Quote

“When chooosing a new habit many people seem to ask themselves, “What can I do on my best days?”

The trick is to ask, “What can I stick to even on my worst days?”

Start small. Master the art of showing up. Scale up when you have the time, energy, and interest.”

• James Clear

If you follow along with my client lessons on social media, you may have seen the wild black Lab named Sita. Sita is among my favorites and I spend a lot of time throughout my week thinking about him and what we will work on in our next lesson.

When we started our lessons (we are now 5 lessons in) Sita was a bucking Bronco on leash, had no interest in boundaries, and quite frankly, his mom was a little intimidated by not only his aggressive tendencies, but also their abilitity to meet his needs, as he is ALOT.

We started our lessons inside. It wasn’t until last week that we were able to finally start working on his walks.

I am so grateful for their trust in me and the process. However, while they didn’t ask, I do often feel client’s anticipation -

“When will we get to go on walks?”

“When can we train him to recall even around other animals?”

“When do we get to the ‘fun stuff’?'“

While I am bursting with ideas on what to do with Sita, that doesn’t help them right now. Mastering the basics still takes a lot of effort, energy, and awareness in the beginning.

If I were to have loaded them with too much, too soon, they may have felt even more defeated than when they began. But because we have a few very clear and tangible skills to work on each week they have been incredibly consistent, excited, and seemingly gain even more enthusiasm than the week before as they see the progress unfold.