Living Well with Lupus: Little Changes, Big Impact

Little changes that make a big difference.    

I call them baby steps. 

Some years, especially when lupus was in full force, I took literal baby steps - taking one painful step after another, out of bed, down the stairs, or out the door. 

Other times, the small steps were more like mini-adjustments to daily life: 

A request to reduce my work schedule by an hour. 

A commitment to have my groceries delivered once a week. 

An arrangement for a school carpool, because dismissal conflicted with my nap. 

Little changes work in two ways. They make things better. And they build momentum. You not only experience an immediate benefit, you feel compelled to keep the positive results flowing. You succeed a little bit. Now you want to succeed again. 

The most recent baby step I've made? Moving Instagram off of my phone's home screen. Can I just say life-altering?

Like, literally. The time I was wasting on the app was reduced by 70%. The folks who coined the phrase "out of sight, out of mind" were definitely on to something. 

Equally as recent was my baby step to cut out dessert. Holy moly, are my pants fitting better! And that's just after 10 days. 

I can't believe how much dessert I must have been eating, without really eating dessert. A handful of chocolate chips here, some banana bread there. Apparently, it adds up. 

You can read about my past baby step successes here. But my next endeavor involves the whole family. Working on less screen time. What better season to increase face-to-face interaction than Christmas, right? 

Wish me luck. I can only promise my family the result of better fitting pants because we won't be carrying our phones everywhere.  

That's pretty bad. I think I need to baby step how I'm going to sell this baby step!