My room is a mess. The entire week I have not let it get to me, because I am baby steppin’ it to cleanliness like a mad pro. That’s what Leo Babauta taught me today, and what I’m going to share with you in this post.

Reflecting on 2011, I have experienced loss and heartbreak so close to each other, they could have gotten each other sick if say, loss had the measles and heartbreak was perfectly healthy. What I’ve learned over the last few weeks however, is to go slowly. Since roughly mid 2009 when I graduated from college I’ve felt aimless, stagnant, and like I was running out of time. I wanted to write books, learn instruments and languages, travel, sing, be someone, do something with my life, but I didn’t know where to begin. I felt like all the little steps I had to take to get wherever it was I was going were going to take too long, and I wasn’t going to have enough time to do what I wanted to do. I was going to be 30 in a few short years, and I was wasting my twenties on alcohol, Chipotle, and men.

Lady Gaga was the first to inspire me to get my act together. Her song “Marry the Night” is about how she made a decision to marry her work in order to make her dreams come alive. That’s when I became more active on this blog, and realized my quest to write a novel soon turned into a life quest to pursue my passions and let my dreams eat me alive. That’s when I realized getting a business degree was the path I was meant to be on. That’s when I realized the answer to my very own happiness was within myself. That’s when I also discovered the Zen Habits blog, which taught me today, as it does every day, to go slowly. Baby steps matter just as much as any other, no matter how small. I can write 100 words a day, minuscule, but there’s not a single person that can say 100 words a day won’t get me there.

That’s a snippet from one of Babauta’s posts that got me through the day, and will get me through the rest of my life. Love the step, not the destination. Enjoy the quest! He said how a few years ago he couldn’t even fathom exercising but one day he made a baby step and ran for 10 minutes a day. That’s it. No pressure, just 10 simple minutes, every day, until that one day came when he was running 20 minutes, then 40, then marathons!

I suppose you could say from the looks of my living quarters, that my room is that marathon. I got a parcel of excellent Christmas gifts this year and it has inspired me to organize everything and start fresh. On Monday I scrubbed my bathroom and organized the area under my sink, dividing up hair products, nail products, lotions, perfumes, make-up, etc. into their own separate bins.

That was my baby step for the week and I am damn proud of myself.  I didn’t get to my room that day, but that’s okay. My shower is spotless. And later I got to drink Fat Tire on a roof in Hollywood with a friend while the sun was setting. Rewards all around.

So tonight I am blogging. That is my baby step. And tonight I am reading. Another baby step. And I just might put a few clothes away. Probably maybe. Putting a few clothes away sounds much less stressful than cleaning the entire room. I find that pressuring yourself into a really big task just makes you more stressed out, and tackling them in small pieces takes the pressure off a ton. Doing things at your own pace always does, and why not? It’s your marathon, go as slow as you want. Even the walkers make it to the finish line.

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Monique Muro

Monique is an exceedingly happy human from LA. She runs the blog A Novel Quest, and writes. A lot.

Latest posts by Monique Muro (see all)

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