I Cleaned My Car and I Liked It.
Aug. 18th, 2024 10:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
canyonwalkerI did a thing today that brought me more satisfaction than I expected. I cleaned my car. ...Not the whole car, though. It's really dusty. But part of it.
I took our Xterra to the car wash to clean the outside with a pressure hose. Then, back at home, I scraped some stubborn pine tar off the windshield with a razor blade and scrubbed the residue. Inside I wiped dust off the dashboard and vacuumed the floor of the front seats. OMG, the floor mats were dusty. I shook one of them out at least 10 times, and even on the 10th vigorous shake there was still a huge cloud of dust coming out of it.
I did this work not expecting a satisfaction payoff. I did it as matter of obligation. It was a task I felt I had to do.
I mention that because it ties in to a strategy to motivate myself to do things. Instead of thinking of reasons why I have to do something— negative reasons involving words like "should" or "ought to"— I imagine the enjoyment or the positive experience I'll have once it's done. For example, I don't take a shower after exercising because "I stink and thus I ought to clean up" but instead because "I'll feel refreshed and so much more comfortable after a shower."
Cleaning the car, though, was a task for which I hadn't thought of a positive outcome. It's a thing I did out of obligation, a "should". Thus I was pleasantly surprised this evening when I went out for a short trip with the car and noticed how good it looks. Oh, it's not showroom-new or anything like that. But with clean windows, a clean dash, and no more musty-dusty smell inside it no longer felt like the same 13 year old vehicle with over 125,000 miles.
Identifying this nice little satisfaction payoff from cleaning the car will help me next time I feel like the car needs cleaning. Instead of telling it's a duty with negative reasons— "I should clean the car because it's too dirty"— I can motivate myself instead with the positives. "I'll put in some effort to clean the car, and the payoff will be I enjoy driving it more!"
I took our Xterra to the car wash to clean the outside with a pressure hose. Then, back at home, I scraped some stubborn pine tar off the windshield with a razor blade and scrubbed the residue. Inside I wiped dust off the dashboard and vacuumed the floor of the front seats. OMG, the floor mats were dusty. I shook one of them out at least 10 times, and even on the 10th vigorous shake there was still a huge cloud of dust coming out of it.
I did this work not expecting a satisfaction payoff. I did it as matter of obligation. It was a task I felt I had to do.
I mention that because it ties in to a strategy to motivate myself to do things. Instead of thinking of reasons why I have to do something— negative reasons involving words like "should" or "ought to"— I imagine the enjoyment or the positive experience I'll have once it's done. For example, I don't take a shower after exercising because "I stink and thus I ought to clean up" but instead because "I'll feel refreshed and so much more comfortable after a shower."
Cleaning the car, though, was a task for which I hadn't thought of a positive outcome. It's a thing I did out of obligation, a "should". Thus I was pleasantly surprised this evening when I went out for a short trip with the car and noticed how good it looks. Oh, it's not showroom-new or anything like that. But with clean windows, a clean dash, and no more musty-dusty smell inside it no longer felt like the same 13 year old vehicle with over 125,000 miles.
Identifying this nice little satisfaction payoff from cleaning the car will help me next time I feel like the car needs cleaning. Instead of telling it's a duty with negative reasons— "I should clean the car because it's too dirty"— I can motivate myself instead with the positives. "I'll put in some effort to clean the car, and the payoff will be I enjoy driving it more!"
