The Importance of Flexibility (and Crunch!)

Professional Organizer... Organizing Guru... Diva of Decluttering. For you, these words may conjure up images of ruler-wielding, dominatrix-like women barking out orders to their poor unsuspecting clientele. "Zee payroll records get filed under P not H!... No piles of paper on zee desk!... Vee do not permit zee interruptions!"

While it's true that some organizers can indeed be a little, ummm,  shall we say, results-focused...

most of us are quite reasonable people. We understand that you achieve better results by offering guidance and teaching clients these new and important skills in a kinder, gentler, thousand-points-of-light kind of way. I know for me, it's all about maintaining flexibility.

I work with clients according to their work style, their learning style, their time frame and doing what makes the most sense to them. I work hard to get my clients to think positively, to  happily acknowledge what they've accomplished rather than berate themselves for the areas where they've backslid or slipped up. After all, it's all about forward progress and as long as we're always in the process of positive change, that's good news! Getting organized is a process not a singular event.

It's a lot like changing your diet. For the past 18 months, I've been eating in a much healthier fashion. I'm not perfect and I still have the occasional filet mignon (ok, or a Wendy's Double with extra pickles!)  But this life change, like any other, is a process, and when I have a day where I fall completely off the healthy food wagon, I accept it and get back on the next day. I don't judge myself, I don't condemn myself and I get back to it as quick as possible. And in the grand scheme of things, even faltering a few times a week, I'm still eating way better than I used to.

During grocery shopping this weekend, I grabbed a big box of Peanut Butter Cap'n Crunch cereal. I haven't had that stuff in probably twenty years, and yes, I know it's bad for me, but a conversation with my neighbor got me craving it.  So I got it.  But I'm not bothered by my decision and I refuse to feel guilty about it. It's not like I'm going to eat Peanut Butter Cap'n Crunch at every meal for the rest of my life. I'll finish it and go back to my All-Bran and Chex and whatever other cereal I normally eat. But for a while anyway, I'm having Cap'n Crunch.  And I'll be celebrating my flexibility with every delicious crunchy bite.

Technorati Tags: Cap'n Crunch, cereal, Wendy's, organization, guru, organizer, flexibility, time management Add to: | Technorati |  Digg |  del.icio.us |  Yahoo |  BlinkList |  Spurl |  reddit |   Furl | 

Comments

[Dixie Vogel]

You've got something there, Monica. It's so important to celebrate our progress, and ignore our "less-than-perfect" choices. So often, when someone is working on improving some area of their lives, they focus on percieved shortcomings instead of progress, thinking that by being tougher on themeselves and crackng the whip, they can bully themselves into improvement. I don't know about anybody else, but for me, feeling like a screw-up doesn't help my performance. Nothing is more motivating than feeling successful.

I see this constantly with folks trying to lose weight or improve their diets. If you're looking for perfection (i.e. never making a questionable choice), you've made failure a certainty. But if you see success as making more choices that support your goal, it's easy to attain. Personally, I choose to be successful. :)

[Monica Ricci]

Dixie, you are SO right! I appreciate your taking time to comment and hope you'll come back often and share your thoughts. (I am just about out of my Peanut Butter Cap'n Crunch by the way) :) ~Monica