Tiny Steps Past the Impossible

There’s power in doing things our brains told us we could never do.

But these impossible things don’t have to be immense, gargantuan tasks! They can be tiny.

Here's a tiny impossible thing I did yesterday, for instance:

I edited a video to include a graphic with some theme music.

That’s right, y'all.

I hope you are super impressed by my ingenuitive talent and technological virtuosity.

It was an important lesson, though, in noticing that this tiny step did basically the same thing in my brain as much larger and scarier leaps I've taken in the past.

So this is what happened.

Someone challenged me to polish up the videos I'm making for my free storytelling training next week.

Immediately, I was like, no I am absolutely not doing this.

Because I would have to learn a new thing and spend all this time and energy figuring it out. And what if after all of that, I couldn't even get it how I wanted. And then I'd feel like a failure. Plus, it’s such a small thing; would it even matter?

But I could see it pretty much right away: all of these thoughts were just automatic responses from my brain as it tried to fortify the walls of impossibility that were starting to shake in the rumblings of newfound creativity, curiosity, and possibility.

And this is why it mattered that I spent two hours figuring out how to add 5 second of music and a graphic to my videos:

Because it put a crack in the solid, stone wall of “nope, not possible” that lives in my brain.

Doing impossible things is like guerrilla warfare (or nonviolent direct action) for the liberation of possibility and freedom of movement in my own self.

If I can interrupt my brain before it automatically shuts down a new, scary, unknown thing, I can start to change everything about how I live my life, step into the world, and create what I want.

And low-stakes situations are perfect ways to do this.

So what impossible thing could you do today? What possibility has your brain written off as an automatic “no” that you might reclaim?

Doing this impossible thing might not "matter" in a linear sense, but I will tell you: it's a delicious and deeply satisfying thing to feel walls of impossibility crumble to the ground in your own self.

Finding Our Way Back

Getting off track is part of the process.

This is what I try to remind myself when I’m frustrated with my progress, or when I’ve fallen (yet again) into the grooves and patterns I’ve been trying to unlearn.

I remind myself that we forget so that we can remember.  And that it’s the work of going back in, returning to the practices I know work for me, and trying again that deepens transformation.

When we learn (again) what we already know, we’re building resiliency and capacity.

So there’s an opportunity in these moments of failure and frustration to remember that living a good life isn’t about doing it perfectly or always staying on track – it’s about finding our way back and developing practices of pausing, noticing, and returning to what we know in those hard moments.

So if things go awry, no need to panic!  You have what you need to take that first step back toward where you want to be.