Right Foot, Left Foot

Right Foot, Left Foot

There are going to be those mornings when your alarm goes off, you hit snooze more times than you care to admit, and when you finally manage to get up for the day you just don’t feel “on”. 

You might be lacking a little motivation to get the day moving. You might be a little tired after not getting to be early enough. You might be a little run down from a busy week of balancing taking care of your Self, your family, and work. You might just be going through a rough patch.

Whatever the reason for the lack of excitement for the day, acknowledge it and tell yourself “right foot, left foot”--or as my friend likes to say, “left foot, right foot”.

It doesn’t matter which foot you lead with–what matters is that you take that first step and then the next, and the next, and the next….

It was my “left foot, right foot” friend who first introduced me to this mantra. At the time we started texting this to each other, he had just unexpectedly lost his closest friend and was working through the emotions of the loss–it was a heavy time. He shared with me that his focus was just to take the next step…get moving and focus on taking that next step to finding his way through the tough times.

Sometimes you just have to focus on the next step and trust that step by step you will find your way through the day, the emotions or the challenging experience. If you never get moving forward with that next step, you’ll end up stuck with life passing you by. 

You don’t have to be working through a traumatic experience to focus on your next step–this is just as applicable for the days you wake up and just don’t feel like doing much. Many times that lethargic feeling goes away after you get moving and find the events of the day that excite you, but if you allow it to, it will consume you for the day or much longer. 

No matter what is contributing to your feeling of complacency, lack of motivation, or just feeling “blah”, you control how long those feelings will persist and it all begins with “right foot, left foot”.


See you tomorrow and keep pursuing,

JC

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Stephen Schiestel, CFA

Frederick S. Addy Endowed Professor of Practice in Finance at Michigan State University | Advisor | Writer | Speaker

1y

Great post. Many on the MSU campus are trying to do just that. Appreciate your ongoing insights.

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