Home Wasn’t Built In a Day: Understanding Pace & Grace
With a deeper understanding of pace & grace, we will have the fortitude to continue with the perseverance necessary to build our dream home & become something great ourselves along the way.
Table of Contents:
“All good things come to those who wait.”
To Note:
Human-generated content.
It’s unrealistic for us to assume we can build a dream home within a day, week, year, or maybe even a decade. The legacy we desire (both in culture & physical design) require time, pace & grace. These three things ensure our heart truly plays a part in the creation.
So let’s get started. Here’s how understanding pace & grace will help you build your dream home.
Home Wasn’t Built In a Day
A common french proverb explains that “all good things come to those who wait”. That waiting isn’t idle passiveness, but rather paced perseverance. The phrase, “Rome wasn’t built in a day” is meant to be a reminder to us that building something meaningful & worthwhile will inevitably take time. Another potential insight is that we may have occasional “leaning towers” to deal with. With a deeper understanding of pace & grace, we will have the fortitude to continue with the perseverance necessary to build our dream home & become something great ourselves along the way.
In a more literal sense, great home design requires layers. Each of those layers (trim, wall treatments, meaningful art, rugs, furniture, furnishings) takes time & means. We can allow dream designs to happen layer by layer in time frames that make the most sense for our families.
Time & Pace
Patience is a tough virtue to develop. It seems to be like the ultimate virtue to develop. The more time I spend in my roles (especially as a parent & spouse), I realize this seems to be my greatest test. And yet, paced perseverance seems to yield my most rewarding results.
The things that truly last take a good amount of time to create. We live in a “get it right now” (hello Amazon Prime!) society, & yet we still complain that “things just aren’t made like they used to be.” Our great challenge is to allow for time & pace to play their roles in the creation of our homes & legacies. A beautiful home & culture is a massive project, yet it can be accomplished “line upon line”.
We need to have our grand vision in mind, so we know how to break it down into a paced process. A helpful reminder comes from this great quote by Thomas S. Monson: “Life by the yard is hard; by the inch it’s a cinch.”
Grace
“Perfectionism is satanic.” I heard that the other day, thought it was a bit blunt, but realized how true it is with just a little consideration. Perfectionism is a momentum killer. To hold ourselves to an unattainable standard stops us in our tracks while we spin in shame. If we desire continued progress, we have to know how to meet failure, roadblocks, & overwhelm. Grace is God’s gift that allows us to see the fault, acknowledge & learn from it, & keep moving forwards.
Not only does God offer us the gift of grace, but we have the responsibility to offer ourselves the same. Grace doesn’t mean we accept our faults — rather it gives us enough awareness of them to begin the process of refining those things out. Resolving our “leaning towers” one step at a time. Grace is the gift that allows us to become somethings versus just endure something. It’s the difference between homes with heart and homes without it (or those in default mode).
Pace & Grace In Reality
While my husband was deployed for 13 months, the demands of life felt enormous. Especially at the beginning. Managing my home by myself, with two kids (two & under) was no small ask. I had a nursing six month old when he left & an overly energetic two-year-old (who had habits like running herself straight into the road). There was little to no reprieve on any given day. I had some rough “leaning towers” show up like dealing with a mice infestation through the winter, dealing with a gas leak, & killing one of the biggest spiders I’ve ever seen in a house to name a few haha. All the while I was trying to manage my own health to show up for my kids the way they deserved & needed. The thing that carried me & strengthened me through those months was pace & grace. I knew I needed to meet the resistance so I could be strengthened through it. I built routines that helped me to implement paced perseverance & I gave up my “all or nothing” attitude for an “all or something” attitude. In the end, I grew more than I thought possible through these months in every aspect (physically, mentally, socially & spiritually) because I didn’t allow myself to go into default mode. In fact, we finished our basement during these months & my family culture continued to develop in meaningful ways that have introduced lasting habits.
To Sum It All Up
Through time, grace & pace we can accomplish every intimidating goal we have in mind. Not only can we reach new heights we may not have seen as possible, but we will also become something in the process. We won’t have a temporary stint of new habits, but we will have a new rhythm that dictates our actions naturally. Our homes will be full of heart, and will become a curated “museum” of everything meaningful we have built. You will feel that tangibly in the home.
Where to Start:
Look at one of your biggest goals right now. Break it down into steps, & give yourself the time to let each step sink deep. If that’s a new habit you want to develop, science tells us we need to allow at least two months, and potentially up to about a year for it to truly stick. If this is a home project, make sure you spend the time necessary to make your choices intentional. And when you run into a “leaning tower” after making a decision, remember to allow grace to keep you moving forward as you course correct.
If you need a little more help deciding what those goals might be, I suggest you participate in our FREE 3 day vision kit! This starting point will help you to break down your “Rome” vision into steps that are guided by your values. And if you want something even more comprehensive, I invite you to look into our Foundation First course. The content & process will ensure you become the most capable manager of your life & home, excited to build your “Rome”!
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With a deeper understanding of pace & grace, we will have the fortitude to continue with the perseverance necessary to build our dream home & become something great ourselves along the way.