You might start by cleaning your bedroom, but wait a minute! You could get the laundry going while you work in here!
So you run to start your machines. Of course you need to gather up some dirties before you can do that, but while getting your girls’ clothes you notice they are mixed in with their toys, so you start picking those up and putting them away to get them out of your way of gathering up clothes.
But they have all their stuff mixed up so you begin sorting the blocks from the dolls.
Woops! Now you need some more boxes to put their stuff in, but you have to move the cans of food you bought on sale last week in order to get to the spare boxes.
With the floor partly clear, you might as well sweep. It will only take a minute.
But while getting the broom you notice all the extra stuff in your broom closet that doesn’t belong there. Better put that all up…
You get the idea.
You start cleaning every room in your house, but never finish a one. You might could finish one if you just knew which was the most important to finish first.
Or you have the other end of the problem; today you will scrub the kitchen floor. Of course the only way to do it is to do it right! You get out your bucket and brushes and toxic chemicals and begin scrubbing that floor! It takes you three hours, but by golly! No floor has ever been cleaner!
Meanwhile you children have gone hungry, Hubby has no underwear for tomorrow, and you haven’t even thought about supper yet. And now you are out of energy and can’t do anything else today.
This is called Hyper Focus (another ADD thing) and is the other side of the same coin as the Jack Rabbit who moves from project to project without making a dent in any of them.
Either way, something is wrong and you are likely just losing ground.
Quickly.You know it’s possible to have a clean, comfortable house because you know others who do. How exactly do they do it?
The truth is, they don’t know.
They just do it without giving it a lot of thought. It comes naturally to them.
It sure doesn’t to me!
Everything I do is deliberately thought out and planned. But it isn’t as much work as you might think to do this planning.
You see, I hate making decisions (turns out that’s an ADD thing too. Who’d ‘ave thunk it? I always thought I was the only one who hated decisions so much). So I discovered a long time ago that I do best if I make a one-time decision that takes care of all the future decisions.
For example, I decided years ago that the first thing I would do every morning would be to read one chapter out of my Bible.
Except I kept falling asleep.
So I decided the first thing I would do would be to get a shower (to wake up!) then read one chapter out of my Bible.
This has been my “norm” for years now. I no longer have to get up and think “What will I do first?” or “I hope I get to my Bible sometime today.” Or even “I hope I remember to shower BEFORE Hubby gets home.” I just get up, stumble into the bathroom. Shower, dress, then get my Bible and settle in my rocker to read. I don’t even have to think about it.
That’s the power of habits.
Habits control our actions, and because they are so hard to break, they can be a powerful tool in our attempts to improve our homes.
This is what the Thanksgiving Dance is: a cleaning habit formed that includes the habit of a thankful attitude while cleaning. We begin one step at a time.
The normal way to "get the house under control" is to do a cleaning marathon, totally exhausting ourselves so we don't have the energy to clean for a week afterwards.
Even if we did have the energy to clean after this marathon, we don't know how to keep the house clean (who would have taught us? School? Our moms? I don't know about you but my school didn't bother with such things and between school, homework, extra curricular activities, and my social life my mom never had the chance to teach me. Not that she actually knew how mind you. Same problem I had. As did her mom.)
So within days of working so hard to get the house nice, it has deteriorated back to where it started from.
Why bother?
This is why we need...
When I was in high school I took a dance class. When we walked in the first day of class, the teacher did NOT spell out the entire 50 step dance to us we were to learn. We would have all walked out of the room in fear and discouragement.
No, she showed us ONE step. Then she had us practice it. Over and over and over again, until our muscles were in the habit of moving that way.
Then she showed us a second step and we practiced the two together until they felt natural and we didn’t have to think about them. And so on.
By the end of the semester, we all knew all 50 steps perfectly. If you began playing the music used in class we would all begin the routine without even thinking about it.
This is how a ballerina does what she does. Someone carefully thinks out each step, then she learns the steps, and then practices until her muscles remember what to do without her having to think about it. She can then concentrate on putting her emotions into the movements.
This is what you are going to do with the Thanksgiving Dance. This will be your own, personal ballet. You will choreograph it. Then you will practice it until it is second nature.
You pick 1-3 “steps” to begin with. You will do them every day, no matter what.
Only after a minimum of a week are you allowed to add another step. 2-4 weeks is better.
Write your own steps. The ones I need may not be needed in your home, and you may have steps you want to do that I never thought of or need in my home. That’s ok. Each of us creates our own dance to God. It will be a unique as we are.
God blessed us with our homes, our children, our Hubbies, our health. When we dance to Him in thanksgiving, it tells Him we are grateful.
Take Sunday off of all but the most essential steps.
That’s the power of habits.
Habits control our actions, and because they are so hard to break, they can be a powerful tool in our attempts to improve our homes.
This is what the Thanksgiving Dance is: a cleaning habit formed that includes the habit of a thankful attitude while cleaning. We begin one step at a time.
The normal way to "get the house under control" is to do a cleaning marathon, totally exhausting ourselves so we don't have the energy to clean for a week afterwards.
Even if we did have the energy to clean after this marathon, we don't know how to keep the house clean (who would have taught us? School? Our moms? I don't know about you but my school didn't bother with such things and between school, homework, extra curricular activities, and my social life my mom never had the chance to teach me. Not that she actually knew how mind you. Same problem I had. As did her mom.)
So within days of working so hard to get the house nice, it has deteriorated back to where it started from.
Why bother?
This is why we need...
The Thanksgiving Dance
No, she showed us ONE step. Then she had us practice it. Over and over and over again, until our muscles were in the habit of moving that way.
Then she showed us a second step and we practiced the two together until they felt natural and we didn’t have to think about them. And so on.
By the end of the semester, we all knew all 50 steps perfectly. If you began playing the music used in class we would all begin the routine without even thinking about it.
This is how a ballerina does what she does. Someone carefully thinks out each step, then she learns the steps, and then practices until her muscles remember what to do without her having to think about it. She can then concentrate on putting her emotions into the movements.
This is what you are going to do with the Thanksgiving Dance. This will be your own, personal ballet. You will choreograph it. Then you will practice it until it is second nature.
You pick 1-3 “steps” to begin with. You will do them every day, no matter what.
Only after a minimum of a week are you allowed to add another step. 2-4 weeks is better.
Write your own steps. The ones I need may not be needed in your home, and you may have steps you want to do that I never thought of or need in my home. That’s ok. Each of us creates our own dance to God. It will be a unique as we are.
God blessed us with our homes, our children, our Hubbies, our health. When we dance to Him in thanksgiving, it tells Him we are grateful.
Take Sunday off of all but the most essential steps.
Rules
You will NOT clean ANYTHING perfectly. Getting things perfectly clean is not the point or your focus.
Your focus is to do the Thanksgiving Dance perfectly as a demonstration to God of how thankful you are for what He has blessed you with. You have to trust the Dance to eventually clean the house for you.
If you are perfect in forming the habit of the Dance, you can trust that it will all get done eventually.
Now let’s go dance.
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