One step at a time.

You don't need to think of everything at once.

New environments always take a lot of energy from me.

I can handle the big things—the first day at a new job or moving into a new home—because I’ve planned them and thought through many scenarios beforehand. Decision-making is less stressful during the actual event since I’m prepared.

Hence, the small things trip me up the most. For example, For example, when I tried to find the nap room at the office for the first time, my mind went through so many things, like “I wonder if this needs approval,” “Do I need to tell my team?” and “How does it work?”

This morning, my day at the office started with my badge being denied access. I kept trying to open the door after swiping my badge on the reader. I forgot that temp badges expire in a certain number of days. After a few times of yanking the door, the guard told me to take the emergency stairs to the reception to get access again. Of course, he first clarified whether this was the badge I regularly use because he had to make sure I was not an impostor. I didn’t mind that I looked like a newbie—because I am—but my brain went into chaos for those few minutes. I had mapped out my morning, so this tiny deviation caused a bit of decision paralysis.

I don’t know if this is a universal experience; at least, I’ve not seen others struggle with this. I think of a lot of things at once, which is a good thing when developing a feature or fixing a software bug but isn’t necessarily the best thing in daily life. Until I become thoroughly familiar with a setting, I’ll have these experiences every day.

It took me two weeks to feel comfortable enough to listen to music while in the cab to the office because I was still getting used to the regular interaction with the driver and the process of sharing a cab here.

I also can say for sure that my energy levels at the end of the day depend on the number of small decisions I make. Picture this day: an hour of badminton in the morning, a quick shower and breakfast, visiting the bank for some work, a mid-day bookstore run, reading at a café, checking out an outdoor market, and meeting friends for dinner. That schedule can take very different amounts of energy depending on how familiar I am with the settings like whether I know the badminton court, know how to travel to all the places, am familiar with the café/restaurant menus, etc. If I know everything, it’ll be a breeze. If I know nothing, I might quit halfway through the day.

I always plan ahead if I know what I’m doing. I check things beforehand like the transportation routes and timings, the menus of any place I’m visiting, or what forms I need to submit. However, everything will rarely go according to plan, especially if you’re sharing the day with other people.

Over the years, I’ve learnt how to cope with it. The main rule is to think of one step at a time instead of the entire process. It’s fine if it’s not smooth. There’s nothing to mess up here and it’s no big deal even if it’s messy. I can deal with it when it happens.

If I suddenly have to go to a place that doesn’t have easy transportation access, I look at the first thing I need to do and start doing it before looking at the next step. I take the metro first and then look at the bus or cab I’ll have to take afterwards.

Only recently did I realize how much I relied on the “one step at a time” mantra because this is the first time in years that I’m experiencing new things all day every day. It helps for the big and the small things. A new city, a new job, and a new home would have made me overwhelmed if I didn’t consciously focus on one thing at a time.

Whenever I caught myself worrying about finding a home (house-hunting was brutal), I’d think, “Let’s first check out this street/area for available places tomorrow, then we’ll see what to do next.” After settling on a home, I started thinking about what to do to set it up and am doing it one by one.

There’s a huge emphasis on planning out the future and thinking 5 years ahead. People often question your plans 10 steps later before you even think about it. That adds pressure, causing us to think about everything at once and feel overwhelmed.

But it’s fine to not know everything at the start. You can start saving money or investing without a target number in mind. You can go to the park before deciding whether you want to run or walk or lay on the grass.

There’s so much information and many decisions to be made all the time, especially when it feels like “our lifestyle” depends on what we do every minute of the day. Let’s make things a little easier for ourselves by thinking of one step at a time. Give yourself grace, especially when no one else does.