Saturday, March 2, 2013

Confidence Has Its Limits

One of the devotional pieces I have added to my life this year is an app based on The Confident Woman by Joyce Meyer. In the devotional for February 9th, she wrote this:

"Trial and error is the road to success, and you can't drive that road as long as your car is parked. So get moving, and God will direct you. When people are confident, they try things, and they keep trying until they find a way to be successful in what God has called them to do."

I guess that means I am usually confident. I am always trying (and failing) things. Something doesn't work in my lesson plan? I try something new. I re-order the rooms in our house several times a year hoping a new system will make things work better. I've had several different schedule/planner systems that have worked, but I'm always up for trying something new.

Every once in a while, though, I hit a wall. I feel so overwhelmed by something that I shut down almost completely. I can't make decisions and have a hard time motivating myself to do anything. This happened last weekend. We had a snow day from school, my son had a friend over and my husband was working from home. This seemed like the perfect time to dive into my latest cleaning project, the office/craft room. This is the catch all room in our house for things that don't have a home. It tends to get over cluttered very quickly.

In my head I had already decided that I was going to get rid of a good amount of craft supplies that I'm not using and turn them into craft baskets for our school's auction in April. I easily have a four inch stack of beautiful papers as well as embellishments and fabric and other things that are in great shape but need a new home.

But there's just so much - my intentions and ideas are bigger than my schedule or my space. I see something and think, "I can make something with that!" and I buy it and then it sits.

I pulled all the craft materials out and spread them on our bed. Soon I had to move some piles to the living room because the bed was full and I was afraid it would collapse under the weight. I made some decisions about things I wanted to keep and how I wanted to order things. I emptied file cabinets and moved things around so I could get to the things we need more often. Then I hit the wall, figuratively speaking. I couldn't will myself out of the chair. I had to ask my husband what to do with this pile or that because I just couldn't make another decision. The only thing that eventually got me back to work was the idea that I would have to sleep on the floor because our bed was unavailable and the boys wouldn't share the new couch.

By Saturday, I was calling the office The Pit of Dispair. All my good intentions and motivation for making the office usable again was gone.

Honestly, it does look better. There's less clutter on the floor, there's a drawer and a half empty in a file cabinet. Pictures are consolidated rather than scattered. But another day or two of work is still necessary. But that will not happen any time soon. I need a break. I made the office tolerable and moved things off the bed and couch so we can move around freely, but that's as far as I'm willing to go for now.

Hopefully my confidence will replenish after a few days' rest.

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