Motivation Monday

Clean Your Car

I haven't got the slightest clue why this works, but it does.
To be completely honest, for the most part I have kept my car pretty messy as long as I can remember.  Other than my first car that was "mine" (a mustang that I bought and kept up 100% on my own) which I kept pretty immaculate, all my cars since have had a fairly rough go of it.  Not disgusting, mind you, just messy.  Papers, CD cases, empty water bottles, etc.  Just full of stuff.  Junk.

Then one day I drove my father to the airport in his car.  It was spotless.  Inside and out.  Other than his sunglasses, there was NOTHING in the car that wasn't literally a PART of the car.   Even the glove compartment was completely spotless.  It was as if he lived a second life as a spy, and needed to be certain he could dump the car at a moment's notice and leave no identifying evidence. 

Well, after dropping him off at the airport I drove home...
...but I drove home by way of about a half dozen places I needed to go and run errands that I had been meaning to get done for a couple of weeks, but never got around to.

I realized that being in the car, as spotless as it was, had me feeling like I needed to come up to a slightly higher standard than I had been settling for in myself. 

It might sound ridiculous, but think about it logically.  Why do we ask that men wear suits to professional functions?  Why is church conducted in "Sunday dress" for the most part? 

People conduct themselves differently when the "costume" (if you will) they are wearing demands it.  In a suit, men stand taller, shake hands a little firmer, adjust their speech patterns, and are simply more professional than they might conduct themselves otherwise. 

It then stands to reason that this second layer of your costume, your car, might have a similarly positive or detrimental effect on your conduct; depending on how you choose to maintain it.

I cleaned out my car and found myself being much more productive and quite a bit more relaxed, just from that one simple change.

Almost as if I Feng Shui'd my evening commute  :-)

Don't buy it?  Give it a try.  What's the worst that could happen?  You drive around in a clean car for a few days. 

Not exactly torture.