Have you met my cuppycake? Her name is Noelie and she is extremely gray and fluffy and she has golden eyes and she loves to kiss everything and everyone and climb on the dog. I love her. I mean, you think you love your pet, but no way do you love your animals as much as I love Noelle. It is this love that we should feel toward our treasured goals. Goal love / pet love comparison chart: Would do anything for her Think about her all day, every day Make all my plans based around her needs Talk about her constantly Keep a million pictures and videos of her on my phone Work her into every conversation Expect everyone to love her as much as I do, and if they don't, it's their loss Sometimes people are afraid of her and I can't figure out why Money is no object - whatever she needs, she gets Don't really care when she chews up my stuff Sometimes she is loud and demanding but I love her anyway When other people fall in love with her, we become instant best friends There is no reason why everyone couldn't have a cuppycake just like mine In fact, I highly recommend it Substitute 'her' and 'she' with 'my goal' and see if it still works. Goals are BS, really. A goal is a simple, small, bite-size step toward a consuming vision. Unfortunately, we are often quite dumb when we choose goals. We make public proclamations that we are committing to goals we don't really like or want. We choose goals based on what we think we should do. When the goal is true, when the goal is just a minor, obvious obstacle between you and the vision, "should" doesn't matter. Sometimes the vision requires things we "shouldn't" do. According to naysayers, we shouldn't do anything other than complain, consume mass entertainment, and sit on our butts. These are some things I've done in service of my larger goals: Sleep on the floor Sleep in my car Run in the snow, rain, and hail Carry fifty pounds on my back Limp for eight miles Climb 3300 feet Eat when I wasn't hungry Delay meals until my hands shook Keep going despite an open wound Work through a four-day migraine Cry in the elevator, then wipe my eyes and go back to work Give away all my stuff Kick a 50-pound suitcase with a broken handle through two airport terminals Get inoculated Scrub toilets and change diapers Pay money I didn't want to spend Take orders from mean people I didn't like Work all night (many times) Work in a tent Work on a plane Work in a hotel Work through meals Work with four devices open Quit doing things I enjoyed to free up time for my goal When my goal is my cherished fluffy little pet, it's worth it. When I really want something to happen, when I really really want something I can't just buy at a store, which is almost everything worth having, then I'll do what it takes. No question. On the other hand, when my "goal" is a pseudo-goal that I actually hate, then nothing can get me moving on it. I never lost weight when I had contempt for fit, attractive, or fashionable people, but I did it almost instantly when I decided to run the marathon. I never had any money when I had contempt for wealthy people, but it was fairly straightforward when I developed a burning desire to be independent. I could never get organized when I associated it with criticism and perfectionism, but I did it quickly when I realized it would help me accomplish awesome things like traveling the world. The difference there is that I moved toward something I saw as attractive, exciting, and much better than where I was when I started. Just like most people will move quickly toward a tray of free pastries, a goal should be shiny, sweet, and delicious to you. Whereas, when a goal is distasteful, onerous, or irrelevant, "trying" is failing. It's the difference between cuddling my cute little cuppycake, or pet-sitting someone's obnoxious, spoiled little monster. No thanks. You can't wait until it's gone, and many people choose goals that they secretly wish would run away. There are tradeoffs. One goal is often mutually exclusive with another goal, just as my cuppycake keeps me from having a cat. A goal sometimes requires its own living standards, just as not everyone will rent to us or give us a hotel room due to our menagerie. A goal sometimes comes with a surprisingly large number of unwieldy accessories, and you know what I mean if you've ever cleaned a birdcage. When your goal is your true heart's delight, you take it in stride. I have pets because I can't help myself. I'm smitten. The times when I haven't had pets, part of me has been empty and listless. It's the same with goals. They show up and we're helpless, hopeless, willing slaves of our own dreams. We're never the same afterward. They make our lives and our hearts bigger. Get one, go nuts, dote on it, and love it and squeeze it until it squeaks. Raise your hand if you’re ever confused about what you’re supposed to eat and not eat. Oh, everybody? Okay then! I learned what I know about health food as an adult. When I grew up, grocery stores all had a predictable range of stuff, and most people had never heard of stuff like goji berries or hummus or bioflavonoids or whatever. We definitely didn’t have purple potatoes! In fact, when I started learning to cook as a little kid, standard cookbooks didn’t even have pasta recipes. That didn’t start showing up until like 1985. From my perspective, you can see why learning more about new foods has felt progressively more awesome. More variety, more flavors, better quality, more recipes, even how-to videos! It also helps that I now have better quality kitchen hardware than I did as a young broke bachelorette. Learning to cook and learning more about nutrition has been an adventure, a tasty, tasty adventure. I started learning about new foods because… because I didn’t have a car. The closest food source to my first apartment happened to be an organic member-owned co-op grocery. It was small, and they only sourced health foods, almost none of which I’d ever heard about before. I would go in there, totally hungry, and wander the aisles like a little ghost. What was all this stuff? How did you cook it? Where were the Froot Loops? I quickly learned that there was very