I Always Pick Myself Up Again

This morning my bedroom was messy. It had been for a few days.

I was really unmotivated, and a bit overwhelmed by three important things to do today.
I ended up looking at photos of my old unit. Just sitting and smoking at my outdoor table and chairs.

Seeing the images of my old house messy and tidy was a good visual reminder of what my current messy bedroom could look like. How I may feel once its clean.

Still, I engaged myself with old notes about insights I’ve had over the years, looking for blog post ideas. It struck me that I always clean my house in the end. I always pick myself up. This is the second reminder in two weeks, about rebuilding my life.

The first time was when writing my new book “Elusive Identity”. A theme on it is recreating my identity when I have lost it. I noted that I know that if I ever lose my sense of self again, I know that I can always rebuild one. This is something that I’ve done a number of times.

One path to rebuilding my identity is reconnecting with my values.
Years ago I identified values associated with my goals. For example, the cleaning end result is feeling peaceful and at home. Since these are things I value highly, sometimes they could motivate me. Sometimes depression would get in the way.

On the path to learning to keep to a daily schedule, I acknowledged my high expectations, and compared them to how committed I was to completing daily tasks.

I realised after many attempts of daily to do lists, that I can’t expect myself to do everything on my schedule, every day. I stripped away my expectations. Just took a few metaphorical steps back, and created tiny, achievable goals.

Since I had lived in shame about not working, and being messy already, I figured that shame of tiny goals was something I could get through.

Get through it I did. Again and again.

I rarely look at my morning schedule now, but always do at least half the things on it. I’m glad I took pressure off myself, and kept committing to my schedule.

Combined with my productivity this year, my sense of identity is here, along with a quiet confidence. Confidence in my ability to rebuild my life, and recommit to my daily schedule.

I cleaned my room, and now I’m feeling peaceful and at home. For now at least.

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If you’d like to read more about how I’ve recreated my sense of self, buy Elusive Identity on Kindle.