Not Stepping Over the Cracks

Read time: 3 minutes

When I was in my early 20s, I was in the middle of a massive learning curve. I was trying to become a better person and found myself hungry for personal development work. Along the way, I absorbed countless lessons on the value of living with personal integrity. Learning to take accountability for my own life felt revolutionary—because the concepts I was encountering hadn’t been taught to me in childhood, and I couldn’t find them anywhere around me.

I admired people who seemed consistent and reliable. I knew my parents were good people doing their best. But I had no idea how to build inner character.

One of the concepts that struck me most deeply was the idea of not "stepping over the cracks."

Not stepping over the cracks means not ignoring the small (or large) pain points that, if addressed, would help things function better—internally and externally. It’s the practice of noticing what’s not working, however subtle, and tending to it with care, whether we want to or not.

This hit me hard, because in my childhood, ignoring the cracks was the norm. We relied heavily on a hope and a dream. The chaos of things not working—especially financially—was so overwhelming, it almost became essential to ignore everything else that wasn’t working. But once I understood that change was possible through steady attention to what felt unworkable, I realized I could create more peace of mind, one small shift at a time.

I was recently reminded that this idea is embedded in the Groundwork approach, even though I haven’t formally developed it into a named modality. A client opened her session by saying, “Amrita, you’re going to be so proud! I haven’t been stepping over any cracks at work. I’m capturing and addressing what’s not working around me.”

The freedom in her voice was so inspiring, I knew I had to share more about this with you.

Paying attention to the cracks—and capturing them—doesn’t mean you have to fix everything all at once. That would be impossible for most of us. But when we practice bringing conscious awareness to these subtle but significant areas (the ones we tend to ignore because they aren’t urgent), and slowly start patching them, life and work become more doable—and more enjoyable. We gain back a sense of control in situations that often feel totally out of control.

Here are a few cracks this Groundwork alum noticed and tended to last week:

• Her team needed company phone plans to make internal communication smoother. After months of delay, she walked into her CEO’s office and got approvals in a 10-minute conversation.

• She hadn’t checked her inbox’s pending items in over two weeks. So she took the final hour of her Friday to review and catch key items, allowing her to track and move them forward.

• Her new assistant needed more training before taking on additional work. Instead of piling on projects, she slowed down, scheduled a training session, and captured agenda items.

• She noticed a team member was struggling, so she paused to offer support instead of powering through her day.

• She made a simple “do not disturb” sign for her door to create more uninterrupted time at the office.

Some of the cracks were added to her Weekly Review. Others got deferred to her Monthly Review. But no doubt—it was far better to acknowledge them consciously than to ignore them or let them quietly weigh her down in the background.

There will always be cracks. There will always be problems that don’t feel as urgent as the fires we’re putting out. But tending to the cracks is essential for peace of mind. It’s the difference between living and working by design versus being held hostage by loose ends, broken promises, and unfinished projects.

If your goal is both peace of mind and productivity, tending to the cracks helps close the gap between chaos and clarity. It brings consciousness to the areas that need our attention—whether we act on them now or simply give them a place to land.

So I’ll ask you:

What cracks have you been stepping over?
Capture them now. Let your system hold them.
Seriously—you won’t regret it.