The Pinterest Challenge

My oldest daughter asked me if I had ever heard of The Pinterest Challenge. The what? What is this challenge for the sparkly website that I love so much? That lovely site where I find so much inspiration and stand in awe of the creativity that we humans posses. There is a challenge? Where do I find this unicorn?

After some research, I discovered that for many people, Pinterest is viewed in a negative light. I had no idea! There seems to be a stereotype for people like me who adore Pinterest. Why do we do that? Why do we classify people based on what they like or dislike if it doesn't jive with what we like or dislike? Here is what I found out; For many people, Pinterest is for middle class white women who strive to be Martha Stewart, June Cleaver and Cindy Crawford all rolled in into one perfect white girl. Apparently, we kill ourselves trying to follow every bit of advice on Pinterest in our ridiculous quest for perfection. We strive to be the perfect home maker, the perfect Mother, the perfect wife, the perfect cook with the perfectly cleaned and organized home, while we look like a super model trying to do it all. There are women who claim that they have what is called 'Pinterest anxiety' and are suffering from low self worth because they can not accomplish all that is Pinterest. Seriously? Are you kidding me?

To prove just how wretched they feel, they have decided to challenge themselves by building 'Challenge boards' and following all of the most popular advice Pinterest has to offer, for one week. After they have documented what worked for them and what they feel they failed at, they point to those perceived failures and say, "See? I told you so! This is why I am unhappy!"

I read through several of these blogs with my jaw in my lap. If you set out to prove that you will fail, then guess what? You're gonna fail. There are over one BILLION posts on Pinterest. Did you catch that number? The reason for such a massive number is because we are all interested in different things. Why torture yourself with something you are not interested in trying?

I started thinking about the negative aspect of this challenge and decided to turn it around. If you feel stuck in a rut or are chronically ill, like I am, and feel like you aren't accomplishing anything, wouldn't it make sense to schedule time throughout the day to do those things that never seem to get done?

I am doing The Pinterest Challenge 2.0 -A.K.A 'my version'. I am building (it's ongoing) a board filled with the things that I love and want to accomplish  -or at the very least, try. I am scheduling my day based on my daily board. For instance, I never bother to look put together anymore. I am usually in so much pain that I just do not care how I look. I also found a daily cleaning list that trumps my routine. It covers everything that I normally do plus a few extras but it does it more efficiently, freeing up my time for things I seriously need to get done. I scheduled time for those things too. Like, daily exercise, writing my book, finishing my art pieces and finding the time to learn to do something new each week. My challenge is based on my likes, dislikes and what I am curious to learn. Also, the one week challenge just isn't going to cut it for me. I refuse to try something so structured for only one week so that I can call myself a failure before I have completed the learning curve. My challenge is 100 days. By then, the things that work will be habit and the things that don't will have been dropped from the schedule.

I am on day five of this challenge. So far, I have only seen positives. For the past four days, I get up and actually put myself together after yoga. I'm new to yoga and not very good yet but even though I look silly doing it, I feel better after. Getting dressed with a quick hair and make-up session has so far, made me feel good about myself. I feel like I am showing up to my life ready to go.

The new cleaning routine has been a good thing, especially since yesterday was Christmas and my old way would have had me in melt down mode by noon with all of the cooking and cleaning that needed to be done.

What will all of this do for me, really? Do I expect to be 'the perfect white girl' at the end of this? Uh...no. What is perfect anyway? I do hope to have some new habits that benefit my life rather than hinder it. I hope to learn some new things and complete a lot of things but I also hope to show other women - no matter what your race because the whole 'white girl' aspect of this really got on my nerves -  that when you challenge yourself, you should do it in a way that is helpful to you. If you fail at something, so what? You tried, which is more than what a lot of people can claim. You had the moxy to go out there and try to make your life better and at the very least (if you want to be negative about it) you learned what not to do.

Judging your self worth based on what you think other people can or can not do is never helpful. My advice, if you are up for The Pinterest Challenge, do it on your terms. Do it in a way that will benefit your life in the long run. Never set out to fail unless that is part of your learning process - and then, that can't even be called a failure because you learned from it. We're too hard on ourselves. I'm not going to make myself crazier by constantly comparing myself to other women.

I will keep you updated as I go. For now, I am going to head out with my family and enjoy the day. I have made time for that when normally I would be stressing about what needs to be done. The new cleaning schedule has allowed me to lay that stress down.

If you decide to take on the challenge, let me know. We could swap advice on what works for us as we navigate forming new, fun, healthy habits! That's all for now. I'm out the door!