Reach for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.

I didn’t know it, but I lived most of my life with an all-or-nothing mentality. Progress not perfection” did not compute. Throughout my life, I was only grabbing what was right in front of me. I wasn’t lazy. I was just full of fear and anxiety. The easiest thing for me to grab was a drink. Then, I found myself desperately trying to think my way out of drinking.

In my first 42 years, I was obsessed with the pain that existed inside me. I lacked the understanding and willingness to do anything about it. I didn’t know that my pain was fertilizer for my future. Someone told me recently that I’m an inspiration. They said that I’m making lemonade out of the lemons. I responded that I must make a new batch of lemonade every day because I only have enough for one day at a time.

I find that my progress improves exponentially when it starts with fear and anxiety. For example, my path to sobriety started by going to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, shaking from my head and my heart to my fingertips. I continued to drink. I don’t recommend this to start sobriety, but this was my introduction to progress.

In my sobriety fellowship, meeting makers say, “keep coming back.” This saying had a shallow meaning to me in the beginning. To me, it meant to keep walking in the door. Today, as I apply this concept to my stroke recovery, it means to keep showing up for life and never give up.

Another saying in the fellowship is, “all is right, when all is right within.” As I continue to improve on the inside by seeking serenity and joy, my environment improves. The lens I’m looking through is now full of hope. Progress started with the willingness to change my routine.

The following are recommendations for how to ease in to progress with grace:

1. Make trivial changes to your routine which create a powerful force towards progress. It’s not the size of the changes we make in our lives, it’s our consistency in carrying them out.
2. Anticipate doubt and lack of motivation. Interruptions need to be welcomed. Interruptions mean that we have a full life, which sometimes in recovery can feel like it’s in question.
3. Be brave enough to give up and give in. Sometimes the most courageous thing we can do is recognize when we need to rest.
4. Have patience and self-love. What would you tell your child or the young, less-wrinkly version of you?
5. Let progress look ugly. That means, if you are trying to make running a part of your new routine, let yourself suck at it. If you want to make yoga a part of your new routine, let yourself fall in the middle of a tree pose.

Progress doesn’t always look like what you pictured. In my life, progress toward serenity, joy, and purpose started with the emotional and physical pains of alcoholism and an ischemic stroke. It’s the lens that I look through that make them resemble progress.