Step By Step

By Christine Jayakaran

October 24^th, 2021

No shortcuts allowed. This should be the sign posted all over our Indian roads, offices, cafés, agencies and homes too. (I’m joking! Or am I?)

For two weeks now, I was at an online academy for women bible teachers and while it was such a great time of learning it was also a very intense time. Intense because each of us were being stretched intellectually. We had a seven-step process of learning and while I did the pre-academy work of reading the textbook and going in prepared, I realised only when we began step 1, just how unprepared I was. Unprepared because I had assumed that the steps were a guideline, not a mandatory requirement. Oh, boy was I in for a surprise. Steps 1-4 took the wind out of my sails in the sweetest and most unassuming way. I even asked one of my facilitators in a break room if I could concentrate on step 3 more than step 1. She politely re-emphasised that step 1 was the most important part of the process!

Gosh.. here I was thinking I could ace my way through an academy when my lack of interest in slow progression was starting to be a big hurdle. Not only that, I was literally gritting my teeth to get through the first few steps so that I could get through to the creative side of the process faster.

Here’s the interesting fact that I learnt this week - to be creative needs groundwork. To be excellent needs us to do the hard yards. Everyone one of us needs to work our way up, step by step, sometimes very slow steps at that.

I realised that I'm quick to jump to step 5 in anything in life. I have wanted to see a quicker return on investments I made in people's lives, quicker results to things I was working towards professionally. What I neglected to see was the reward in the stumbling first steps, the sweet promise of returns in the initial stages and the simple efforts that birth the larger vision. Every step was important, no matter how small and insignificant they were.

I had to, not just endure the first steps, but needed to cherish every step as they provided me with the much-needed prowess for the following step. At the end of the two weeks, I grew to appreciate every step, especially steps 1 and 2 because they made so much sense when I reached steps 5 and 6. I had more clarity, order and understanding than when I began because of the initial slogging that was done.

There are no shortcuts to our lives. Not to our marriages. Not to our relationships. Not even to our callings. We have to work through each step like it's the most important step, giving it all we have, allowing ourselves to learn everything that the step teaches us before we move on.