Dear Friends,

Our success in FLYing comes at the heels of two important words:
Persistence and Consistence. When we look at our own history we see an
inconsistency in how we look at our housework.  You know the old
story of stash and dash, crisis cleaning and then crash and burn. This
left our homes in shambles after a few short days. Then we would beat
ourselves up because of it!

I had to deal with this when I made my final attempt at getting
organized in 1999. On January 1st, I spent all day looking at why Pam
and Peggy’s card file system never worked for very long for me. It was
not that it was not a good system; it was, but it was how I did it was
the problem. I would go gung ho for several days and then run out of
steam. Then the guilt would enter into the equation and I would not
want to look at the box and stick it under the counter.

As I examined why their system only worked for a little while; I
realized a major factor. I was working too hard and not letting the
system to work for me. I had not ever established habits. I only let
the cards guide me and it didn’t matter what order they were in. If
getting dressed popped up at 3 in the afternoon that was when I did
it, that is so alien to me now. I also had way too many cards. With my
perfectionism, I thought if one card was good then a card for
everything I do would be much better. Boy was I wrong. That abundance
of cards was overwhelming! I would give up!

Giving up is our lack of persistence. We do this all the time when we
say we don’t have time or that is too hard. We just throw in the towel
and begin to whine, “that too hard, too many emails or she doesn’t
understand my situation is different.” We are persistence in one area
of our lives; we hate change. If you are not finding success it is
because what you have been doing is not working. Doesn’t common sense
tell you that you have to change something and try again.

Thomas Edison through trial and error and persistence eventually
discovered the filament that would glow in a glass bulb. Every failure
for him was one less thing that he was going to have to try! Failures
are a good thing. They teach us what not to do the next time. That is
if we don’t get hung up in our failures and beat ourselves up for
them. Use them as a learning experience and keep plugging away.

Every mistake I have made in my life helps me to grow and become
wiser! If I had given up I would not have become FlyLady. If we don’t
learn from our mistakes we are destined to make the same ones again
and again! So looking back on that fateful January 1, 1999, I realize
that I had never established a habit and I had been too hard on
myself. That day I determined that I would be nice to me and practice
one habit. Shining my sink was all I had to do for the whole month!

Let’s just say I was persistent in my quest to get organized and along
with that persistence I used the consistency of doing one thing every
day to help me find the peace that I knew was out there! It worked for
me and it has worked hundreds of thousands of people as well. When you
find something that works you stick with it.

We don’t try to reinvent the light bulb every time we screw one in a
socket; we trust it and don’t waste our time trying to improve on it.
We are very creative people and we love to do things our way or shall
I say try to make better a system. This is when we skip the foundation
babysteps.

I am giving you a light bulb that works! Trust it and take the first
steps of shining your sink and being nice to yourself. As you
establish the basic habits you are going to begin to feel your light
shining brightly! With your habits established you are free to follow
your dreams and use your creativity in ways that bless you instead of
ways to sidetrack you. You can’t skip the most important steps of
Persistence and Consistency.

Are you ready to FLY?

FlyLady