worked on building a heavy, sturdy wooden frame that we’d already tested by jumping on it. We repurposed the lawnmower’s wheels, attaching them to the frame, and engineered a steering mechanism that, in theory, was quite clever.

Steering relied on a plastic-covered cable tied to either side of the cart. Pulling the cable one way or the other would cause the front wheels to turn — though not nearly enough to navigate a 90-degree street corner. When faced with tight turns, we had to get off and manually shift the body another 45 degrees to keep going.

The big hill near our home was great for downhill tests. Our craft succeeded amazingly on the way down. Once on flat ground, and with no engine, we took turns pushing each other around on the heavy cart.

Fun? Absolutely.
Practical? Not even close.

That’s what had us so excited about the motor. We worked all morning one Saturday figuring out how to take apart the two-cycle engine. We exposed the piston and saw that it was seized, probably due to a lack of oil in the fuel mixture but we were guessing at all of it.

The end of that story is we got the piston moving again but after reassembling the engine it would never spark to life. Still, our friend-powered go-cart continued to serve our purposes on multiple occasions that summer.

Funny enough, both of us grew up to study engineering in school. I bet you didn’t see that one coming.

The Power of Curiosity

Neither of us was trained in small engine repair. We had no idea what we were doing, but wasn’t the point. We wanted to see what we could make with what we had. I once convinced myself I could reprogram our first cordless phone to be a universal garage door opener. That didn’t work either, but it was a lot of fun trying.

Somewhere along the way, many (most?) of us lose the spark of curiosity. Maybe it gets buried under the weight of routines — waking up, going to work, and cramming family responsibilities (or binge-watching TV) into the few hours left before bed. It feels safer to stick with what we know than to risk the unknown.

But curiosity isn’t hard to reignite. Years ago, I rediscovered mine. I’d always loved writing as a kid, but for a long time, I let it gather dust on the shelf. Then, on a whim, I started putting my thoughts on Medium. I don’t make enough from it to fund a monthly Del Taco run, but I love doing it. Sharing my ideas — even with a small audience — brings a similar joy to what I felt tinkering with projects as a kid.

Of course, curiosity doesn’t always guarantee success. Sometimes it means failing spectacularly — and that’s where the best lessons are hidden.

Lessons in Failure

Unless you give up, failure is often not the end of the story but where progress happens. Nils Bohlin, the Swedish engineer who invented the modern three-point seatbelt, understood this well.

In the late 1950s, Volvo tasked Bohlin with creating a safer, more user-friendly seatbelt. Early designs failed to distribute crash forces properly or were too hard for many passengers to use. But Bohlin persisted, refining his approach through countless iterations.

He eventually developed the three-point design: a strap across the chest and lap that was simple, effective, and life-saving. Volvo introduced it in 1959 and shared the design freely, saving millions of lives worldwide.

Bohlin’s efforts remind us that failure refines success. Persistence, even through setbacks, often leads to solutions that outlast us.

Bohlin’s story, like so many stories of triumph, is about persistence and highlights that experimentation is often required— the willingness to test, fail, adjust, and try again. It’s a mindset a bit like the playful curiosity we had as kids when tackling projects. Play isn’t just about fun; it’s a powerful way to discover new ideas, stretch our creativity, and learn without the pressure of perfection.

The Role of Play in Discovery

I love technology, but I’m often grateful I grew up before it was everywhere. I still remember the thrill of getting our first computer — and knowing it wasn’t a toy. My dad, a school teacher, taught himself coding to create educational games that became a hit in his district. Watching him crack open a manual and figure it out taught me that technology was about inspiring and supporting creativity. It had nothing to do with consumption. TV was still all we had for that — all 5 broadcast channels of it.

Also, technology wasn’t automatic. It was a challenge. I built my first computer from parts I bought at electronics stores, with no YouTube tutorials to guide me. It wasn’t about instant answers; it was about exploring and learning as I went.

Now, convenience has taken over. We swipe, tap, and let devices do the thinking. Don’t get me wrong. I love the convenience that comes from being able to look up an obscure debugger message and get help from thousands of good programmers, but sometimes the convenience leaves little room for wonder. To an extent, we’ve lost the joy that comes from struggling, failing, and figuring something out.

Admittedly, with so much going on in my life, I often take the path of least resistance, but do sometimes like embracing the messiness of trying something hard without relying on technology. That’s what makes my childhood projects such good memories — the process was imperfect, but it was meaningful. I wasn’t a consumer. I was a creator.

How Wonder Shapes Who We Become

It’s funny how a summer of cobbling together a friend-powered go-cart ended up being less about the ride and more about what it set in motion. At that stage of my life, I was still convinced I would grow up to be a zoologist or veterinarian.

