In 2009 Miley Cyrus released a song entitled, The Climb. She sings about this mountain that stands tall in front of her and how impossible it seems to ever reach the top. She sings about this little voice telling her that she is not going to make it. Every step feels like she is lost without a road map telling her where to go, but regardless of how impossible it seems, she keeps on climbing. This analogy is so apt in terms of life.
Every day we are confronted with these impossibly high mountains and just when it seems as though we finally got a hang of climbing it, our map indicates a wrong turn and we have to start all over again. Just like climbing a mountain, it is exhausting. How do we deal with this? How do we keep climbing? It is almost like eating an elephant, you have to eat it bit by bit; take it day by day; climb step by step.
We should also learn to celebrate the little things; the small victories. If you look up at the mountain and you deem yourself as a failure just because your first attempt at climbing the mountain did not work, you are not only not reaching the top, but you are holding yourself to an impossible standard. We are all humans! We do not reach the top of the mountain the first time we climb it and that is okay!
Each person has their own journey to, in the end, reach their goals and although it is a cliché, the quote “nothing worth having ever comes easy” is such an apt motto we can all live by. So next time you have this mountain of a problem that lies ahead, remember that one can only eat an elephant one bite at a time.