Regularly Taking Inventory

No business that sells products would survive if it didn’t check inventory regularly. They would not be able to identify issues that were undermining their profits, and problems would spiral out of control.  Stores do inventory on a regular basis to figure out how much waste is occurring (in the case of food sales), how much theft is occurring, or to determine issues with overstocking or understocking products. 

Imagine if one of these businesses realized there might be a problem, did one inventory, identified a theft issue, then never did an inventory again.  You can well imagine they would never get the theft problem under control.

So it goes for personal inventories when we are in recovery. We might identify an issue in our first inventory and work through the steps to improve our lives, but if we never do another inventory issues could crop up again or we will miss new issues that tend to crop off as life throws us curve balls.

The goal of taking inventory regularly is to identify problem areas quickly and develop an action plan to deal with them.  If I sit down and think about what I’m doing that’s sabotaging the best life I would possibly have, I can tell you that I never end up with a blank sheet of paper in front of me.

I find one of the best ways to do this is to simply sit for a few minutes after asking myself: Is there anything you are doing now that doesn’t seem to be working?

Procrastination – yup, that often ends up on the list. I’ll go through periods where I’m really good about not procrastinating, then it will crop up again.

I might even go into more detail: I put off housecleaning until it’s a wretched experience that requires twice as much work as I would have to do if I just kept up with it every week; I’m avoiding a person I need to talk to; I’m eating the wrong things because I’m putting off going to the grocery store; I seem to have stopped regularly exercising because I always say I’m too tired today so I’ll do it tomorrow (and tomorrow never comes).  Procrastination is at the root of all of these behaviors.

The inventory kick starts change – okay. I’m going to the grocery store today to get healthier choices so I’m not dialing 1-800-junkfood for delivery in desperation for dinner.

An inventory isn’t about beating myself up – it’s about stopping long enough to recognize when negative behaviors and attitudes are becoming ingrained.

An inventory helps me figure out why life seems so chaotic or out of control.  Need to change that. Check.