Stepping Stones

Look back and see how far you've come.

Yesterday I drove to pick up the groceries. This does not sound like a big deal. In many ways, it's not. However, I didn't start learning to drive until I was seventeen. I didn't get my full licence until I was 29. Since then, I've hardly driven. I owned a car for about six months, and then I sold it to go travelling. I haven't owned one since. This means that when I do get behind the wheel of a car, I can be a bit nervous. I'm fine driving my dad's car to and from the hill where we walk the dogs. I'm great at driving to their local coffee shop. These are drives I've done a hundred times. Those places, though, are out in the country. Built up cities make me nervous. I still hate traffic, and I live in fear of multi-lane highways where I have to change lanes in busy traffic.

When I was in Adelaide, a friend leant me her car a few times. If you live in Adelaide, having a car is almost essential to get to see the amazing countryside that surrounds the city. I forced myself to drive up into the hills, battled with multi-lane roundabouts, got honked at that time I got confused about which lane I was meant to be in. I hired a car for the first time when I visited Kangaroo Island. I got stuck in sand in the middle of nowhere. I got lost in a National Park in the middle of the night with no cellphone reception. These experiences weren't great fun at the time, but they built up my resilience, they gave me examples of times I had done a hard thing, so I could know, the next time that I faced a difficult driving situation, that I would be OK, that I could get through it.

When I hired a car in Tasmania I was hardly nervous at all. I drove from Devonport to Cradle Mountain, and down to Hobart, getting to see sights that I simply couldn't have if I didn't have my own vehicle. All of this built up to mean that when I needed to do the quick drive to the supermarket yesterday, it didn't feel as hard or as scary as it would have a year ago.

Isn't it funny how we tell kids that we just have to practise things to get better at them, yet as adults we so often expect to be good at things straight away? It's hard doing things that make us uncomfortable, but each time we do, we grow a little more, we gain a new skill, or a new experience. When I got stuck in the sand on Kangaroo Island, I remembered previous hard things I'd figured a way out of. I stayed calm, which let me use my head (something we can't do so well when we're panicking) and remember that your cars usually have better reversing than going forward momentum, so I could get out.

Yesterday, I took a wrong turn, got caught out by roadworks that led to a detour, and ended up stuck in traffic. However, experience and perspective meant that I got through them without it turning into a big deal.

What was a big deal though? Being able to do something that a few years ago, I would have been too scared to do. Looking back and seeing that each new stepping-stone had taken me further, and that now, I was in a place I never would have dreamed I could have reached before.

What stepping stones are you grateful for? What's one small step you can take today towards a goal you want to achieve? Let me know, I'd love to chat!