Making Steps Manageable

In my post, Small Steps, I described how a close friend and I regularly talk about breaking our recoveries into small steps; each step building on the last, but none building too far. In the post, Mike's World Tour, I described how I took a month-long trip from New Zealand to South East Asia to see how capable I was to travel. I did this before taking a year long world trip while I waited for my brain injury fatigue to reduce enough for me to work better.

My friend and I have an ongoing debate about whether this month long trip was a small step. I admit that, from the outside, it looks a fairly massive thing to take on. Yet I still argue strongly that it was a small step. I do so because it was very manageable.

It was manageable because I had a reasonably clear idea of what the difficult areas would be for me: coping with fatigue, coping with lots of very unusual situations. It is true that, although I had a clear idea of what the problems might be, I didn't know how big they might be. But, if my "small step" had gone badly, it wouldn't have been the end of the world. I was on a tour and could have holed up in my tour bus and hotel rooms and got through any big problems. In addition, I was lucky enough to have members of my family along with me to help me out if any one situation went wrong. In the end, though, my "small step" went well and I got enough confidance to embark on my longer trip.

I guess, to me at least, that's the true definition of a small step, It's small because I've made it manageable. I know the issues will likely be and, if things go wrong, it won't be the end of the world.

Cheers,
Mike