A Little Better Every Day
Most counselors have talked about growth mindset in one way or another with students, staff and even families.
We know that humans rarely have a huge shift in behavior that last. We know that true change is almost always incremental, sometimes even microscopic and most of us are incredibly good at seeing and encouraging that in the students that we serve.
But when it comes to our own lives, we often get OVERWHELMED with all the things, expectations, obligations and plans, that we miss those small ways we can make our own lives a little better each day. I was listening to a great book recently, We Should All Be Millionaires, by Rachel Rodgers, where she talked about the mental load that most women carry in their daily lives and how it not only costs them money, but also quality of life. She talked about how she has chosen to equip her home with a team of support professionals that most of us couldn’t even dream of and how it has created a complete shift in the way she lives her life. She doesn’t pretend that we are all currently millionaires of course, so she also encouraged the readers to consider what small ways we can begin to move toward the life of our dreams. THAT got me to thinking.
What ONE thing could you do today to make your life just a LITTLE better?
Cultivating a growth mindset means that you know you can improve. The practice and effort you put in day after day will help you improve yourself. You know you can make a difference in all areas of your life. You can grow and get better at what you do. Consistent effort is one part of the equation. Do something every single day to move you in the right direction. James Clear’s book, Atomic Habits, is another one that really pushed me to think about what 1% better looks like in my daily life.
So I asked myself the question. What is ONE thing that I could do today to make my own life just a LITTLE better?
It’s easy to take the big goals, like redoing the deck or cleaning out the exploding closet and breaking it down into small attainable tasks. But sometimes it’s not even the big things that make the biggest impact. Let me give you an example, I shared on social media some years ago. It’s a story about a potholder.
I grew up as the youngest of 5 children, being raised by my older-than-everybody-else’s parents, so my childhood felt markedly different than most of my friends. But in my house my dad did the cooking and so that’s how I learned and in my dad’s kitchen there were no potholders. We had kitchen towels and maybe as I got older a hotpad or two, but those big luxurious potholders that were plush and decorative and matched all the kitchen decor? None of those.
So, as an adult I never really invested in those. I’d grab a cheap one from the dollar store while I was there, but that was about it. Mostly, I would do exactly as my dad had for all the years that I watched him cook, I used a doubled over kitchen towel as a makeshift potholder. And then I burned my hand.
No, I wasn’t scarred for life, but that burn was SUCH an annoyance. It made think about how ridiculous it was that I was choosing to be inconvenienced. That I had allowed myself to tolerate having to fold the towel just so in order to prevent the burn. The very next day I went to Costco and got the sturdiest set of oven mitts I could find and said goodbye to burning my hands once and for all.
Now you probably do not tolerate burning your hand, but I’m willing to bet, there’s at least one or two little small annoyances in your life that if you would take the time to address them, you could give your life an upgrade. Things like:
Changing a light bulb or adding a light fixture
Prepping meals on the weekend to avoid feeling stressed all week about dinner
Moving furniture for more convenience or less clutter
These small, incremental improvements will quickly start to add up and before you know it you’re feeling better without needing to take a week off of work or hire a full time live in nanny.
Now you can dive all in and go through your house room by room to make a list of the small things you want to improve, but don’t worry about getting everything done at once. Instead, ‘dig where the ground is soft’ and the next time you find yourself being annoyed by a loose shelf or sticky drawer commit to addressing it in the moment rather than just settling for the status quo.
Most people who are feeling unhappy, overwhelmed or frustrated in life really don’t need to run away from home, Eat, Pray, Love style. But by taking one or two steps in the right direction consistently, most of us will see results much sooner than we expected.
Are you a person who has noticed yourself feeling burnt out or overwhelmed recently? Get in touch, I’d love to help.