Online bonus chapter: Why it is easier to help others

I find it easy(er) to do a bunch of dishes for a friend. Or help with cleaning or a move.

Doing my own dishes? Putting away my laundry? That is hard in comparison.

I think I am slowly understanding why that is, which might help me get better at helping myself.

I am not saying that it is bad to help others. It would just be nice if it was as easy to help myself.

My internal rating

Once off vs. never being done

If I am helping someone else, it is always a one-time, punctual help. I see I pile of dishes and do them. I can have the good feeling of knowing that they are done and I helped a friend.

My own dishes are never a one-time thing. Dirty dishes reappear quickly. So the feeling of having done them does only ever last until the next ones appear.

Dirty dishes also reappear in my friend’s kitchen, but I do not see them. And even if I did, they would not be my job to deal with.

So helping someone else is a finite thing, while my own chores are endless as they never stay done.

It is no wonder that in this case my feeling about helping others is better than my feeling about helping myself.

Being a hero vs. being a failure

If I am doing a single chore for a friend, I am a hero. I swoop in and do stuff. I defeat the task.

If I am doing a single chore for myself, though, a lot of other tasks remain undone. I have recently learned to be happy about the things I got done instead of listing all the things that remain. Looking at the left-over pile always made me feel like a failure.

To stick with the previous example: if I clean my friend´s dishes, I am a hero. If I clean my own dishes I do not take the time to appreciate that feeling but immediately go to “this also needs doing”.

So once more helping a friend feels just so much better.

Getting thanks vs. getting tired

Why not stay with the dishes? When I do dishes for someone else, they thank me. Which is gratifying. Maybe they even offer to make me some tea or give me a cookie. Which is nice.

When I do my own dishes, I don’t get thanks. I just get tired. And if I want tea, I need to make it myself.

That is reason number three that makes helping a friend so much more rewarding. Which is why it feels so much more worth doing.

“Just change your perspective.”

If it were that easy everybody would be doing it, and I would not be writing this chapter.

For me the first step was to figure out why it feels so much easier and more rewarding to do things for others. The following steps are, so far, mostly theory as I have just started on this journey.

Step 1: Thank yourself

I have started to thank myself for things I am doing for me.

For this, it is helpful to realize what I am doing for myself. So I say

“Thank you for having done the dishes for me.”
”Thank you, past me, for pre-cooking dinner.”
“Thank you for putting away the laundry so I do not have to do that tomorrow.”

This sounds weird, at least to me, but I am slowly getting used to, if not the words, then the sentiment. Appreciating all the things I am doing for myself makes me happy, makes me feel proud of my accomplishments and also makes me recognize all the things I am constantly doing. Even if it is something as simple as “Thank you for listening to your body and just rest”.

Exercise 1: Think about the things you are doing for yourself. Imagine, someone else did them for you. Would you thank them? Do you equally appreciate your own efforts?

Exercise 2: Try thanking yourself for the things you do. It will probably feel odd. For me, though, it feels different whether I collapse on the couch after a task being annoyed and exhausted or if I take a moment to thank myself and give myself a moment to feel happy about having it done, before collapsing.

Sometimes it helps to add a gesture to anchor the feeling of thanking yourself. You can, for example, Place a hand on your heart to feel it beat for a moment before thanking yourself, giving the moment extra emphasis.

Exercise 3: Reward yourself for a task done. This could be the tea or cookie you would have gotten from a friend. It can be reading a chapter. It can be watching another episode of the show you are into. It can be any form of quality time. But do not fall into the trap of granting yourself these things only as a reward. Self care, joy and quality time are necessary, not an add on for good behavior.

Step 2: Appreciate what is

I have to-do lists. Lots. Separate lists for various topics. Things to do in my home, things to do on my computer, things to shop, things to do, things to do, things to do. Whenever I tick stuff off on a list, I see all the items that are left.

In an effort to not look at all the undone things but instead appreciate what I did get done, I have started texting a friend during the day with the things I did. Or in the evening with a list of all the things I managed to do.

Their reply is invariably a version of “That is a lot. Well done”.

This helps me to both realize how many small things I do each day and to appreciate that this adds up. Getting an outside validation is nice, too.

Exercise: Note down the things you did do or start. Only those. If you want to note things that you still need or want to do, write them down somewhere else. Look at your list and tell yourself: “well done”.

Bonus exercise: Ask a friend for support. You can both share the things you managed to get done, but in that case, look for someone in a similar situation as you are. Pairing up with an energy laden buzzing over-achiever can turn out to be frustrating. On the other hand – if they say you did well, you can rest assured that you did well, even if you still think it was not much.

Step 3: Value the moment

Around a household many tasks that get done do not stay done. Dishes, laundry, shopping, cleaning, accounts, correspondence – if feels like the only thing I can do is to keep it from piling up too much.

And, given the nature of these things, this is exactly the only thing I can do.

What might sound frustrating can also be liberating: I try to accept that things do not stay done. It is not my fault that the tasks pop up on my list again and again. I did them properly. It is a bit like breathing. Even if I take the deepest breath of the best air ever – I will not be done with breathing. And that is fine. I do not blame myself for that.

Taking that one deep breath can still feel great and calming.

So, I try to see things like tidying the kitchen or doing my paperwork like these deep breaths. For now, in this moment, the thing is done, or at least, improved upon. For now, that is enough.

In the future it will need doing again. But that is later. Now is the time to appreciate how far I have come. This is something I really need to work.

Exercise: Do one thing. It does not need to be a big thing. Maybe just get those socks off the floor and into the laundry hamper. Look at the spot where the socks had been lying around just a moment before.

Take a deep breath and enjoy the absence of something that had been bothering you. It is now better than it was. Better is good. And in many cases better is enough for now.

Tell yourself: “This is better. I did good.”