Every brick counts

Have you ever built a brick wall?  When I was a kid, my parents bricked a wall in our family room.  My job, along with my sister, was to move bricks, by the wagon load, from the pallet where the truck dropped them off, to a spot outside the door where my parents could grab them, as they needed them for the wall.

Moving one brick in a wagon is really no big deal.  Even my under-motivated, 10 year old self wouldn't have minded that.  Moving a whole wall of bricks, on the other hands, was unpleasant enough that I still remember how much of a pain in the neck it was.  "Why", my lazy, 10 year old self would ask, "do I have to move the bricks? Should I be outside playing or something?" 

The difference between moving one brick and a whole wall of bricks is comes down to consistency.  Because my sister and I moved a wagon load a day, it took us quite a while to move the pallets -- but we got it done.  And it really wasn't more than two kids could handle.

The same thing can be said about most things in life.  The task as a whole seems daunting and you may feel unprepared to tackle it.  The thing about any task, though, is it can always be broken down into smaller, more manageable pieces.

Cutting back on your calories can be broken down to cutting back on a few bites of food each time you each.  What if you threw out the last quarter of everything you ate?  What would that do to the way your pants fit?

Sometimes you just need to move a brick at a time (or leave the bite uneaten).