How a US Army Ranger Transformed My Laundry Room

On Halloween 2020 I wanted to post a joke about my spookiest picture possible, but I chickened out.  It’s true, I don’t like to post about the mess or the struggle.  In part because I know we all go through it, and I like to read encouraging stuff because it’s a mental break from the mess.  But I realized I wasn’t being clear.  Someone told me recently, “I don’t know how you do everything you do.”  I joked that it I’m good at just about everything I try except for laundry.  It’s my kryptonite.  I want to be very clear about what I’ve accomplished, and also that it came at a cost in some areas of my life such as staying on top of the laundry situation in my house.  I want to be clear about the seasons in my life, and I am going to post more about that later.  But for today, I’m going to be honest about laundry & how horrible it’s been in my house for years.  Here I was, stuck in a lot of areas in my life like laundry, but not exactly sure what I needed to do differently.

That all began to change once I started following Jeramiah Solven and his Suffering Saturday posts on Instagram.  He talked about doing crazy things like picking his hardest workout, and doubling it.  Since I was just getting back up to running three miles again, I tried six the following Saturday for my Suffering Saturday.  My dog at my side, I ran six miles, and realized at that point anything is possible and the only barrier keeping me from my goals was mental.

I was hooked.  I implemented Suffering Saturday every week, and even though a little part of me dreaded it I also began to look forward to it.  I accomplished physical and mental challenges, including creating an online course I had envisioned weeks before.

At that point I began to see everything in my life so much more clearly.  I’m an organized person, and I love to clean.  Yet somehow because I was discouraged about some setbacks in 2020 I had begun to let so many things in my house slide, and I wasn’t reaching the house goals I had envisioned.  Organized closets, organized rooms….. And suddenly I was staring at my laundry room.  What would have been a spooky Halloween photo months ago was my terrifying reality every day when I walked up the stairs.

My kids even help with laundry, my husband helps and does his own laundry, but we just could not EVER seem to get down the the bottom of the pile.  We could get down to the floor, but then the clean clothes would be piled like mountains on the top and just get stuck there.  

I was so, so sick of it, and I realized that was next on my list of “Things I was Avoiding” that Jeramiah encouraged me to write.  

I joined Conquer Academy in January because I was tired of being stuck.  For years I was praying about feeling stuck, in my job, my relationships, and my household & fitness goals.  It’s true I had a lot of great things going for me: I’d written books, and even got one into Costco.  People said I would be able to retire that day but it didn’t happen like that.  I made a five hundred dollar profit on the book sales, and then I was just stuck again.

During the first couple of coaching calls with Jeramiah and the team, I could see what needed to happen.  I set several goals for the week & implemented the professional goals with great results-more clients.  One huge personal goal, however, was to get to the bottom of my laundry MOUNTAIN, in 48 hours.  It took over a week.  

Everyone knows the challenge then becomes maintenance.  How long can I keep the laundry room clean?  Applying several principles I was gleaning from Conquer Academy, I decided I would have to make a daily list of tasks to keep my goal of a clean laundry room.  I would have to calculate how many loads of laundry had to be done every day to keep it clean, and make sure the rooms were checked for dirty laundry twice a day.

It’s a simple example.  It may be laughable, because I know so many people who are just really good at laundry.  But for me, that laundry was a mountain that I hated, and I just accepted the fact that I wasn’t very good at laundry.  In fact, a very dear friend of mine knew me well enough to send me this lovely wall sign as a joke to remind me what I was supposed to be doing in that room.  

Only I forgot to hang up the sign, which meant the shelf space was taken up, which meant I couldn’t put away my linens.  Identifying these small issues are part of what made it possible to get to the clean, and KEEP it clean.  I hung the sign, I folded and shelved the linens, and I start & end every day with a load or two of laundry.  

In the past week I’ve accomplished more toward my home, professional, and relationship goals than I have in ages, and I’ve beaten my laundry room into shape.  

The funniest part is, my laundry room is still spooky.  My daughter came running up the stairs and GASPED IN SHOCK at the sight of the laundry room, because she had never seen it so clean before. 

Stay tuned for more updates on Conquer Academy and how it is changing my life, and for more updates about my business endeavors.  As always, check out my Bandcamp if you need to relax and stop thinking about laundry!

Much Love,

Brittany DeMarre

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