“You and your husband are made of a different cloth,” a friend told me a few hours ago. “To take your kids and head out for a 500-mile hike… I don’t know how you do it.”

And yet really, we aren’t made of a different cloth at all. We’re just normal people just like him. And you. The only thing different about us is that we’ve learned a very important lesson:

The longest journey really does start with a single step. And then it continues with another step after that. And another.

Once you know that, you can ride a bike around the world or hike 500 miles or… well, the sky’s the limit. You can dream big because you know it’s all about taking it one step at a time.

Mark Beaumont, who broke the world record as the fastest to cycle around the world, put it this way: If you take care of today, the big picture will take care of itself. In his case, today meant cycling 100 miles. He knew he could do that. 100 miles was doable. He didn’t think about tomorrow’s hundred miles or the next day; he focused on what he needed to do today. And the big picture took care of itself.

Don’t shy away from big dreams because they’re too scary. If you look at it in its entirety, yes, it’s enormous. But really, the only difference between a small goal and a big one is the number of steps. If you can take one of those steps, you can take them all.

Nancy Sathre-Vogel is mom to Family on Bikes, a family of four who recently rode their bikes 17,000 miles from Alaska to Argentina. They are now preparing to hike 500 miles from Denver to Durango. She blogs about lessons learned from their journeys at www.familyonbikes.org