little overlap between what Food Front had on its shelves and what was available at, say, the convenience store where I worked my first real job. It was also readily apparent that the people shopping at the co-op were pretty different from the people shopping at the convenience store. Nobody was giving soda to a baby, for example. The people at the co-op kind of… looked healthy. Whereas, some of the people at the convenience store were impatiently waiting at 9:55 AM for the alcohol coolers to be unlocked so they could buy malt liquor. And cigarettes. Nobody at the co-op was buying anything with cheese that came out of a pump. Without necessarily even realizing it, I started to identify with the health-food eaters, even though I was an extreme picky eater who refused to eat vegetables. I had no idea how to cook. I once blew up my stove while boiling water for hot dogs. I’m a legend in my family for burning instant mashed potatoes. I made an oatmeal volcano in the microwave at my work. I made cookies and put in a tablespoon instead of a teaspoon… of baking powder. I made brownies once, and all the salt wound up in a little glob in one brownie, which fortunately I ate, because I’d never wish that on a friend. I have started cooking something on one page of a cookbook, and then the pages got stuck together and I started cooking a completely different recipe. It’s safe to say that I was on the extreme low end of I Have No Idea What I’m Doing. I just kept trying, though. I kept trying new foods, because I’d be on a date and the boy would suggest it, or because it was the only restaurant available within walking distance, or because I was too hungry to go to a different store. I kept reading through cookbooks at the bookstore and the library. I kept trying stuff, and it wouldn’t be great, but then I’d try something else, which also wouldn’t be great. Little by little, I started recognizing the names of weird new foods and learning what to expect on the menus of various ethnic restaurants and actually developing some taste preferences. When I really got serious, it was because suddenly I was a mother. Well, a mother of sorts, more specifically a step-mom. All this vestigial tribal memory stuff bubbled up from the primordial ooze. Must Grow Child. I never knew before that deep inside me was this alien image of a Wife and Mother Cooking Proper Meals. Uh, who are you and what have you done with me? I threw myself into the project with about the same energy that I put into learning to write all three Japanese language systems in high school. In other words, an arcane, difficult subject only assimilable by the rare few who were willing to hit the books hard enough. Something totally foreign but possibly interesting. Then the confirmations started happening. I started making stuff that tasted good. My prep work started going a lot faster. We had appetizing leftovers in the freezer. My new family started asking for more stuff with cabbage. Cabbage! I ask of you. The food started to look pretty. Then things got really interesting. I started learning about micronutrients and experimenting with trying to hit all my targets every day. That was when my migraines and my night terrors “coincidentally” disappeared. Learning about health food is like learning about anything else, whether that’s music or a language or a new friend. First it’s a total unknown, then you explore it uncertainly, then it gets kinda interesting, then you start to learn that wow, this is really fascinating actually! The more you know, the more familiar something is, the more you’re able to appreciate it. Then you start building up this case for why this new thing (or person) is awesome. Time goes by, and you’re so sold on this thing you formerly knew nothing about that you want to tell everyone else about it! It comes from direct experience, and experience comes from experimentation. I had every reason to avoid “health food.” I hated vegetables, I was a terrible cook, the health food store seemed to keep putting eggplants where all the good stuff was supposed to be. I had no idea what anything was or what to do with it. Little by little, as I learned more and tried more, everything changed. As my food intake changed, my body changed and my experience of life changed. It started to become obvious that the more I learned about food, the better I felt and the stronger I got. I don’t even miss eating cheese out of a pump. Before we begin, allow me to state again for the record that motivation doesn't really exist. We'll do anything as long as we WANT TO and we KNOW HOW. Otherwise, forget it. Not happening. The only trick is to figure out how to convince yourself to want things you don't already want. This can be done, yes, and it's a major secret to success. Easier, though, is to figure out how something actually does get you something you want, in ways you didn't realize before. You can be motivated by things you already find motivating. For a lot of people, a party or social gathering is one of the most powerful and delightful motivators. When I was a kid, we often had people over. My parents and their friends were all in their twenties, and they hung out a lot. Sometimes we would all go to a park and toss a Frisbee and have a barbecue, with chips and soda. Sometimes a bunch of us would go camping. Mostly, though, various friends would come over for spaghetti and garlic bread. I remember that we had a party when Michael Jackson's Thriller video first premiered, because we were the only ones in the group who had MTV. Another time, we had friends over for pizza and we rented Roadhouse on video. Awesome, right? What we always did before these informal parties was to clean the entire place top to bottom. Dust and vacuum! Polish everything with Lemon Pledge! Take out the trash! Wipe down the mirrors! Make the beds! Mom would scrub the bathroom until it sparkled, because that was a grownup job. We all ran around doing chores and checking the clock. Then the really great part happened: the FOOD. Mom would always make clam dip and we would have a bag of Ruffles potato chips. For the really big stuff like Tupperware parties, there