Old Habits Die Hard: Breaking the Monotony of Daily Repeat… Becca Style

Sometimes life repeats itself in a never-ending circle of monotony.

Get up in the morning.

Get the kids ready for school.

Bathe, dress, and feed the babies.

Housework routine.

Mom routine.

Kids come home from school.

More mom routine.

Eat supper.

Everyone gets ready for bed and sleeps (usually later than planned).

Up the next day and repeat…

How does one break up the monotony of this cycle? Is there a productive solution?

If there is one thing I know it is that old habits die hard, and bad habits die even harder.

So, can someone who lives in the broken-record style of life smooth out the chaos?

YES!

How does one start on the progress part of this mountain climbing expedition? By taking the first step, and then each step thereafter.

There are a lot of different things that someone can do to change the routine in their home from “non-routine” or “organized chaos” into something a little more fulfilling. I mean, I’m in the process of doing that myself!

So basically, I am inviting you to join with me in making a positive change. I am in the trenches right there with you. My family and I are working on lots of things! And me, being the scattered personality that I am, I have overwhelmed myself with too many amazing ideas of change and progress.

I don’t recommend doing that, at all! Ha! It’s bad for the mind. Have you ever seen a machine that overloaded? It starts steaming, shaking, and making weird noises as it begins to crash… and at the end, when the whole thing shuts down, it sits there… smoke creeping from the cracks as it makes that slow hissing sound of death.

That’s what I do to my brain when I get super excited about making changes and forget to take it slow.

This time I decided I was going to do it differently and prevent a premature shutdown of progress.

Where did I start my routine change?

My first change was staying up after I got the kids off to school.

That’s it.

One thing.

Don’t go back to bed. Stay up.

Of course, during the first weeks and months after having the twins, I slept as much as my body and brain would allow. But, they are seven months old now, and I have been able to bring myself out of the habit of sleeping in too late.

I get up, get the older three boys ready for their buses, see them off, and then set to the task of feeding myself and maybe getting a thing or two done before the twins wake up and need my attention.

Enter my personality quirk.

I realized just how much can get done in an hour or two, when you have motivation, progress happening in front of you, and some awesome music to listen to while you work. Or, a friend or two to chat with on Marco Polo on the phone while working as well. 😉

Just by staying up I figured out I could clean an entire house before 11am!

Now, you don’t have to jump in headfirst like I did. I only mentioned staying up instead of going to bed as a first step. My “all or nothing” personality gets in my own way all too often, and I did my first step (staying up instead of sleeping in) and then took three more steps at the same time!

And that brings me to step two: MODERATION

Do NOT overwhelm yourself with “change.”

This is where things go south, and fast!

How do you eat a 10lb steak? One bite at a time, right?

Don’t expect yourself to transform into some super-parent model for the world to admire in a day, week, or even a month!

Like I said before, I am a scattered personality, and I will lose direction if I don’t stop and check myself now and then. I even have to tell myself, out loud, to slow down and remember Moderation!

So, remember Moderation, because it truly is one of the most important things when making changes in a family dynamic, routine, schedule, and so on.

Now, are you ready for step three?

Step Three: which is basically a repeat of step one. Pick one thing to work on, and work on it. It can be anything. A routine change like my step one was, or a menu change for the family. Maybe clean out a closet, or kitchen cabinet. It can be whatever you want it to be.

And then step four: MODERATION.

That’s it!

I love how simple things can be if we allow them to be!

I am the master of complicating things that can be simple, because of how my mind processes the little things. Anyone who lives with anxiety understands the necessity of reminding ourselves to slow down, use moderation, don’t overdo it, and pace ourselves.

So, here we are. And it’s kind of funny how I got here.

I wrote at the beginning of this post that the cycle that never ends, constantly repeating itself, broken record style, is monotonous and I am trying to change mine. And yet, I just wrote out a repetitive list, broken record style, that would be the breaker of the monotony! Ha! It doesn’t get any more “ME” than that, does it?!

Welcome to my world! Hahaha!

So a simple breakdown of the way to kill the broken record monotony in your life: