Take Baby Steps 🐾

They still move you forward.

It’s 8 pm in Okeafa. The national grid has fallen again. About the third time this week and the weather is hotter than lagos beaches during summer.

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I’m sitting in a corner of my parlour close to the door to get air, my phone in one hand and the TV remote in the other.

Olamma is learning how to walk.

She’s been practicing how to walk since she turned 9 months in October.

Olamma in her element

I’m watching as she takes two, three, four steps before falling or going back to crawling again. Her steps are tiny and wobbly.

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My wife and I get excited and cheer whenever she completes a move. She’s excited too and smiles back at us in a way that shows she’s proud of herself, she even claps sometimes.

It’s beautiful to see. Your cute little baby that was born yesterday can now move around and is actively putting in the work to be just like you — up and running.

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Life is in stages!

But the issue is we don’t allow ourselves to be appraised by the metrics of each stage.

We worry about how we are not doing well enough and miss out on the progress we should be celebrating.

Exactly how you can celebrate a baby for walking — a commonplace activity with adults — is how you should celebrate yourself for reaching a milestone in your life, regardless of how trivial you or anyone thinks it is.

Baby steps are called so because your moves are expected to be wobbly, you’re to fall countless times like our ‘national grid’ and go back to walking again, you’re not expected to be perfect at it.

Baby steps still move you forward!

A child gives their all to see themselves move with their two legs. While this may be pretty easy for you as an adult, it takes a whole lot from them, but they never stop trying regardless of how many times they fall. The same way you should block out the noise pointing you to the pace of your growth, your progress and focus on one thing — continuous improvement.

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Today, take tiny wobbly baby steps towards action. You can make so much progress in one year by doing a few small things consistently than in 29 years of overthinking and massive to-do lists.

Remember, before the boss trips na the baby steps, take your time.