Watch Your Feet, Not the Mountain

There was a hill near my house when I was a kid, and I hated it.

Every time I biked home I’d look up at the top, calculate how far away it was, and get off and walk. Every single time. The distance was demoralizing before my legs were even tired.

Eventually I started cheating. I stopped looking up. I put my eyes on my feet and counted the pedal rotations — one, two, three, one, two, three — and kept counting until something made me look up. And when I did look up, I was almost always startled by how far I’d come.

I have been telling clients about that hill for twenty years, because it turns out to be most of what I know about change.

The order is wrong in your head

Here is how nearly everyone assumes change works: first you feel motivated, then you act, then things get better.

Here is how it actually works, every time, without exception:

Decision and belief. Then action. Then, eventually, the feeling.

You decide you’re going to be a person who does this thing. You act like that person before you feel like that person — awkwardly, mechanically, going through the motions. And then, considerably later than you’d like, the feeling shows up and makes it easy.

That gap is where almost everyone quits. Two days of eating well does not make you feel healthy. Three weeks of speaking kindly to yourself does not make you feel worthy. People correctly observe that they don’t feel any different yet, incorrectly conclude the approach isn’t working, and go back to what’s familiar.

Waiting for the feeling first is the single most common reason people don’t change. If you’re waiting to want to quit smoking before you quit, you may be waiting for a day that never arrives. The runner looks forward to the run eventually. Not in week one.

Small steps are not a consolation prize

People hear “start small” as an insult — as though it’s what you say to someone who can’t manage the real thing.

It isn’t. Small is how traction works. Strength begets strength.

Say you’re out of shape and your back hurts. Your first step is probably not the gym. It might be seeing a doctor about your back. Then a better mattress. Then eight hours of sleep instead of six. Then a five-minute stretch in the morning. Then a walk around the block. None of those is a fitness goal in any impressive sense, and every one of them is a real step in the right direction, and you cannot skip them by wanting to more intensely.

And here is the part that matters most: any step in the right direction is still a step in the right direction. Even if you never reach the destination, you got stronger on the way. You also demonstrated something to the part of you that’s always watching — that you’re worth the trouble, that you keep the agreements you make with yourself. That message alone changes people.

Focus on the rotations, not the summit

Attachment to the outcome is corrosive, because outcomes move slowly and invisibly while effort happens daily and visibly.

So change what you’re measuring. If your goal is doing well in school, stop refreshing the grade portal — track hours studied. If your goal is fitness, stop watching the mirror — track miles walked. Watch your feet. Not because the destination doesn’t matter, but because your feet are the only thing you can actually do something about today, and staring at the summit mostly produces discouragement.

There’s a bonus in this. Watching your feet keeps you in the present moment, which is the only place where any of the work happens anyway.

Setbacks are structural, not a verdict

You will slide back. Not might. Will.

Change is not a straight line and it never has been. It ebbs, and people get discouraged specifically at the ebb, and interpret it as proof that they were never going to manage it.

When you slide, the move is to hold steady rather than tumble to the bottom. Pause. Catch your breath. If you were biking daily and it collapsed, bike three times a week. Back off the pace without abandoning the direction. Take a real break if you need one, and start again slowly. The one thing that turns a setback into a failure is letting it become the excuse to quit.

And when you fall, notice which voice you use on yourself. Imagine saying to a baby learning to walk: “Wow, you fell spectacularly. You’ll never walk. Stop trying.” None of us would be upright if that had been the coaching. Babies are fortunate — they don’t have discouraging inner parents yet.

Assume every new thing you attempt comes with a period of awkwardness and rookie failures. That is what learning looks like from the inside. If you’re never failing at anything, you’re probably not leaving your house much.

The month I told nobody

The hardest thing I ever did was quit smoking, and I failed at it for years.

My method for most of those years was to announce it. Next Monday, I’m quitting. I’d tell anyone who would listen. And it never worked, and now I understand why: I wasn’t quitting for me. I was quitting to quiet my shame about the addiction, to prove I was okay, to please the people who loved me and were rightly worried. My intention was to be good enough. That’s the intention that always collapses.

Then one day, smoking what turned out to be my last cigarette, something shifted. I realized I needed to do this because I did not want to be controlled by it. Not for anyone else. And I decided to tell absolutely no one.

It took a month before anyone noticed.

The first week was awful — cravings every few minutes. I had a rocking chair, and I rocked through each one. I slept a great deal, ate too much, drank a lot of coffee, got almost nothing done, and was unpleasant to be around. I did not lose my job, my relationships, or my mind, all of which I had been quite sure were at stake. It was one decision remade several times a day for a long time — which is what people in AA mean by one day at a time, and what newly sober people mean when they say one minute at a time.

About a month in, I found a full pack of cigarettes and a lighter abandoned on a park bench. Nobody around. I sat next to it for a while. Then I remembered what I’d promised myself, got up, and walked away.

That was the moment I knew I valued myself more than I valued what a cigarette would give me for four minutes. It was completely private. No one applauded. It remains one of the most important things that has ever happened to me.

Nobody climbs a mountain in one step. Watch your feet, keep the direction, and look up occasionally to be surprised.

Lori A. Strayer, M.Ed., LPC, is a licensed professional counselor and the author of Solid Inside: Cultivating Authentic Self-Worth and Lasting Inner Peace. Nothing here is a substitute for care from a licensed professional. If you are in crisis, call or text 988.