But we don't do this with our goals in life. We are taught as kids to dream big, shoot for the stars--all that inspiring stuff. But I don't ever remember anyone telling me about all the tiny steps I needed to take to get there. So what happens? We end up staring at a mountain to climb, but we are too stressed, too busy, too broke, too ill-equipped, and too tired to bother. So there sits your dream, the top of the mountain seemingly unattainable and unachievable.

In the middle of a busy day, do you ever just stop? When you have a list a mile long, do you ever hit the pause button? When your brain feels overwhelmed and fatigued, do you just take a few minutes and turn it off? I’m not talking about the kind of scheduled time off or breaks we are most familiar with when we talk about rest.

Go play! We all need to hear and heed those words on a regular basis, no matter what our age. As we get older, play doesn’t come as naturally as it did when we were kids, but if you’re trying to add more play into your life, I love the idea of looking back to childhood to rediscover and reintroduce favorite forms of play from years gone by.