I used to floss my teeth every night. It was a one of my daily things. The habit was so ingrained that I rarely, if ever, missed a night.
And then, I stopped. I have no idea why or when anymore. But suddenly, I realized what had once been a daily thing had become much less frequent. And it began to bother me.
It bothered me when I went to the dentist and my gums weren’t as strong as they’d been. It bothered me because I know not-flossing opens the door to cavities. It bothered me, and I knew it didn’t take that long. But the habit was gone.
And truthfully, flossing wasn’t the only disappearance. I have let go of much of my over-achieving, checklist-driven need to perform. And that’s good.
But it’s also kind of bad. Or, at least, problematic.
The Dilemma of Daily Things
Not doing the daily things to please people or prove my worth is very freeing. It is. But, at the same time, doing them for myself is a new thing. And one that I’m not yet very good at. I know I need to do daily things. Like flossing and blogging. And cleaning my house. And bible study. But if I’m only doing them for myself, because I’m better when I do them … we’ll it’s still a bit easier to just not.
So I decided that I was going to stop worrying about ALL the daily things and just pick two. For the entire month of July, I would floss and blog every day and just see how it went. I also thought about starting another habit of sending weekly thank-you notes to people, but then I decided not to push my luck.
(Actually, according to Jon Acuff’s book Finish, one of the best ways to finish a goal is to begin by cutting the goal in half. And it works. Also I highly recommend the book.)
The Progress of Daily Things
So, I am halfway through July now, and I’m doing okay. I’ve flossed every night, and I’ve blogged every day but one.
But at the midway point, I’m also starting to feel the tug away from the daily habit. In the bathroom at bedtime, I find myself thinking, Well, it probably won’t hurt to not floss just tonight. It would be so easy not to. Choosing to do it anyway is actually taking work.
Same with blogging. I sit down to start something and suddenly everyone is making noise (Literally. Tonight, Timmy came in and starting singing to himself, while in the kitchen someone was slurping something through a straw. Really?!?) It’s hard to come back in and start writing when I really want to go to bed or read a book or whatever.
So it’s challenging. Building the habits I want in my life is not easy. No one said it was. But I am making progress. Flossing is slowly becoming part of the routine again. Thinking of something to say on my blog doesn’t take quite so long each time. I’m not there yet, but I’m making progress.
And even more, I think that next month I’ll pick one or two other things to work on. Keep on with flossing for sure (I’ll probably drop back the blog to less than every day, but who knows). But maybe in August, I’ll start writing thank-you notes weekly. Or sweeping my entire floor every day. There are so many daily things to choose from.
Talk to Me: What daily thing would you choose to start doing–every day for a month?
