The first step is important

Although you won't read this until Wednesday, I wrote it on Monday—Martin Luther King Day. We have been left with many inspirational and thoughtful ideas and quotes by this civil rights leader.

One that is so fitting as we think about making changes in our personal (or professional) lives is this: "Take the first step in faith. You don't have to see the whole staircase. Just take the first step."

When anything begins to pinch in your life, and you think about making any type of change, large or small, this is good to remember: "Just take the first step." You need not worry about each action step along the way. Nor do you even have to see the whole picture or end result. You do need to know what's wrong now (what isn't working). You need to have some idea of where you'd like to go or what you'd like to feel. But you needn't know the full picture (the whole staircase). For example, if you are feeling resentful because you're always doing things everyone else wants (saying "Yes" too much) and never getting your own needs and wants met, you may want to make changes. You may not know what that will look like at the end. You just know you don't want to be so resentful anymore. You just know you want others to take your needs and wants seriously, too. It's OK to not see the whole staircase.

Just take that first step toward setting boundaries and learning to say "No" to others. Many of our important changes and transformations occur in incremental steps. So just take the first one—in faith and confidence that you can do it. One step and goal at a time. Before you know it, change has taken place.