When did THAT happen?

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Back in November of last year I started taking private swim lessons.  I knew how to tread water and get myself out of trouble if I was in trouble but I didn't know how to do the various strokes properly and I definitely didn't know how to breathe and swim at the same time.  I was completely out of my comfort zone.  I loved swimming because it was something completely different from anything I'd done before but I hated it because it was extremely difficult.

An oldie but a goodie!  This race seemed
absolutely impossible.  Guess what?
Small goals and a coach who wouldn't
up on me got me to the finish line.

When I started I could barely make it down the length of the pool without stopping to catch my breath.  I doubted that I'd ever be able to actually swim laps and my goal of competing in a sprint triathlon (with a half mile open water swim) seemed to be getting farther and farther away.  However, I bought all the lessons so I didn't have any choice but to keep going.  My swim instructor, Ann, is very encouraging and keeps giving me new twists to keep swimming interesting.

So, I keep going and I keep trying.  I've been setting small goals for myself (does that sound familiar?!) to do the front crawl 6 or 8 laps.  Over the weekend my goal was to swim 10 lengths without flippers and without stopping.  I swam 12 lengths.  I felt so proud of myself and figured that I'd kind of hang out and swim 12 lengths this week and just keep increasing by 2 lengths every week.
In the meantime I've gotten some new swimming gear namely a swim cap and flippers.  The flippers have given me little blisters on my toes though so I wasn't terribly excited to put them on today.  So I just started crawling.  I knew I wanted to swim my 12 lengths before I put on the flippers to really fly but as I started swimming there was just something so peaceful about the rocking and rolling motion.  Listening to my breath.  Counting my strokes.  Before I knew it I had gone 20 lengths of the pool without stopping so I just kept going until I needed to get a drink of water.

I guess my point is that when we first start things the goal seems so far off and that we may never achieve it but we just have to keep going because as long as we keep trying we will reach the goal.

What is your big goal and what small steps will you take to get there?