I’ve just come out of a short stay in hospital and wanted to share part of the experience (don’t worry if you get a bit queasy with this sort of stuff as I’ll spare you the gory details). While I was there it struck me how getting myself out of hospital is so similar to achieving things in life.

In hospital I just wanted to get the hell out – get back home to my family as quickly as I could, but to do that I needed to do a number a steps. First I needed to get off the morphine and sit up unassisted in bed. My aim for day 2 was to have a standing shower without help from a nurse. By day 3 I aimed to be back on solid food, and day 4 to take longer walks around the ward. The goal for day five was to explore further and actually go outside the front doors to the hospital, and day 6 was the ultimate goal to go home.

My longer term recovery is also filled with small steps, small goals to get back to the physical state I was in before I walked through the doors of the Emergency Department, and it will take about 2-3 months to get there. I know I can do it and I also know that it would be so much harder to get there if I didn’t break down the recovery into small, easy to achieve steps.

Whether it is your aim to get back to a place you were previously with your health, to purchase a car or pay off a debt, getting what you want is so much easier if you know exactly what that is, then break down the steps to achieving it. Small payments every week pay off seemingly insurmountable debts. Putting a little bit aside is easier to do if you remind yourself that it is for that well deserved holiday.

And being able to do 50 push ups isn’t so hard when you start with 5 today, 6 tomorrow, 7 the next day…….