Out of Chaos an organizing newsletter
Plod Your Way to Success
“Oddly, growth and goal-setting can feel like more work than dreaming of perfection. When we try to be perfect, we fail so often that we almost get used to it.”
When I read that Brené Brown quote last week, I thought, Yes! When I was in my twenties, I was all about perfection. All or nothing. No food at all, or bottomless Champagne and Brie. “Growth” was such a plodding term. “Incremental” was anathema. I would never have admitted it, but what I really wanted was for things to be easy. I don’t know about you, but when I can flip on the obsession switch, work feels easy: I ride that manic energy through the night—but the next day, I’m useless. I used to tell myself, “But I’m an artist, this is how I work.” Maybe. Or maybe I just lacked discipline.
Now, I know that if I want to lose weight, I’ll do better in the long run by making small, sustainable tweaks to my diet than if I say, “Nothing but veggies until I’m a size 4!” Likewise, if you want to be more organized, working at opening and sorting your mail every day will be more fruitful than buying a brand-new desk from Design Within Reach.
I get it. I’m a sucker for the grand gesture. I love nothing more than the extreme makeover: like Sandy in the final scene of Grease, as if somehow when we change costumes (or desks), everything else will change to match. But that isn’t how it works.
The fact is, making lasting change requires plodding, unglamorous work. Sticking with boring, mundane habits (opening your mail, resisting snacks), isn’t easy, but it is how real change happens. Not with fad diets and new leather pants, not with a platinum card at The Container Store, but with teeny decisions adding up over time.
So, forget perfection, grand gestures, makeovers: Just open the mail.