Is It Still My Way?

Lately, I have been thinking a lot about my vision.

I know where I want to go.

I want to work therapeutically, build my own practice and develop a professional identity that truly feels like mine.

When I think about this future, it feels exciting. Meaningful. Right.

But between me and this vision lies something slightly less exciting:

Exam preparation.

And apparently, having a clear vision does not magically make my brain excited about memorizing definitions from psychopathology at 7 a.m.

Some mornings, I sit down to study and feel motivated.

On others, everything in me seems to say:

"Can we please do literally anything else today?"

And that made me think about something we often seem to forget when talking about goals, dreams and personal growth:

"We can want the destination without enjoying every part of the journey."

When Resistance Makes Us Question the Path

There is an interesting assumption hidden in the way we often think about motivation.

If something is truly meant for us, shouldn't we want to do it?

Shouldn't we feel motivated?

Shouldn't the journey somehow confirm that we are moving in the right direction?

And when it doesn't, doubts can appear surprisingly quickly.

"Maybe this isn't really what I want."

"Maybe I chose the wrong path."

"Why does this feel so difficult if this is really my vision?"

But perhaps we are asking resistance to tell us something it cannot always tell us.

Because resistance does not necessarily mean that the direction is wrong.

I love learning about psychology, therapeutic approaches and the complexity of human experience.

But preparing for an exam also means memorizing terminology and definitions that my brain would probably not voluntarily choose as its favorite morning entertainment.

Both can be true.

"I can feel connected to my vision and still resist today's task."

Sometimes resistance simply means:

"This particular part is hard."

Baby Steps Don't Always Feel Small

This is something I find particularly interesting about looking back at our own lives.

From a distance, progress often looks beautifully simple.

"I studied."

"I took the exam."

"I started my practice."

A few sentences can summarize months or even years of our lives.

And suddenly, all those individual moments look like baby steps.

But while we are taking them, they don't necessarily feel small.

A single step can require discipline, patience, courage or simply the willingness to begin despite not feeling like it.

Weeks or months of seemingly small steps can demand an enormous amount of energy.

And maybe calling something a baby step shouldn't diminish how difficult it was.

"Small does not mean easy."

It simply means that we don't have to walk the entire path today.

Stop Asking the Journey to Feel Like the Destination

Maybe this is where we sometimes become unfair to ourselves.

The destination and the journey naturally create different emotions.

Imagining my future practice gives me a sense of meaning and possibility.

Learning another definition today might simply feel exhausting.

Why should those two experiences feel the same?

"The destination gives us direction. The next step asks us for participation."

Perhaps we don't need every step to inspire us.

Perhaps we don't need constant motivation as proof that we are still moving in the right direction.

Sometimes the more useful question might not be:

"If this is really my path, why does it feel so hard?"

But:

"Am I resisting the direction — or am I resisting the discomfort of this particular step?"

That distinction matters.

Resistance can contain valuable information.

Sometimes it may indeed tell us that something no longer fits, that our priorities have changed or that we need to reconsider where we are going.

But not every uncomfortable feeling is a sign to turn around.

Sometimes we still want exactly what lies ahead.

We just don't particularly enjoy the hill in front of us.

A Tool: Give It One Hour

When resistance appears, our minds have an interesting tendency to make the task much bigger than the moment actually requires.

I don't just see today's study session.

Suddenly, I see the entire exam.

All the material I still need to know.

The preparation ahead.

And somewhere behind all of that:

the practice I want to build,

the website,

the organization

and everything else that will eventually come with it.

...

No wonder starting can feel difficult.

So lately, I have been trying something much simpler:

"Give it one hour."

Not the whole day.

Not until everything is finished.

Not until I feel perfectly prepared.

"Just one hour."

For that hour, I don't have to pass the exam.

I don't have to know everything.

I don't have to build my future practice.

I only have to engage with the step that exists today.

And after that hour, I can look again.

Maybe I continue.

Maybe I stop for today.

But either way, I moved.

Sometimes making a task smaller is not about avoiding the challenge.

It is about making the challenge small enough to approach.

So when you notice resistance towards something that still matters to you, you might ask yourself:

"Do I still want the destination?"

"What exactly am I resisting right now?"

And most importantly:

"Can I give the next step one hour?"

Maybe your baby step isn't one hour.

Maybe it's twenty minutes, one page, one phone call or one decision.

The point is not the number.

The point is to stop demanding the entire journey from yourself when only the next step is required.

One Baby Step at a Time

One day, the steps that feel heavy today may look surprisingly small in retrospect.

We may tell the story in a few sentences and almost forget how much energy some of those ordinary days required.

But the fact that a step looks small from the future doesn't mean it was easy to take in the present.

✨Maybe courage isn't loving every part of the journey.✨

✨Maybe we don't need to wake up motivated every morning.✨

✨Maybe we don't even have to stop resisting before we begin.✨

Sometimes, it might be enough to look towards the horizon, recognize that the destination still matters — and take the next meaningful step anyway.

✨One baby step at a time.✨

With Love

Annabelle