would be deviled eggs. On birthdays, the birthday person got to choose what to have for dinner and what flavor of cake and frosting to get. (I liked strawberry shortcake with whipped cream). Days when we knew we had company coming were filled with mounting excitement, topped by certain party foods that we only, only ate on special occasions. When in doubt, link to a food reward. (Incidentally, I just figured out that my dog is just as happy to get an ice cube for tricks as he is to get a cookie). The real reward for all our dusting and polishing was the fun of having people over. The hugs, the new jokes, the laughter. Watching new movies. Playing cards or board games. Telling stories. The time would fly by. Before we knew it, it would be time to say goodnight. Then it would be just us. BORING! Those of us who live alone often don't feel any pressing need to clean up after ourselves. We're not hurting anybody, right? We can start to feel lonely and isolated. This is especially true if we have had roommates we really liked, or if we hate to be alone, or if we're single and not loving it. I admit it; I've cried at night, crying myself to sleep because I was new in town, with no friends and nobody to love. WHERE IS EVERYBODY? I kept my place clean, though, because that's a luxury to me. I can't think straight when I have papers and stuff everywhere. It depresses me to have sticky floors or crumbs on the counter. I've had several extremely messy roommates, including a Rebel who later made the local news for hoarding and squalor. My motivation for cleaning is that I like it clean. Given a choice between living alone or living in a mess, I'd choose to live alone. A lot of people feel the way I do, but most don't. Most people would rather have a lively, full house with a lot going on, and not care all that much about a bit of mess. These are questions of degrees. What is a 'mess' to one person is the 'after' photo to someone else. What it looks like after a full day of cleaning may still be 'messy' by other people's standards. How we feel about mess is one way we sort ourselves into social groups. The ideal is to settle into what makes us happy and proud, and also makes our friends feel relaxed and welcome. What that looks like is up to you, and it's up to them. Get it right, and they start coming over and hanging out all the time. No matter how your place looks, people need somewhere to sit (or at least stand). When I was a kid, adults sat on the couch and chairs, and kids sat on the floor. I still sit on the floor, because I still can! The majority of my clients have so much stuff in stacks and piles that even sitting on the floor is a challenge, because there just isn't enough room. Goat trails from one room to another. For a lot of my people, it's a major victory just to clear enough room to open the front door all the way, with nothing behind it. Then at least people can come to your door to pick you up without seeing your secret shame. The next area to tackle is the bathroom, or at least the bathroom closest to the front door. Even someone who is just knocking on your door to pick you up may surprise you with a sudden request to use your bathroom. It'll go better if the fixtures are clean and there's hand soap and a clean hand towel. If you want people to come over and hang out, they'll need not just a clean bathroom and somewhere comfortable to sit, but also somewhere to put their stuff. Bags, coats, potluck dishes, whatever else they may be bringing. If you want people to stay long, they'll probably want to eat, and that tends to mean somewhere to put food. Whether that's bags of chips and snacks, pizza boxes, a potluck, or a full fancy sit-down dinner is up to you. This kind of visualization can help to motivate even the biggest cleanup job. We can imagine a pool of acceptability spreading from the front door through the entire home, whether that's a tiny apartment or a huge house. It also helps to realize that we don't have to work on basements, attics, sheds, storage units, bedrooms, cabinets, closets, or other hidden areas before starting to have social gatherings. We only have to focus on visible areas first. The thing about isolation and shame is that they feed on themselves. It's our awkward, weird, lonely feelings that create the problem. Being honest and revealing the secret shame to someone can be a huge breakthrough, as long as it's a nurturing rather than critical person. You may well know someone who will come over and sit with you while you sort out your stuff and get your place ready for company. Or you can just print out a picture of someone you admire and tape it to the wall. Oh my gosh! Chris Pratt and Adele, you made it! Thanks so much for coming over! A party doesn't have to be anything fancy. You can have a board game night, dance battle, LAN party, lip sync battle, coloring night, crafting, a movie marathon, or whatever you want. You can invite one person over, or ten, or however many will fit. I used to have an open house one night a week, and friends would bring friends of friends. People came over to our place because we had plenty of room, they didn't have to RSVP, and we didn't care if they brought five friends. We frequently had twenty-odd people over. (How many of them were 'odd people' is a matter of debate). In the first two months that we lived in our new place, we had three visits from various friends from out of town. That feeling that my place is always company-ready is a friendly feeling. It's all about the atmosphere, demonstrating that you're glad to see everyone and you want to make sure they know their visit matters to you. |
AuthorI've been working with chronic disorganization, squalor, and hoarding for over 20 years. I'm also a marathon runner who was diagnosed with fibromyalgia and thyroid disease 17 years ago. This website uses marketing and tracking technologies. Opting out of this will opt you out of all cookies, except for those needed to run the website. Note that some products may not work as well without tracking cookies. Opt Out of CookiesArchives
January 2022
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