Why Self-Improvement Ideas Never Work

Laura O' Rourke
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Have you been to Pinterest lately? I haven’t. For the sake of my sanity, I just can’t go there anymore. Pinterest is a web portal to all my failures as a human. Do you want to guess how many of my 2,045 pins I have followed up on and actually done? I would guess five. FIVE. That’s a 0.2 percent productivity rate. Pinterest is where my best intentions go to die, and I just can’t face that anymore.

Pinterest isn’t my only problem, it is just the easiest one to avoid. Everywhere I turn, people are trying to get me to make my life better somehow. I’ve seen articles shared on social media about the simple things happy people do every day, the secrets to being more productive, and 50 million reasons why I must get off my lazy butt and just exercise already. Even my friends try to remind me that my priorities are within my control. If something is important to me, I will find the time, right? (Tell that to my children who just decimated a large piece of packing styrofoam into its smallest components all over my house). Everyone is just so encouraging and inspiring!

If I had the time, I’d follow every single inspiring listicle the internet threw at me. Maybe I could get a book deal out of it or something. I’d prove that it’s all probably a load of crap wrapped in coconut oil. (I’m sure someone on the internet has written about poop and coconut oil already, right?)

I once watched an online video about the secret to staying ahead of laundry. I had to join some mailing list to watch it, that’s how desperate I was for the information. I’ll give you the golden info here, and no matter how much you insist, no payment is necessary. Are you ready for it? Never start a load in the washing machine until the dryer is empty. Right? It blew my mind. You see, if the dryer is empty when the wash is done, I will never need to leave wet clothes to get smelly in the washing machine. I will actually fold clean clothes when I have time instead of throwing them in a pile somewhere at midnight before running to bed so my load of underwear in the wash that I forgot about will be ready by morning. This is such simple step that makes perfect sense…until you throw husbands into the mix. And now I have a couch full of unfolded (some were once folded) clean clothes. Again, magic laundry hack, my ass. Is there a pin somewhere about how to hack your husband?

I am the mom of a kindergartener, a preschooler, and a baby. If you want to know why I can’t keep my house clean, they are the culprits. The moment I turn my back to clean one part of the house, another part gets wrecked. The other day they paper-toweled my entire downstairs. Last night they played in the (thankfully cool) fireplace and covered the family room with soot. No twee printable will clean that mess up, unfortunately.

I want to do it all, I do. I want to wake up first thing in the morning and greet the day with a sun salutation. I want to cut out the night snacking. I want to meal plan. I want to drink eight cups of water a day, run 100 miles by the holidays, and not forget to take my vitamins. I want to throw amazing birthday parties for my kids. I want to build a headboard from reclaimed wood. Heck, I would be happy to just paint the living room.

Maybe I’ll get to it all when my baby starts sleeping through the night. Or maybe when they’re all in school. Or maybe when I’m retired and my kids have moved out and my husband has died of old age. Maybe that’s when I’ll have the time to fit in the homemade kale chips. Until then though, I’m probably not going to click on that feel good clickbait you pop into your timeline. I have enough people asking me to do things for them, and I don’t need more reasons to feel guilty.

And an extra five minutes of sleep is better than a sun salutation any morning.


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Why Self-Improvement Ideas Never Work | BonBon Break

“Why Self-Improvement Ideas Never Work” was written by Laura O’Rourke exclusively for BonBon Break Media, LLC.


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Laura O'Rourke is a blogger from Halifax, Nova Scotia. She is currently on maternity leave and home with three boys. She writes about finding the beauty in the mess of motherhood on her blog, Mommy Miracles. Her blog has been listed on multiple Top 10 Canadian Blog lists. Laura runs an online book club for busy Moms called MomsReading.