How do you measure your progress? What boosts your confidence? Why is it so easy to underestimate ourselves?

Pause for a moment, if you will, and imagine some big goal or dream or objective that you may have in mind.

There you are, tiny as an ant, staring up the slope of Mount Everest. The heights are almost unimaginable, the path is steep, the view from the summit is obscured by clouds.

You may have gazed at this lofty goal many times, shrugged your shoulders, turned your back, and walked away. But try as you might to forget it, you keep catching a glimpse of it out of the corner of your eye. It haunts you.

In many ways, it’s easier to talk yourself out of ever starting. After all, you can’t fail if you never begin. But your soul knows better, it’s got an eye on the prize and keeps nudging you to take the leap.

One thing to remember is that there are more unknowns than knowns when it comes to achieving something. You know who you are now, but you can only imagine what it will be like to be the person who does the thing, learns the practice, or achieves the goal.

You can’t know precisely what the view will be once you get there, but it’s a law of nature that the opportunities, open doors, and levels of confidence will be vastly different than what you perceive on the starting line.

The fear is that you may bite off more than you can chew and fall flat on your face. Therefore, the key is to figure out the size of the bite that you can make a daily habit of and stick with it.

The ancient riddle asks: How does one eat an elephant? The answer, of course, is one bite at a time.

When the goal is conceptual, you are being a dreamer. When you commit to making daily progress, you are being someone different. You are now being a person on the path.

You may still be a rank beginner with many miles to go, but tackling what you can manage on a regular basis puts you in the company of those at the top. That’s a much different place to be than one of the dreamers gazing at the summit from afar.

The trick is to figure out how much you can handle on the regular in order to stick with it. The corollary is to banish judgment from your mind and learn how to not be hard on yourself.

Because here’s the thing — if you can just manage to put judgment aside and make a little effort every day without thinking about it too much somewhere along the line this magical thing will happen.

You will get a compliment out of left field. Someone will point to your progress and it will shock you. Some little morsel of third-party validation will make you realize that you’re further along the path than you’ve given yourself credit for.

And that, my friend, will be the wind in your sails that you need.

It’s like me when I was learning how to DJ. Matching the beats from two different records seemed like something that only folks who were born with some God-given talent could manage. Having the confidence to pull it off in front of a crowd of dancers seemed impossible.

But I found myself in a situation where I could play in private and thought, “What the hell, I’ll just mess around with it for a little while every day.”

It wasn’t until I found myself DJing in the side room of a little party and someone came up to me saying “I loved that mix!“ that I started to realize I could make it happen.

To underestimate oneself is to be an ordinary human. To stick with something until it’s visible to others makes you extraordinary. Just remember — one bite at a time!

And with that, let the holiday feasting begin!

Much love till next Monday, the last one of 2025!

Merci et à bientôt!

M+

ML #659

Mark Metz
Monday Love Movement Calendar