Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

The world needs dreamers, and the world needs doers. But above all. The world needs dreamers who do. Sarah Ban Breathnach

January has a reputation for not being our favorite month. After we’ve popped the champagne and brought in the New Year we look at ourselves and shrug our shoulders, “Now what?” This year we may be thinking it even more so. One of the things we can do to give ourselves and our life a lift is to declutter and energize our space.

My husband and I have been putting off a big project. We wallpapered our kitchen about twenty-six years ago and loved it. But, twenty-six-year-old wallpaper is well, as my daughter says, “So passé. It’s time for a refresh and you should paint the cabinets too because they are so out of date.”

If you have never taken off wallpaper it is not for the faint of heart. A week ago on Sunday, I said to my husband, “Are you sure, because once I tear that first strip, we are committed.” I only wish it came off in strips but it comes off in bits. It is a meditative process, and it isn’t the worst way I’ve spent parts of a January. Seeing the wallpaper give way to the white beneath and what will eventually be a lovely fresh yellow kitchen feels like progress.

I’ve even made up my mind to tackle the powder room wallpaper next and the hall wallpaper after that. This is a project professionals would do better but right now that presents a few problems. The satisfaction of doing it ourselves is going to be worth it. My fingernails are taking a real beating as they are my best tool for prying off the wallpaper along with a sponge and Dif solution.

Thinkers think and doers do. But until the thinkers do and doers think, progress will be just another word in the already overburdened vocabulary by sense. Francois de La Rocheloucauld

It takes a lot to start but as they say, starting is half done. Once we are in the middle of a project it is easier to keep going than it is thinking about what it entails before we start. Once the house is in this much of a mess over one room why stop until we’ve looked after all the areas we want to? There is nothing like a new coat of paint to refresh our surroundings. When I saw what one of my friends did with her kitchen I made up my mind to do the same. When my husband saw her kitchen he was sold on the idea too. It has taken us quite a while to actually get ready to do it, but here we are in the midst of it.

What is it that brings us to the point of taking the next step? We can know we need to do something, and even want to do it but something holds us back. One thing that works is setting a date. We said we would do it in January and then the date was upon us and we started. It’s one of the reasons dieters start a new diet on Monday. The problem with that strategy is if we have to diet. We need to adopt a lifestyle to get and keep in shape, to be at the weight our body is comfortable at, which might not be the one we prefer.

If we are going to make anything happen in our life we have to be one of the “Doers.” Nothing happens until someone does something. If that someone isn’t us then we are waiting for other people to tell us what is going to happen in our lives. There is little security in life, but the security there is, comes from the ability we have to shape our lives, roll with the punches, and be in a position to say yes or no to opportunities or circumstances.

Is there something in your life you’d like to tackle? What is holding you back?

A lot of people have ideas, but there are few who decide to do something about them now. Not tomorrow. Not next week. But today. The true entrepreneur is a doer, not a dreamer. Nolan Bushnell

A non-doer is very often a critic, that is someone who sits back and watches doers, and then waxes philosophically about how the doers are doing. It’s easy to be a critic, but being a doer requires effort, risk, and change. Wayne Dyer

Be both a speaker of words and a doer of deeds. Homer

Thank you for reading this post. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you will come back and read some more. Have a blessed day filled with gratitude, joy, and love.

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