Here in Spain, the dogs and I count our kilometres and donate them to a charity that raises funds for research into multiple sclerosis. Our goal is always to walk at least the same number of kilometres as the year: 2022 km this year.
Over the past few years, I’ve only counted our “real walks” of minimum three or four kilometres and not even bothered to set the app on my phone if I was only walking down the road to the supermarket. But after last year, when both Maiki and I myself had injuries that prevented us from walking for several weeks, I began this year to set the app for all of our walks, even the shorter ones.
And on Thursday, I really noticed the difference this has made. When I calculated our running total for the end of March, I discovered that we’d already clocked up 968km - which puts us almost half way to our annual target. In previous years, we had only reached around 600 km by the end of March.
Sometimes we don’t bother to count, or even notice our small successes, because we think they’re not big enough to make a difference. Sometimes we don't even bother to try, because we believe we're not able to do something big enough. This week, I found proof that lots and lots of small efforts really do add up to a big difference.
What aspect of your life has got you feeling discouraged at the moment? Instead of thinking about all the big things you can't do to bring a change, just step out and do some of the small things that will make at least some kind of difference.
The picture is of my gang (Nelson, Hugo, Maiki and Buba) posing proudly for this month’s milestone photo. Getting two to hold their “sit” and the other two to hold their “down” wasn’t the hard part; getting all four of them to look at the camera at the same time took five attempts!!
