How you do anything is how you do everything.

There's a saying:

How you do anything is how you do everything.

Have you heard it?

What does it make you feel? What do you think about when you read it?

It turns my brain inside out in a way that I like. I start looking at how I've approached the things in my day - even writing this - to see how I'm doing them and what that shows me about the rest of my life. Right now, I'm writing this with a sense of 'ugh'.

I have an idea, but I don't know how to get it neatly down on the page in an understandable way. It's an abstract concept and it feels overwhelming trying to nail it to the page, put words around it.

This is how I usually approach things I haven't done before - with some resistance, feeling like the task is too big.

But it's Tuesday, and Tuesdays are the day I write these things, and so it must be done.

This is how I approach things I want to do consistently - create some structure and routine around them to keep me on track.

As I keep writing, it starts to make more sense, and I breathe a little easier.

Every time I write, writing demands something of me - even though I have written many things before, I've never written this, so in the beginning, I don't know if I can. But I'm willing to try, to change a bit in the doing, until I become someone who has.

For me, that's how I do most of my life.

How you do anything is how you do everything.

Creative activities are a useful way to explore this. They can be a mirror that shows you all kinds of things about the way you approach the rest of your life. Your attitude to challenges, the things you value, how you talk to yourself, what you believe about yourself and the world.

Here's a challenge - draw a duck.

Do you resist the idea of drawing a duck? Dismiss it as silly? Think that you don't have time for ducks? Are you excited or curious or worried you can't draw?

How do you feel before you begin, sitting in front of a blank page?

Do you jump right in, or do conditions have to be a certain way first? Do you need to make a cup of tea before you think about starting?

Do you ask for help - be that from others who have drawn ducks before you, or googling ducks?

Initially, the duck you draw doesn't look the way you wanted - how do you deal with that? Get frustrated? Start over? Keep going? Change course? Shrug and turn it into an octopus?

Do you notice any of these things showing up in other areas of your life?

What do you like about the way you approached this challenge (even if you were just doing it in your imagination)?

What might you want to do differently next time someone on the internet suggests that you draw a duck?

How you do anything is how you do everything.

This is one of many reasons why art therapy is so good - the page is a little window into the rest of your world. If you feel like exploring this more, come along to the online art group I run every other week with Rose, an art therapist colleague and friend of mine, or book in a few 1:1 sessions to give it a try.