I don’t remember how I found my way to the One Fit Widow Facebook page or even when I found my way there. My lapse in memory makes me think it must have happened in the first week after my dad died because I spent much of that particular week in cocoon of shock. I quickly came to love the page because Michelle uses her space on Facebook to inspire, challenge, and believe in people. She encourages the use of baby steps towards the brilliant, fulfilled life we all want to live instead of trying (and failing) to make huge leaps before we are ready.

One of the most painful conclusions I’ve had to come to recently is accepting that I am not nearly as disciplined as I need to be in order to live the life I am quick to say I want to live. Admitting I have a problem is the first step, right?. But as so frequently happens when I look the truth about my flaws in the face, I was tempted to make grand pronouncements and onerous resolutions in order to change drastically as quickly as possible. Sure, I’ve tried and failed to do just that in the past, but this time I was really going to mean it. This time I didn’t just have my dread of the agony of a half-lived life to motivate me; I also had the cold reality of how quickly death can snatch a person from the land of the living slapping me in the face. Surely, surely this meant I would take my quest to become my higher, better self as swiftly as possible seriously.

Call it the wisdom of past disappointments or the unwillingness to lie to myself anymore, but I knew in the depth of my being the leaps and bounds I planned to grow by were not going to be successful. I’m not a leaps and bounds kind of girl. At least not yet. So I chose to grow by baby steps. My baby steps are exercising for 30 minutes every day, writing 1,000 words a day, and posting here every day (which does not count towards my 1,000 words). I’m only on day six so the progress towards my better me seems minimal in some ways. But I’m honestly a bit amazed that I haven’t flaked out on any of these steps yet. That’s real progress, which tells you just how much I generally suck at consistency. Thus far, I’ve written a total of 8,341 words, exercised for 3.5 hours, and posted on P&O six days in a row. In moments when I’m tempted to think my baby-stepped progress isn’t a big enough deal to motivate me to do whatever baby step comes next, I try to imagine what I’ll feel like on March 1st and what steps I’ll be disciplined enough to take from there.

And now I leave you with a clip from one of my well-loved films. Enjoy!