Several years ago I began experiencing periodic pain in my heel when walking. I didn’t pay much attention to it at first, expecting that it would eventually just go away. Instead, the soreness grew steadily worse until I was in constant pain whenever I walked. I dreaded putting on dress shoes for the office, because of the discomfort.

Things came to a head one morning as I drove to work. I’d just parked my car and was staring at the building, wondering how on earth I was going to walk across the parking lot, climb two flights of stairs, and walk to the opposite end of the building, where my office was located. But then the thought came to me clearly to “put my foot down.” Also, I remembered this statement from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy: “The discoverer of Christian Science finds the path less difficult when she has the high goal always before her thoughts, than when she counts her footsteps in endeavoring to reach it” (p. 426).

I asked myself what my high goal was. Was it just to get to my office so I could sit down and get off my feet? No. That would be focusing on the problem. My real goal was to go to work and express intelligence, joy, love for my coworkers and customers, enthusiasm, efficiency, effectiveness, and so forth. So I decided to focus on how I was going to accomplish that goal for the day.