“Take the first step in faith. You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.”

– Martin Luther King, Jr.

Sometimes life feels like a scene from that old Bill Murray movie: Goundhog Day. Every day the same thing. The progress we want to make, the goals we set… all seem to elude us.

What’s true is that, if we are mindful and earnest in our efforts, we really do make progress… it’s just sometimes difficult to see.

I am a fan of the religious writer Karen Armstrong who wrote a beautiful memoir entitled The Spiral Staircase. She likens her own growth (and the growth we all experience on this grand human adventure) as something akin to climbing up a spiral staircase… not necessarily repeating the ‘sins’ of the past… but turning back on those experiences, returning again and again, often from a higher perspective, to those certain lessons that continue to be necessary for us to learn.

Places that feel like old ground; places that feel familiar… but are not the same.

Our journeys, lived deeply, sometimes – necessarily – take us through these places. In our relationships, in our studies, in our jobs.

Growth… maybe not in that linear way so many of us strive for… but growth none-the-less.

One of the great gifts of the coaching process is the ability of the coach to see across the stretch of the road, to see the grand arc… to see progress when it feels, in the moment, like quicksand. And to re-assure that the way is sound, the ground secure.

Fall can be a time of new beginnings. But, as we return to our routines, it can also be a time of re-assessment… and frustration.

If the road ahead looks uncertain, don’t despair. The twists and turns can feel quit daunting. And circuitous.

Stay the course. It’s the slow, steady steps over time that lead to those magnificent results.