“In every yesterday and every tomorrow there is only one you.” – Kylie Minogue

Life has been a bit chaotic lately, and I am a creature of habit. Change is hard for me, even when the good is clearly there. And I’ve realized that I haven’t been at my best to meet this moment in time. Somewhere over the last year a shift happened. I have continued to drift from my healthy habits. I got lost in the excitement and perceived joy of unhealthy foods and choices. It is so easy to do. And slowly, without a dramatic moment or a single bad decision, I found myself somewhere I didn’t intend to be.

I have mentioned before about meeting yourself where you are. It’s a truly great practice and one I stand behind. But I’ve found that for me, it can become too lenient if I’m not careful. Meet yourself where you are, yes. But do it responsibly. Think about the impact of your mood and the choices you make in that moment and beyond. Because what I’ve discovered is that I allow myself to show up without accountability, and then in those moments I tend to let go completely. And that’s not what the sentiment is about. It’s not an escape hatch.

Recently I’ve truly started to feel unwell. Not sick exactly, but a slow realization that my body and mind aren’t happy. I’ve gained weight. I feel exhausted. My brain is scattered. And so on. It’s complex, but I think a big part of it comes back to emotion and mental health. About not fully trusting that I can become who I want to be. But this is purely an internal battle. 

What made it harder was the voice in my head reminding me of where I could have been. Last June I had made real, meaningful progress. And somewhere along the way I dropped off. If I had just kept going, I could have been in the body and mindset I was aiming for by now. A full year later. That kind of thinking is heavy. And for a while I have let it dictate my mood. 

But then I came across this quote that I had saved. “In every yesterday and every tomorrow there is only one you.” And something shifted.

There is no version of me that stayed on track last June living somewhere else, further ahead, doing better. There is only this me. Right here. The one who drifted, felt it, and decided to turn back toward something better. That’s not failure. That’s just being human. And beating myself up about the time I lost was only stealing time from the progress I could be making right now.

So I made a quiet recommitment that has now built into action. A decision to do what is actually in my best interest. To fight the negative internal voices. To show up for myself a little better each day.

One way of meeting myself where I am responsibly is a new understanding. It doesn’t have to be big to matter. It just has to be consistent. The grace of meeting yourself where you are gets you started. The momentum in the action is what actually keeps you going.

Small steps taken consistently become something extraordinary. That’s true for your health. Your relationships. Your community. The causes you care about. The world you want to live in. Every small choice, every quiet act, every single step forward adds up to something far greater than it looks in the moment.

Sometimes we forget that. We look at the size of a problem or a goal and think our small contribution couldn’t possibly make a difference. But it does. It always does.

There is only one you. In every yesterday and every tomorrow. And that you is always enough. 

I want to encourage you to keep going. Whatever small step is in front of you, take it. Then take the next one. That’s how extraordinary happens.