At the time, I didn’t connect the dots between tinkering with a lawnmower and studying mechanical engineering years later. But looking back, it’s clear that those moments of trial and error — the hours spent testing ideas that rarely worked — laid a foundation for how I approach challenges even today.

Wonder Will Always Get Us There

We never got that engine running, and I never turned that cordless phone into a universal garage door opener. I didn’t grow up to be a mechanical engineer designing groundbreaking inventions, either. Instead, I’ve spent more than 25 years working in distribution-focused industries — far from the go-carts and gadgets of my childhood. But the spark I found as a kid, in the trying and failing, never left me.

That spark shaped how I approach problems today. When I see an issue worth solving, I rarely back down. There’s something about the process of figuring things out — whether it works or not — that still fuels me. It’s funny to think that the same curiosity and persistence that drove me to build a friend-powered go-cart now fuels the work I do as an adult. That little spark ignited a flame, and even after all these years, it continues to burn in ways that sometimes surprise me.

Where will wonder take you?

Like a Dog Catching a Car

 

Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash

In recent years, I’ve traveled extensively to a neighboring state for work. I’ve often found myself in one particular rural area. A dirt road passes in front of a house situated atop a small rise. The home, apparently a farm hand house, is adorned with a somewhat dilapidated, white picket fence. Enough slats are missing from the fence that it’s not even an inconvenience for the dog in the yard to break through and chase every car that goes by.

I suppose there is some kind of thought process that goes on in dogs generally. Otherwise, why would one dog lay placidly on a porch and not raise its head when a car goes by and another will chase it with all the reckless abandon of a four year old in a Batman costume.

I’ve wondered, though. What would that dog do if it caught the car? There’s no part of the car’s exterior that is susceptible to a dog’s bite, no matter how hard. At best, if the dog managed to latch on somehow, it would get dragged down the dusty rural road. At worst, it would get pulled under the tires, never to chase another car again.

One dusty afternoon, while that dog chased my Honda CR-V down the road, I pondered the question: when am I like that dog?

That question sneaks up on me at odd times, like when I see people scrambling to try something new just because it’s new. A Dutch Bros coffee shop opened near my neighborhood a couple of years ago, and the chaos was immediate. Residents in the adjoining neighborhood had to fight traffic just to leave their streets as police officers were called in to control the mess of cars lining up for coffee. This went on for days. A similar thing happened when In-N-Out opened nearby — and again when Raising Cane’s showed up.

I’ll never forget when a friend waited in his car for over three hours to get a burger at In-N-Out on opening day. Three hours! For a burger! Not to offend anyone, but In-N-Out isn’t even that good (in my opinion). And yet, there he sat, engine idling, inching forward as the minutes ticked by, chasing… what, exactly?

It’s easy to roll my eyes at those people, but then I think of all the times I’ve pursued something with the same single-minded determination, only to later wonder why.

The first thing that always comes to mind is my employment. I’ve spent plenty of time chasing metaphorical cars in my jobs. I’ve thought back on the ludicrous amount of time I’ve given to employers who have gotten rich directly as a result of my efforts. Like the dog, I’ve rarely stopped to consider the impact of the relentless pursuit of unattainable objectives.

Looking back on my life, I can’t count the number of early mornings, late nights, skipped dinners with my family, and sacrificed weekends spent chasing the approval of people more interested in profits than people. Like that dog, I’ve run myself ragged, hoping that catching some elusive reward would finally make the chase worth it.

The truth is, I’ve asked myself that question over and over: what will I do if I catch one of those rewards? What would having that thing change? What was I even really chasing? What I’ve learned along the way is valuable, but most of those pursuits feel as futile as the dog’s lunge at my passing car. The reward was never as satisfying as I’d imagined (does that make me a malcontent?), and the cost often felt heavier than the gain.

Remember the oft-quoted lines from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland when Alice asks the Cheshire Cat, “Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”

“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to.” The cat replies.

“I don’t much care where — ” Alice begins, then is interrupted when the cat says, “Then it doesn’t matter which way you go.”

How many of us in life, like that dog, chase things simply because they’re moving or because they seemed important in the moment? Then, when you finally catch the thing, you find yourself wondering, “What now?”

There’s an irony here. The more I reflect, the more I realize that satisfaction rarely comes in the chase. I’d be better off like the dog who shows no interest in the passing car than the frantic mutt running a race it has no hope of winning.

Of course, we’re not dogs, and there are things in life that are absolutely worth chasing. However, in the frenetic pace of the world today, it’s getting more difficult all the time to determine what’s really worth the chase.

