Here’s a riddle for you, what does working out and renovating a house have in common? You know, besides leaving you sweaty and muscles sore that you hadn’t the faintest idea even existed.

Baby steps, and a hell of a lot of patience.

We’ve been renovating our house for over 5 years now. I’ve been running for over 3 years, and working out almost daily for over a year. When we started renovations I thought we’d have a mostly picture-perfect looking house in a year. When I started working out I thought I’d have abs in a month.

I can hear you laughing at your computer, you know. So rude.

It sometimes feels like the themes of my life are resilience and patience. I can, unfortunately, relate too deeply with Violet Beauregarde when she yells “I want it now.” I’m impatient and itchy. I hate to admit it, but I do want it now. but the reality is that nothing works like that, especially not the good stuff. Well, maybe it does for Paris Hilton, but even she has to work to get abs (unless they have plastic surgery that can do that now? Don’t even tell me, I don’t want to know).

“The key is over time. Success is built sequentially. It’s one thing at a time.”
– Gary Keller

Every house project, every work out, every run, has only been finished by me focusing on each step. One at a time. One foot in front of the other. One piece of wallpaper scraped at a time. One painful burpee by painful burpee at a time. Usually, it’s at best dull, and at worst physically painful (both the workouts and the house work), but every time I’ve finished, I step back and feel the pain of the work melt away and satisfaction wash over me. The workout over, I breathe deeper. But it’s only with bull dogged determination and willingness to take those baby steps that things get done. I always walk away feeling like queen of the world after, even when rewatching The Office on Netflix for the 800th time sounded so much better then going to the gym or spending hours spackling a room. In the end I am always so glad I took those first steps, otherwise I wouldn’t be running now.