I have started a goal, elsewhere, to try and help myself do this. The goal is comprised of 4 daily pieces:

1 make the bed when I get out of it
2 brush my teeth right after dinner
3 wash dinner dishes before I go to bed
4 log all of the above

for 30 days. Mind you, these get done, but not CONSISTENTLY. Sometimes DH does the dinner dishes in the a.m. when he’s making coffee. Sometimes, the bed doesn’t get made until late, or it doesn’t get made at all. Usually, I drag myself away from bed where I’m reading to brush my teeth before going to sleep. And of course, before yesterday, I hadn’t been logging any of this at all.

My idea is that these are small changes, tiny really. Most of them are a matter of timing rather than actually changing habits. All of them will lessen the stressors in my life, and that’s a good thing.

This is a baby step, but because I am UNCONDITIONING myself, the changes have to be tiny. It has taken me many years to really understand that I was conditioned, like a Pavlovian dog, about my home space, hence the irrational panic. I keep saying this, I was under assault in my own house, in insidious ways, and the lack of consistency is probably the most damaging overall effect I still carry. It has made ALL of the rest a quantuum leap more difficult than it would have been otherwise, something many people simply do not comprehend.

I asked my brother one time when he started a project, did he think about what would happen if he failed? He answered, “No, of course not! Why would I do that?” and internally, I thought, “Wouldn’t that be wonderful?” [I have spent hours/weeks contemplating the failure of almost anything I undertake. Big waste of time, huh? Stop it? I’d love to…. I’m hoping the consistency piece will help that too.]

So, here’s where I’m at:

1 11/30
2 11/30
3 10/30
4 11/30

jkd