We start another year with hope that the bad things in our lives will change and that the good things that have happened to us will continue to follow us.  Perspective can change the way we look at things.  Profound statement isn’t it.  Let me tell you what I am thinking.

Over the course of years, I have sought to exercise and stay fit for the most part.  I was a physical education major in undergraduate studies at the University of Northern Colorado. I was planning on being one of the top high school coaches in football, basketball and baseball.  Not track.  I hated to run and my knees have been telling me that for years.  Soon after graduation, the course of my life changed and I stopped pursuing a career in coaching sports, but continued coaching relationships which I do today–life coach.

All that to say that I have sought to stay in shape over the decades since my college experience, but the last few months have been a change for me.  I quit exercising.  I quit biking.  I quit walking.  I quit going to the gym to exercise.  I quit.  Every morning I would wake up and not feel motivated to exercise and I wouldn’t.  As I looked on the day-upon-day of not exercising, my perspective of myself began to change.  I would see others exercising, and it caused me to look negatively upon myself in this area of my life.  I was losing hope that I would ever move in a positive direction.  Until last night.

I had a dream and a thought of taking one step at a time in this area.  In fact I woke up and the first thought on my mind was to get up.  Put on my sweats.  Put on my sweat shirt–the old light blue faded one with a faded surfing wave on the front with cut off tattered sleeves.  Put on my black Nike shoes.  Get my bluetooth earphones and phone.  Put my keys in my pocket.  And step by step move toward the garage door.  I did it.  I was out the door to exercise for the first time in months.

My exercise routine was slow and methodical.  I worked on the elliptical for a bit and lifted some weights, concluding with some time in the sauna before leaving the workout facility.  But I did it.  My focus was on today and what I did–today.  If I look at my past, I could very easily get down and discouraged.  But my perspective was riveted on what I did this morning, and I feel good.  It is one step in the process of changing my perspective of me.

This is a new year.  It’s not a new year resolution, but a mindset that I am working on changing one step at a time.  The journey is a life lived out one step at a time.  What step do you want to intentionally change today.  It begins with that one step.