Here are three practical tips for identifying what’s worth chasing.

1. Define Your Destination. Before you commit to a pursuit, ask yourself what success looks like. Are you clear about what you’re chasing and why it matters to you? Without a destination, as the Cheshire Cat pointed out, any path will do — but it likely won’t lead anywhere you meant to go.
2. Weigh the Costs. Every pursuit has a price — time, energy, relationships, or even peace of mind. Before you dive headfirst, consider the sacrifices involved. Are the potential rewards worth the cost, or are you better off investing your resources elsewhere or staying where you are for the time being?
3. Measure It Against Your Values. Sync your pursuits with your core values. Does what you’re chasing resonate with what you believe in? If it doesn’t, even achieving your goal might leave you unfulfilled.

It’s wonderful that we live in a time of endless opportunities to chase — new jobs, fleeting trends, promises of success, and shiny objects that catch our attention. Remember, not everything that moves is worth pursuing. Pause to reflect on what you value to save yourself the exhaustion of running after goals that won’t ever be the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow we hoped for.

Our Aim Must Exceed Our Grasp

 

Photo by Ben Kitching on Unsplash

It was June 2017 when Alex Honnold free soloed El Capitan in Yosemite National Park. The New York Times described it as “one of the greatest athletic feats of any kind, ever.”

Mr. Honnold became famous for succeeding. It is, without question, an incredible — singular — accomplishment. While you admire him for the feat, you can also criticize him for doing something so reckless. If he’d fallen to his death, the narrative would have become a cautionary tale to others who might consider the attempt.

Of course, Alex didn’t wake up one morning, strap on his La Sportivas, and go free solo El Capitan. He spent over a year preparing and training, climbing Freerider over and over again until he had literally memorized the sequence required to get to the top. He also spent considerable time learning to manage his fear.

I’m not a climber, but any good climber will tell you to plan ahead. You have to look for holds that align with your next move to both maintain flow and conserve precious energy.

Most people will never attempt what Mr. Honnold accomplished. Of course, we all have situations in life where the stakes can feel just as high. Diligence, repetition, and courage are required to face our own El Capitan.

The figurative free solo climbs we face often vary in intensity. Sometimes, the increase is gradual, like when we attend school and increase our knowledge of a particular subject over time. At other times, the intensity may appear all at once, like when dealing with a significant health struggle or the loss of a loved one.

J. Richard Clarke said something interesting: “We often perform below our ideals, but our aim must exceed our grasp if we would rise to a higher standard. . . success must be measured by effort and small improvements until we eventually reach our goals.”

Whether the climb is literal or figurative, when we’re preparing for something — or thrown into something — we bridge the gap from where we are to where we want to be by aiming higher than we think we can grasp and being willing to put in the effort.

When we fail at something, there’s a false idea that gets perpetuated that we’ve somehow wasted effort. Things that don’t require effort can sometimes be a waste of time, but even when our efforts are misguided, we often learn valuable lessons along the way. Failure is only really failure if we choose not to learn something from it.

It’s a bit macabre, but if Alex Honnold had failed in his climb, it likely would have meant the end of his life. Others, equal to that kind of physical challenge, may have studied where he went wrong in an effort to make a successful attempt themselves.

El Capitan is a good metaphor for the challenges we face in our own lives. Alex had to climb El Capitan a lot to figure out how to do it as safely as possible without ropes. We also put consistent effort into the things we want to achieve in life.

Sometimes, however, we find ourselves standing at the base of the cliff not really knowing what to do or where to go. We’ve always got the option of turning around, putting our back to the wall, and watching Netflix. Or, we can start climbing.

Maybe you’re in a spot in your life where you’re considering the next figurative climb. Are there challenges you’re avoiding because they seem too steep? I recently quit my day job and started two businesses. I wake up feeling pretty overwhelmed most days, but the first step is always easier than I think. The important thing is to aim high, but not so high that you miss the next critical hand hold or place to put your feet. When you find it, you begin to climb.

Had he fallen, Alex almost certainly would have died. Fortunately, falling in our daily pursuits won’t likely lead to sudden death. We’ll have an opportunity to dust ourselves off, recognize that we learned something, and try again.

Our aim always has to exceed our grasp. Most of us don’t expect perfection. If we’re open to it, we’ll realize that stretching for something just beyond reach is where we find our new potential. The climb, with its risks and rewards, is where we discover who we are and who we can become.

How to Become the Person You Forgot You Were

 

Photo by Artem Beliaikin on Unsplash

I was seventeen years old. I was in my bedroom yelling at my dad. He was seated on my bed.

