By Christina Morton DesAuguste
Christina is the founder and CEO of The Organizing Company. She’s been organizing professionally since 2013. She has a background working with kids and teenagers, as well as in fashion retail. Her saving grace during self quarantine: yoga
When I get overwhelmed or discouraged about all I have to do, or about something I'm not doing well enough for my standards, my sweet husband tells me, "It's about progress, not perfection."
What a great concept. As long as I'm moving forward, I can be proud of what I'm doing. But if I focus on being perfect right out of the gate, I end up discouraged and defeated. After all, when something fails to be perfect over and over again, it’s super hard to rally the energy or motivation to keep trying. Failure ain’t fun.
So what if we adjust our view of success? Success is making strides towards what you want, not having it the first time. It takes time, trial and error, rejection, and failure to accomplish anything worth accomplishing. One of my other favorite quotes is, “Everyone who got where (s)he is started where (s)he was.” No one is perfect from the jump, and no one can manage to do everything perfectly all the time!
It’s no different when it comes to organizing your life and your home.
When you’re trying to create new habits and systems, it's easy to feel discouraged when things slip through the cracks or get out of hand again. Or if you try things one way and they don’t work. Don’t fall into the “Well, I guess I’ll just never be an organized person,” lie pit. It takes time, trial and error, and hard work. I’m sure you’ve heard it said that a habit takes 28 days to take root/become muscle memory. So it may take 28 days of dropping your purse and keys on the kitchen table, remembering you have a new spot for them, and moving them for it to become muscle memory to put them in the new spot the first time.
Celebrate the little victories. It’s a lot to change your whole lifestyle, or even just where things are in your home.
So focus on building one new habit at a time. Once you've adjusted and incorporated that into your life, you can add something else. This has worked really well with some of my clients who are more chronically disorganized. I’ve seen over time how they have built new habits and rhythms slowly but surely. And if you fall into that camp, or if you’re just discouraged about organizing, remembering that progress- not perfection- is the goal will bring hope, encouragement, and more progress. It’s a snowball effect sometimes, so get excited!
Stay encouraged. You're moving in the right direction. You’re more organized today than you were yesterday-or a month ago, if yesterday was a bad day. You’re moving forward even just by reading this and deciding to get back on the horse. You got this.
Happy Organizing!
Christina + The Organizing Company Team
May 11, 2020
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