5 Tips for Overcoming an Organizing Failure
Have you ever had one (or more) of your organizing efforts fail?
It happens to all of us. Even to organized organizers!
But I’ll be honest, I’m not a big fan of failure. In fact, I do everything I can to avoid it, even if it means not doing anything at all.
Over time though, I’ve learned that failure is a necessary part of life. We can’t be successful at everything. It’s just not possible.
“Life is not life unless you make mistakes.” — Joan Collins
However, if we let them, our failures can be our greatest teachers, our turning points, or our wake-up calls to something new or better. Just because we fail at something doesn’t mean it was never meant to be. It simply means there may be more work to be done, or done differently, even with our organizing flops and failures!
Overcoming an organizing failure
When you’ve invested the time and effort to get organized and it doesn’t seem to a make difference in your home and life, what do you do? Most people I know give up and say, “I knew it wasn’t going to work. I’ll never be organized!” With that attitude and outlook, failure wins. Don’t let that happen to you!
Here are 5 tips that can help you overcome an organizing failure:
1. Breathe. Just because something didn’t work, it’s not the end of the world. Don’t let it overtake you and remember that it happens to all of us (just ask me about my lasagna disaster some time!).
2. Don’t beat yourself up. Failure brings with it an automatic reaction to start beating ourselves up — telling ourselves how stupid we were to try, how silly of us to think we could change and have an organized life. Don’t give in to that frame of mind or way of thinking! Stay strong and remember that not everything works out the first, second, or even third time! As William D. Brown said, “Failure is an event, not a person.”
3. Evaluate and assess. Take time to look at what went wrong with your system or your efforts. Was it set up wrong or in the wrong place? Did you give it the time and attention it needed to work successfully? Also take time to look at what did work as those positives can help you start again. Knowing what did or didn’t work can help eliminate possible setbacks in the future.
4. Give yourself breathing room before trying again. If you find yourself overwhelmed and knee-deep in clutter again, don’t feel pressure to remedy the problem right away. You’ll need time to evaluate and assess what went wrong, figure out how to fix it or do it differently, and then start the process all over again. But that may take time. It doesn’t need to all be done tomorrow. Give yourself a deadline to start again. Once the date arrives, you’ll be physically and mentally ready to tackle the project.
5. Try, try again. I saw this picture on Facebook and thought it fit this topic perfectly:
Although your organizing efforts may have been a big fail, consider it your “First Attempt In Learning” how to get organized. You may have to make another attempt, and another. And you may have to keep trying until you finally find the answer that works for you. It may take many efforts, but you will eventually come to the right answer and realize your organizing dreams and potential! You just have to keep trying.
No one likes failure. No one. But how we choose to overcome that failure tells volumes about who we are and what we are able to accomplish. If you’ve had an organizing failure don’t let that deter you. Simply rise up and try again.
“Failure is a delay, but not a defeat. It is a temporary detour, not a dead-end street.” — William Arthur Ward
Have you ever had an organizing failure? Did it help or hinder you?
How were you able to overcome it, if at all?
This post first appeared on my blog at www.bygeorgeorganizing.com
