Everybody remembers their first real job.

As for me, I landed mine fresh out of high school. It was a big deal. Real work and real money, a fair and livable wage for a fair day’s worth of work. I loved it! The company was family owned and all in all, it was a delightful place to set down roots and find my way. We all got along and everybody did well. But after ten years, circumstances changed and I felt lead to move on.

I recall the transition period from one career to another as being a bit tough. I bounced around from one job to another until settling down again with a great organization. Eleven years passed quickly and when circumstances changed again, another opportunity surfaced and we were again on the move.

Does this pattern sound familiar?

I’m a fairly spontaneous person and never planned at staying at any particular job for a very long period of time. But life gets busy and routines grow familiar and comfortable. There have been times when the thought of enduring the inconvenience of a change stopped me from tackling a new challenge.

In essence, I wasn’t willing to trade short-term pain for likely long-term gain.

My approach to work reminds me of an old sign spotted along an unpaved country road.

“Choose Your Rut Carefully,” it read, “You’ll be in it for the next ten miles.”

Have you ever been stuck in an employment rut?

Our lives are often like that; we do the same things, get into the same routines, good or bad, because we just don’t want to have to make the effort to fix or change our condition.

Yet, there are still other times when life is like a blender on purée!

It’s been my experience that life often hums along with nary a bump, but when change comes, change really comes: We might change our job, our children might graduate from school, a big bill comes due and a family member gets really sick – all within two weeks. Only a month earlier everything was seemingly so quiet, but the reality was otherwise. Mounting problems add up like stacked bricks on a strip of dry wood. When the fall comes, the crack is loud and quick!

But am I a mere victim of fate – or am I the one who has created this accumulation of problems itself?

For years, my son had a therapist whose visits were more social than professional. They were void of the rigor needed to help overcome the disability he was battling. But we said nothing. Why? We were like the George McFly character in the first Back to the Future film prior to his conversion from a weakling to confident young man: We just weren’t good at confrontations!

I have a bad habit of ignoring problems and will usually wait to address them until I’m backed into a corner. It’s at that point when I turn on the blender and stir it all up till I feel it is tolerable again.

In retrospect, I’ve learned the hard way that the best way to deal with difficulty is to take it as it comes.

Inch by inch, everything’s a cinch. Even troubles.

I have a friend with whom I’ve worked with in the past. He has a business venture going on the side while he works another full-time job. His venture has the real potential of being a great business, but what it really needs is his time and effort to make it happen. And as we worked together at our full-time jobs, we both felt the weight of our endeavors, he with his business and me this ministry. But he had a great saying that he’d share with me on a near weekly basis. Looking up at me from his desk, he would lift his index finger and ask “Bob, what was the one thing you did today?”

This was my friend’s way of reminding me that we can’t get everything accomplished in a single day – even if we had all 24 hours to do it. But if we do one thing to advance and move the ball forward, we’re on step closer to success.

So, I ask you, just as my friend asked me.

What is going to be the one thing you do today to move a step closer to your goal?