I don’t remember the reason.

I do remember I’d been on my tirade for what seemed like a long time. I think I must have paused to let my surefire argument sink in, certain he would give in to whatever it was that I wanted to do which my parents hadn’t agreed with. . .yet.

“Is there anything else I can do for you?”

My dad uttered that question with all the patience of a bank teller who’s just finished helping a pleasant customer. Now, there was nothing uncharacteristic about my dad’s patience that day. My dad’s in his 70s now and I can truthfully say I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve heard my dad lose his cool. Ever. Patience, I think, is one of his superpowers.

His question, spoken with such calm, completely knocked me off balance.

My mom had passed away about two and a half years earlier. Suddenly, the two and a half years of bottled up frustration, anger, sadness, and a host of other emotions erupted out of my seventeen year old eyes. My dad — shorter than I — stood up and wrapped his arms around me while I sobbed.

It was, and remains, the most pivotal moment of my life.

Mind you, I wasn’t a teenager who was mixed up with other teenagers who were into doing bad things. I was a kid who had lost his mom, gained a bonus mom, and another brother in a short amount of time. I was a kid who didn’t know how to process the complex emotions I was dealing with.

Teenagers deal with a lot of complex emotions. To a person looking in, my behavior, while unacceptable, would be understandable.

The behavior that accompanied those pent up emotions, however, was not true to who I was then or who I am now. I’ve always been conflict averse. I’ve wanted to be friends with or at least friendly toward everyone.

So, I changed. I learned to deal with my emotions. I was extremely fortunate to be surrounded by some incredible friends many of whom are still my friends thirty years later.

Of course, life marched on. While my temperament hasn’t changed much, I’ve spent a lot of years fighting with some hard emotions related to some difficult relationships. I’ve complained a lot, but rarely — until recently — have I tackled the challenge of dealing with those emotions.

I quit my job. I started two companies, one of them with two of my very best friends. I’ve started making changes to my diet to improve my overall health.

I have some serious ground to recover from where I was even just a year ago. To that end, this is a list of five things I’m doing this year to move forward toward being the person I want to be.

Cut back on processed sugar. My sedentary lifestyle (over the last year) and consuming sugary drinks and foods has lead to rapid weight gain. I’m up 30lbs (~14kg) from where I was just a year ago. Sitting too much + too many sugary snacks = not feeling great. I’ve already begun substituting snacks with short walks and healthier options.

Sleep (a little) more. I‘ve struggled with sleep my whole adult life. Even as a kid, I was often out of bed by 6:00 am. As an adult, I’ve been getting up at 4:00 am (or earlier) every morning for more than two decades. Cutting back on sugar and virtually eliminating caffeine from my diet will help the quality of my sleep, even if the number of hours doesn’t go up that much.

Return to exercise. There’s no shortage of research on the health benefits of regular exercise. I used to identify as a runner. I can, and want to, be that again. I’m also planning to introduce some modest weightlifting to mix things up.

Reduce the purposeless things. This is a trap many of us fall into. Knowledge workers, in particular, often fall prey to the false notion that being busy = being productive. I habitually check my email 30 to 40 times a day. That’s gotta stop.

Cut myself some slack. None of those goals is particularly arduous. Taken together, however, opportunities abound to fumble. So, when I stumble and fall, I’m going to give myself some grace. Even baby steps in the right direction are progress. We celebrate actual steps taken by toddlers with all the excitement of our team winning the Super Bowl. Why not celebrate our own baby-step progress with the same enthusiasm?

Your struggles are probably different than mine. The five things listed above, however, are practical suggestions that can help anyone who finds themselves being different than who they want to be.

That experience with my dad was nearly three decades ago. For sure, life hasn’t gotten any simpler. The thing is, we’re never really stuck. The person I was then — hurt, confused, angry — wasn’t who I wanted to be, so I changed. My dad’s quiet response to my anger was all the motivation I needed to start moving in the right direction.

Whether for days or for years, we all have those times in life when we wake up to the realization that how we’re living doesn’t really line up with who we want to become. Discouragement is easy when there’s a wide gap, but every small step taken in the right direction closes that gap just a little bit more.

Here’s my recommendation (to you and to me): if you feel out of sync with yourself, start with something small, but that represents a significant step foward. Identify just one habit to tackle, one relationship to begin mending, or one goal to work on. I love the thought that progress doesn’t have to be perfect or linear — it just has to be progress.

When you stumble (because we all do), remember to be as patient with yourself as my dad was with me. Change takes time, grace, and even a little bit of stubbornness.

Remember this: with every step forward, you are becoming who you want to be.