Do you sometimes feel that today is the same as yesterday? And that tomorrow will probably be the same as today? That perhaps things are never going to change? That the same things are constantly holding you back? Feelings like this are not unusual and they are a good example of problems that we face in our daily lives.

However, if you are feeling like this or have another problem that you would like to resolve in your life, one of the most important questions to answer is ‘what can you do about it to make yourself happier’?

From time to time, we feel powerless to overcome ‘big problems’ because we see them as so overwhelming and seemingly impossible to resolve, however if we were to reduce the same ‘big’ problem into a series of smaller ones, how would that change your view of the situation?

For example, if you have never run a marathon before, one small-ish but effective way (among others) could be to train by starting running a mile on your first day and then run one extra mile a day to build up your stamina to deal with the rather bigger problem of completing 26 miles/42kms. The idea of course is that it is a much smaller and thus potentially more achievable objective and once we have that sense of success, it motivates us to achieve more, which in this case is competing the marathon.

So, a few questions for you to consider:

– What is your ‘marathon’?
– How can you break that down into smaller and more manageable steps?
– What are those steps for you?
– How can you incorporate that into your daily life?
– And what is your first step going to be?