That All Important First Step
It has been said that we humans are creatures of habit. Just stop and think about the routines that are a big part of your life, each day. As it happens, routines provide us a measure of comfort. Routines release us from the burden of making decisions and we are able to drive through parts of each day on automatic. Have you experienced arriving at a frequent destination, not really remembering the details of getting there?
Some of our habits and routines empower us and others do not; those others are merely the easy way out.
Intellectually, changing a habit seems easy and straight forward, especially a negative habit. Just stop doing it! Easy for you to say, when it is not your habit.
When you’ve lived long enough, you learn the lesson: You Can Do Most Anything. For me that means: I have the power to lose that extra 20 pounds; I have the ability to learn 30 words a week; I can learn to play the guitar.
And the truth is, I will only add things or change things in my life when I make a decision to change.
That all important FIRST STEP to CHANGE is DECIDE. After that, if you are serious, it is mostly downhill. (If you notice that things aren’t changing, you really haven’t decided to change, you’re just fooling yourself.)
I am taking my first step today. While I’ve been sitting and pounding away on my computer, creating blogs and word lists, clutter has amassed in my home and the board of health might even take issue as this place being a suitable living quarter.
I’ve picked up after myself from time to time, but my overwhelming desire to keep on keeping on with other things has been my focus. I planned to hire a cleaning crew but stopped myself with the thought that ‘I can do this myself and avoid the extra expense’. And so I never hired the crew.
Finally, I got sick and tired of revisiting this issue (and every table in the house had become piled with ‘stuff’.) I took a step. I hired a cleaner.
Today is the first day of the rest of my life in this regard. The cleaner will be here at 11:00 A.M. I will have to work with her to organize and discard things. I will be surprised if we complete the job in a single day. I am prepared to stick with the chore until it is complete. Making the decision was harder than any of the clean up can possibly be.
What FIRST STEP do you need to take?