Sneak Up On Your Dreams

One of the most powerful tools that you can create and use in your life, to assure that you are moving towards your goals, are routines.  We all have routines for many of the mundane things in our lives.  We probably have a regular set of steps we take to get ourselves ready in the morning or to pay our bills or clean the house.  These aren’t things we’re crazy about doing, but having the routine helps us to remember to wash our hair and take the garbage out.  For example, when I’m in my glazed over mode in the shower, I know that if I’m washing my back that I’ve already washed my face and my hair, because they are first in the routine. I don’t have to think of much, which is good since I’m often pretty out of it when trying to shower.  If I had to think about it every day, that would add a lot of extra work to my life.  Creating routines for as many activities as possible, removes them from your thinking and creative mind.  You can get them done without exercising your brain.  In addition, those things get done!

Create routines to help you accomplish as many of your regular tasks as possible. Particularly, work on routines for the tasks that you don’t enjoy very much.  I don’t really like planning dinners. I don’t mind cooking them so  much, but I hate trying to think up what to eat every night.  I can create a calendar with meals planned for each night. That way I can both shop for food more efficiently and not have to think every night.  Sometimes I get lazy, though, and don’t do the planning so I have to spend more time every night thinking.  I need to find a place in my routine to add the task of planning dinners. If it becomes regular and second nature, it will get done. In addition, I used to choose my clothes for work every evening, another chore that I hate.  I finally decided to plan out my whole week of clothes, pull them out of the drawers, and pile them in a basket every Sunday.  It took about the  same amount of energy that each night took me, but once it was done once, it was over for the week.

What regular things need to be done in your household that you don’t want to do? There should be plenty of activities like that.  List the activities and start seeing how you can break them down into smaller pieces.  When I was responsible for the laundry, I would put a load in the washer every morning, move it to the dryer when I got home from work in the afternoon, and fold it at night.  That way I would always have all the laundry done and I rarely noticed doing it.  If you think of an onerous task that you can’t think of how to break down, start searching the Internet for sites that give helpful household hints (such as: Discover Organization, Blog about Helpful Household Hints, Fly Lady).

The idea is to take a large, uninteresting or undesirable activity and break them down into pieces so small that you can easily slip them into your routine without causing you too much misery.  Once you’ve broken down the task, see where you can fit the pieces into your daily routine. It’s easier to convince yourself to just throw one load of laundry into the washer instead of thinking of “doing laundry.”

If you have many good routines, think of what other activities could be put into more routines.  If you have few routines, start developing as many as you can.  You don’t need to start them all at once, just create them to use at a later time.  Start using your routines regularly.  If you need to write down the steps and post them on your refrigerator, do that.  I used to have my afternoon schedule posted on the refrigerator so that I would get all parts done even though I was worn out from work.  Your routines become the backbone of your day, your week, your life.  Good routines, that are used consistently, get things done.

Waiting for the inspiration to want to do these things will rarely afford you the productivity you need to achieve your goals. The nature of things that are put into routines is that they’re not things you really want to do.  Therefore, waiting until you want to do it, won’t get as much done.  Stay aware that these are things that you don’t necessarily want to do and therefore pushing yourself to do what needs to be done in routines is what will help you get ahead.

If you have difficulty initiating routines, tell me what those difficulties are in the comments. I’m interested in the obstacles people run into when trying to create or follow routines.

What are your goals for your children? Many people don’t think of this very directly.  People often answer things like I want them to be happy or successful.  If parents really just wanted their kids to be happy, they’d just let them sit at home and eat chips and play video games all day.  Even success if not so clear. Will your child be successful if she’s a doctor? What about if he’s a fireman?  Part of the problem of not having our goals for our children clear, is that we get tied up in anxiety about whether we’re doing the right things for our children.

We want clearly delineated goals for ourselves because we know that they help you achieve what you want, so why not for our children.  In this case, I don’t mean having our children make their own goals, but our goals as parents. What are we trying to give our children on their way to grown-uphood?

Many parents just try to provide their children with every single positive thing they think there is out there. The children should have every lesson, should get the most from school, should have lots of educational experiences and so on and so forth.  Without goals, though, it’s hard to figure out what is really necessary and what just makes us feel like we’re doing our best.

For my children, I want them to learn many skills. For example, I want them to be able to get themselves out of bed and ready for school on their own without anyone. I want them to pay attention to other people, their peers and the adults around them. I want them to be able to figure out how to deal in social situations and feel confident about their needs.  I want my children to be able to figure out what they want and break those goals down into smaller, doable tasks.  I want my children to understand that there is a lot of help available in the world for whatever questions they might have and they shold ask for it.  I want my children to be self-sufficient without necessarily being overstressed.

Having my goals written out helps me remember what is important to me. Then when something happens like my son wants to quit soccer, i can look back and think about the fact that I want my children to try new things, but that means letting them quit them if they turn out not to be interested in them.  It helps me realize that it’s more important for me to encourage my children to try new things, with the promise they can quit if they’re not interested, than it is for me to teach them not to quit.

What are your goals for your kids?  Can you spell them out clearly and specifically?  Don’t consider them in terms of “I don’t want…”  I will talk about fears for your kids in a later post.  What concrete types of things do you want for your kids? When they’re adults what do you want them to be capable of?

These are your goals, even though they’re for your kids.  Parenting can be overwhelming without an idea of where we’re going.  Most people’s goals will be reasonable and probably mirror their own life in some way.  I like having a laid back life, earning about as much money as I need, instead of lots extra.  I would like to pass that value onto my children, but other people may have other, very reasonable, goals for their children.  What do you want to achieve as a parent?