In order to see change in your life, we’re often told to just get started. Just take the first step. Do something different, anything, just get started.

My job lends itself to sitting in a chair, thinking a lot, and sharing those thoughts with my colleagues—and I then choose to accept or discard those thoughts. More on that later…

Like most people, in my spare time I try to read and talk about things that make me a better person. During the day, however, I have my “pressing duties” at work and my family life that often occupy all of my available thinkspace. When do I put into practice the things I’ve been learning? Things like seeking adventure, being available for others, going places you’ve never been, and there are many others. They all seem to be antithetical to the work life that I have been engaged in for 16 years.

For today, a symbolic walk was my proving ground. I’m fortunate to live in a place of extensive natural beauty. During the day I primarily see faux partition walls and people walking around with a look of quasi-hopelessness. Having finally had enough of the status quo, I stood up, went outside, and walked in a direction I’ve never been. I went down a road, and a path, and a field that are not mine, that I haven’t seen before, and I may have even been trespassing at one point? Nonetheless, I explored. And after walking for 15 minutes I saw things from a different perspective. Literally. I was 60 feet higher in the air and could see the freeway, the mountains, the plains, all of it! I went on a path that was not maintained and I was less than comfortable in ways but I stuck with it.

Is any of this sounding familiar? If you read/listen to any self-help or self-betterment books/blogs/podcasts then these are the metaphors that are used to describe a life that leads away from the status quo. It was a purely symbolic exercise for me and I didn’t have any real goal other than accomplishing the chosen task. But I started to physically and mentally learn the purpose of these exercises and ways of thinking about life. I would start to get scared (“is it alright to walk this far off the curb on what could be someone’s land?”) or concerned that I couldn’t walk through untamed land, in work clothes, up a hill, both ways, in the snow…that sentence got away from me. But seriously, I would start to wonder if I could/should go on and each time I just answered “yes.”  That’s it.

That is the method my online mentors, who have no idea who I am, have taught me over the years.

And now I get it.

It really is all about that first step. And just taking it.