My Realistic Expectations for February

February was a good month… Other than “failing” at my original focus and monthly challenge.  But, I also did a bit of soul searching and adjusting of my expectations of myself.

I used to read this blog called “A Slob Comes Clean” and one thing that she always expressed was that when things started getting crazy around the house, she would return to the basics (or survival mode, as she puts it), the one thing that was the key to keeping things from tumbling down in to the depth of clutter and mess for her was to run her dishwasher every night.  And that idea stuck with me since then.

Partway through February, when I missed a few blog posts and was feeling overwhelmed, I decided I should enact my own type of survival mode.  I decided to not attempt to create any new habits or take on any new projects, but just try my best to keep up with the ones that I was already struggling with, or even let go of some of them until I felt better in control.

So, what did my survival mode look like?  What did I do?

Well, I walked the dog.  Yup, I took the pup for a walk.  It’s something that I know I need to do at least once a day, preferably twice.  I even put it specifically in my morning routine that I developed in January.  So I made sure that I did that.  It’s simple, and something that is supposed to be automatic, but when everything is piling up and I have too much to do, I would just leave the other stuff guilt-free and walk the dog.

Speaking of my morning routine, I tried my darnedest to stick with some version of it every morning.  If I found myself thinking “oh, I didn’t get that done last night, I’ll do it now…” and that something I didn’t do wasn’t a part of the morning routine, I let it go.  It wasn’t easy to do, but I was in survival mode.  Extra things did not take priority.

And if there was ever any doubt about what should be my priority, I’d look at my habit tracker.  These are the habits that I have laid out for months and months, that I know help me keep my life on track.  If it was 9:30 pm and I was tempted to sit on the couch and watch another episode of some Netflix show, but the dishes weren’t washed from dinner, then I’d force myself to wash the dishes, then take the dog for a walk, then head to bed and read a bit before going to sleep.  The priority was to fill in those little boxes on my habit tracker and not worry about some new project that I “should” be getting started on.

All this of course doesn’t make for very interesting blog posts, but sometimes that’s just how it has to be.  I am a real person, with real and boring struggles, and I never started this blog with the intention of catering to readers really, though that’s probably what has kept me going for so long, but I created it to help me become a better person.  And for the month of February, that meant going in to survival mode and getting back to basics.

Have you even gone in to survival mode?  Have you ever just gone back to the basics?