My Sons First Steps!

 

My Son is eighteen months old now and has been standing up and walking around the house for quite a while now (holding onto the furniture that is), and a couple of months back he started to take the odd step or two forward with the sole intention of ‘falling’ into someone’s open arms.

Over the last week or so these steps have grown to three or four before his, leap of faith.

 

This morning however, he picked up a little plastic cup and (while following my wife) walked solo, and he kept walking, all the way from the kitchen, through the hall and into the dinning room, where he stood upright, still holding onto the cup, before he then passed the cup to me and sat down on the floor.

 

I was so proud!

 

From those first days when he would just sleep in the pram, to lying on his back in a bouncy chair, to being able to roll over on the carpet from his back to his front, moving up to his first cruffle (that’s what we called his crawl combined with a shuffle), then moving on to his first full crawl, to his first standing up and finally a sideways (holding on still), step or two.

 

It took such a long time for him to finally walk, falling down, time after time, after time, and perhaps not having the belief that he could do it.

 

But he did not give up.

And this morning saw the fruits of his labor.

 

A great achievement indeed.

So, having finally reached his goal, does he now stop?

Does he heck!

 

This, my friends, is just the start of his adventure, onwards and upwards, and always looking forward.

 

Making mistakes and falling down is not only a right of passage, it’s a necessity for your improvement and development.

 

When a person achieves a Black belt, they feel as though they have made it, they have finally achieved their goal, their dreams, and what do they do next?

They stop training!

 

That was not the finish, that was the start.

Getting to that level was simply you acquiring the tools you will need for your real training.

Just in the same way as my Son achieve his goal yesterday of walking, walking will move to running, running to jumping and jumping to sprinting, and who knows, maybe a future gold medal or two?

 

When you achieve your goals, do not stop there.

 

Think of what you want to do with those achievements, what you CAN do with them now, and where this next step will take you.

 

Falling down or finding something a struggle is not a reason to give up, it is a challenge to be tackled head on, and when you finally nail it you’ll be the better person for it.

Quitting is easy, don’t be a quitter. 

 

 

As a famous boxer once said,

“It ain’t about how hard you hit.  It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward.  

How much you can take and keep moving forward.  That’s how winning is done!”

Rocky Balboa. (A.K.A. Sylvester Stallone) 

 

 

They say the  journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step?

 

Well don my Son.

Here’s to the next 999, and beyond!