Having three children, my home absolutely doesn't stay clean. I try. God knows I try. But every time I get it close to being respectable, my three blessings manage to in about 30 minutes destroy what took me three hours to accomplish. Grumble. How do they do that?! The point is, I clean. I work hard. I put very much effort into keeping this house to a moderately satisfactory level of cleanliness, and BOOM! It's suddenly a complete disaster, which, of course, is the exact opposite of what I'm working to achieve.
Last night, when I was cleaning my kitchen, and cursing my loved ones under my breath, a thought occurred to me: doing all this grumbling and complaining isn't making it any less of a mess. I just need to suck it up, and clean it up. 'Nuff said. I put on my game face, went into deep cleaning mode, and knocked it out. Before I knew it, my focus had paid off, and I had clean counters and my stove, dishwasher and sinks were gleaming in reward. All was right in the world again.
As I struggle to lose weight, there are times that I fall off the wagon, have way more calories than I should, slack on exercise, and totally and completely blow it. There have been plenty of times in the past, that as soon as the mess was made, I just gave up. I quit altogether.
If I applied this same mentality to my messy house, where would I be? Imagine it: I put forth great effort, and get my house tidy. I find that the house has very quickly become a total disarray. I get completely frustrated, and decide that the answer to this is not to start over and put forth the effort of making it tidy again, but to give up and give into the temptation of just not trying anymore. Afterall, it's so much easier to be lazy and not clean, right? However, after awhile, things will begin to pile up. Trash will overflow. Dishes will spill out of the sink. The filth of my home will spiral out of control. While it can be frustrating to start over, and to know that long hours of hard work are so easily undone, it is much more sensible to just suck it up and clean it up.
It is so easy to undo the work that is put into weight loss. One day of falling off track can undo a week's worth of staying within ranges, exercising diligently, and choosing water over soda. Ten days off track can undo three months. It can be so discouraging to find yourself in a mess. However, the best thing to do at that point is to lay off the complaining, suck it up, get into the zone, and clean it up.
Keep your head up, and keep moving forward. Always put forth the effort to continue your journey, no matter what point you are at in the journey. If you've finished losing, continue to work to maintain. Your body, just like your home, will never maintain itself. And no matter what happens, and regardless of the mess you find yourself in, as soon as you realize that you're in a mess, suck it up and clean it up!!
No comments:
Post a Comment