A friend who was just setting out on the journey to homeschool her children told me the story of her first day. She went through her entire lesson plan. She taught her son all the subjects and went through all her projects. It went more smoothly than she had thought it would. Then she recounted the look of abject horror on her son’s face as realization set in, and he said to her, “We have to do this EVERY DAY???”

SWEEPING THE FLOOR

This calls to mind a quote from one of my all-time favorite authors, Ryan Holiday, in his book Ego is the Enemy: “My friend, the philosopher and martial artist Daniele Bolelli, once gave me a helpful metaphor. He explained that training was like sweeping the floor. Just because we’ve done it once doesn’t mean the floor is clean forever. Every day the dust comes back. Every day we must sweep … You must sweep the floor every minute of every day. And then, sweep again.”

ONLY CHECKED OFF FOR TODAY

It feels so good to check off items on my To Do List! Unfortunately, there a lot of items that, when I check them off, they’re only checked off for today. I feel a good sense of accomplishment when I do my physical therapy exercises, or give my home an hour of TLC, spend hours attending to PAPERMOON and more hours searching for a new job. Then comes that moment of horror when I wake up each morning and think, I have to do this AGAIN?! I just did this yesterday!

NO FINISH LINE

When I made a list of life goals, I learned a lot about myself. There are way fewer goals that have a “finish line.” These are items that I’ll one day just achieve, and then, check, they’re done. Many more of my goals contain ways in which I want to live my life. Those are extremely frustrating because there isn't that sense of achievement that comes at the end. There’s no blue ribbon that says, YES! You won this one! Instead, there’s just that dusty floor in the morning, waiting to be swept again.

HEADING IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION

I find it very comforting that my list is pushing me in the right direction. As Ryan Holiday says, “What is most obvious but most ignored, is that perfecting the personal regularly leads to success as a professional; but rarely the other way around.” Maybe I don't need to make broad, sweeping goals for all of the things I'll someday achieve. I just need to keep showing up, keep sweeping my own personal floors, and then the good and right things will come.

WHO I WANT TO BE

Focusing on who I want to be, the ways in which I live my life day-to-day, the commitments that I make to myself, to my family, to my home, my business, and the world, make me into the kind of person to whom good things happen, in every area of my life. So, I’ll sign off now. Off to sweep the floor!