I’m certain that many of us remember a really hilarious movie of a few years ago called, What About Bob, featuring Richard Dreyfuss as a psychiatrist and Bill Murray as his patient whose anxiety was so great that it led him to showing up at the time and place where the psychiatrist was on vacation with his family.
Aside from all the humorous twists and turns that make the movie a terrific one to revisit – or see for the first time, a part of the movies that has endured is the concept of Baby Steps. While this wasn’t the first or only use of the term, an big part of the movie’s theme revolved around the the book that the psychiatrist wrote on the topic, and how he encouraged his patient to make healthy changes by taking baby steps.
Even apart from the movie, the concept makes a lot of sense. When changing behaviors it is important to recognize that one rarely achieves success overnight or goes from “nothing to everything”. Whether it’s learning a new skill or starting a new job or beginning a diet or exercise program, it is important to accept that fact that change takes time. Don’t be discouraged when change doesn’t occur quickly; it rarely does. One of The Mental Health Gym’s 5 P’s of the healthy personality is Persistence.
Persistence while taking baby steps in the right direction is a formula for success.