Who I am...

"I love knowing who I am and more importantly, who I’m not." This sentence got posted recently on Marcia François' blog (a very interesting serie about party planning, check it out if you've got a birthday coming!) and it rang a bell with me.

I think this is the exact reason why so much disorganisation occurs in my life (or anyone's, actually). When we try to pretend we're someone else, or when we don't even know ourselves well enough, we end up with disorganisation and all its ugly friends: clutter, wasted time, bad feelings like guilt and low self-esteem, stress.

Some practical examples of this? Easy, I just have to look at my house and my life:

• My craft closet is full of supplies I'll probably never use because I'm a digiscrapper at heart, not a paper scrapper.
• My closet is full of clothes that don't fit because I gained a lot of weight, but that I keep nonetheless because I hope that one day, when I finally lose this weight, they'll fit again. The fact that they'll then (if that day ever happens) be totally out of style is another question!
• My RSS reader is full of blogs that I follow in hope of being someone I'm not, someone that cooks, that scraps a lot (I have much more inspirational ideas that I'll ever have time to use!), that paper scraps (see above about craft closet), that blogs regularly (see below the date of my last post... yeah, I know!), etc.

Holding on those "someone I'm not" have bad consequences, and yet I can't let go of them. These are not true dreams I have, or things I really want to do/be/have in my life, otherwise I would have taken action on them. For example we really want a baby, and we are doing what's necessary and possible to get pregnant. But being a great cook... mmmm, not so much, since all I keep doing is reading food blogs without doing anything. It all summarize to that: being a doer instead of a thinker, a daydreamer or a reader.

Actually, a little bit of inspiration is great and pushes me to do new things and get out of my comfort zone and grow new (and sometimes unexpected) skills. But too much of it can be overwhelming and depressing rather than uplifting. If you can't take action to bring that inspiration to life, no matter how good the idea is, it'll only bring negative stuff in your life. Right now, what I need in my life isn't more inspiration to grow, it's to create a more solid base to grow from there. You can't build a house without good foundations, and you have to make sure that the first floor is well built before adding another one. That's what I'll try to do in the coming months: secure what I'm doing good, change what's not working and stop wasting my time and energy on trying to pretend I'm someone else.

First step: create a master to do list to make sure that all I have running in circle in my mind is written down and taken care of. I'll do that both at home and at work to keep things where they belong (and because I don't want to think about work when I'm at home!). I'll let you know how that goes! ;)