Imagine you're on a scenic walk and you come across a raised cliff. It stretches to the horizon in both directions and is at least as tall as you so that it poses an obstacle in your path. To proceed with your walk, you have two choices: you can take the cliff head-on and attempt to scale it in one go, or you can look around for a flight of stairs or a ramp that helps you rise to the required elevation and ascend to the other side. Which option would you go for? This may seem like a no-brainer, at least when posed in such simple, everyday terms. But it isn't, because when it comes to our pursuits, we tend to disregard the latter and opt for the former.
While modern architecture has socialised us to know better than to scale a raised cliff or elevated structure, this option remains the more tempting approach in our everyday pursuits. Perhaps it's something in our human nature, a hardwiring that makes us seek what appears to be the most efficient path. Why go up a flight of stairs, climbing a dozen or more small steps in the process when you can take one huge leap and ascend to the same altitude in less time? It sounds appealing when we lay out the logic like this, until we consider the obvious, that we're ill-equipped to take huge leaps, and when we do, we’re likely to crash and fall, hurt ourselves and make it harder and less likely to want to try again.
The thing about small steps is that they're manageable. Each small step helps us get to the next level with the limited resources we have, enables us to see just ahead, and prepares us for what's to come. Each small step may represent a milestone, a new height reached, a new accomplishment to celebrate, or some progress made en route to a loftier height or destination, and these little wins energise us to keep going until we get to the hallowed ground that is the apex of our dreams. Succinctly put, without the ability to take small steps, we would hardly make any progress, but enough about the abstract. What does this all look like in concrete terms, you might ask?
Say you're starting out learning a new skill or hobby like knitting, painting, or playing the guitar. You might have a visualised goal in mind, of wanting to make a cardigan for a loved one, wanting to paint a portrait of your dog, or wanting to play a song at your friend’s wedding. You'd be tempted to think you could pick it up and after one lesson or session, you'd have everything you need to actualise your goal. Buy some needles and threads and sit with them for an hour, and out comes a cardigan; take a painting lesson, go home and splatter some oil paint on a canvas, and it'll all come together to form a recognisable likeness of your pooch; watch a few tutorial videos on YouTube and practise a few chords for an hour and you're all set to play live music at a wedding. We've all been there, and we've all learnt the hard way that progress isn't so simple.
It behoves us to think of each little step as a mini-sequence of the montage. Traversing each step might look like learning to play the same three chords over and over for weeks, it might mean playing through the pain with sore, callused fingers, it might mean practising playing and singing at the same time in a dark room without visual aids until your fingers know just what to do without thinking, it might mean playing one song to a few trusted friends to get feedback on how to improve before trying out a more public venue. Whatever it is, each small step prepares us for the bigger things that lay in store in the future, tasks that we’ll be nowhere near able to take on without the lessons we’ve picked up along the way, the small wins we collect under our belt, and the contributions to our confidence.
When I think back to the start of my artistic career, I remember having goals and dreams along the lines of wanting to play at nice music venues and wanting to write and release fiction and non-fiction books. It has taken several years to achieve some of these goals, and there are many more I continue to work towards. That said, I realise now, with the benefit of hindsight, that if by some miracle all the opportunities I dreamed of had landed in my lap on day one, I would have been ill-equipped to make the most of them. I see now that there were dozens of small steps I had to take through the years to prepare me for some of the bigger things that I’m now doing, and the things I’m yet to do. I know that I have much further to go, and still so much more to learn, and it is through this lens that I don’t beat myself up when, now and then, I get the occasional feeling that I’m not making enough progress or things aren’t moving along quickly enough. It helps me to reframe this by reminding myself that I’m taking the small steps I need to take now to prepare me for the things that are yet to come. Of course, whether this is the right way to reappraise these feelings remains to be seen. What I know is that this is a continuous process, in keeping with the philosophy that in whatever pursuits we set our minds to, it’s all about the journey, not the destination.
It is tempting to wish we could take huge leaps, scale insurmountable obstacles and reach lofty heights all in one go, but this is a surefire way to crash and burn. Perhaps we should adopt a different approach to progress. Perhaps it behoves us to take small but measured steps because as the old saying goes, we shouldn’t despise the days of humble beginnings.
P.S.: My middle-grade novella, A Hollade Christmas, and my debut non-fiction book, Art Is The Way, are out everywhere now. You can get them in all good bookstores and from all major online vendors.