We just had our house cleaned today. I’m not sure how often it happens. But it’s really nice to see what our house can look like…briefly.
Then without noticing at first, a few things get left out.
Crumbs don’t get wiped off. School papers get left.
Shoes don’t get put away. Three backpacks eventually block the walkway to the steps.
The dogs shed faster than we can vacuum.
Too many cups are left from the day…because nobody knows who’s is who’s.
And then you just give up.
You throw in the towel, stop doing a major overhaul, and succumb to the mess.
It’s pretty easy to keep things tidy and clean for a while, because there’s so little to fix.
But if you turn a blind eye to the first signs of clutter and dirt, it becomes more than you can handle.
Then your mind tells you lies.
“I’ll deal with that tomorrow”
“I don’t know what to do with this mail. But she’ll probably deal with it.”
We do this is so many ways in our lives beyond a clean house.
We lose the battle with our cluttered email system.
We see our diet slowly slipping away. A bad day of eating becomes a bad week.
A bad week turns into…”I’ll deal with it later”.
I’ll fix it later turns into “it doesn’t matter. I want to eat what I want. And besides, I’m busy”.
We do this with exercise too.
“I don’t feel like it today”.
“I’ve got too much to do, and I’m tired. I’ll make it later in the week”.
Then it becomes, “I don’t actually need to workout”.
We put things off.
We have good intentions. But then we get overwhelmed.
Once we let that first excuse pop into our head, we have a few moments or days until we buy into that crap.
Then, all of a sudden, we’ve given up something that’s so important.
There’s only one fix for this, and it isn’t willpower.
It’s habits. Boring-Old-Habits!!!
I guarantee if my wife and I created the habit of doing a 5 minute cleaning every night (even if we didn’t do it every single time) we wouldn’t fall so far behind.
I guarantee if you created the habit of making 3 workouts per week part of your non-negotiable habits, you’d be in kick ass shape in no time!
I also guarantee that it would never feel daunting. And that’s really important.
So remember, first you have to care. Then you have to create a plan. Then you have to build the habit.
What’s a small habit that you successfully do daily/weekly that makes part of your life easier???
