Remember the anxiety you used to feel when you were starting a new class or a new grade in school. You knew at the end of the last school year or the last semester, you would be leaving that which had become familiar behind. Or, perhaps it was time for the ultimate…graduation, and life as you knew it was sure to change. There are many situations like this that I could describe, the ending of one familiar experience to be replaced with the unknown. But, isn’t it wonderful how the unknown becomes the known, giving you a new learning experience as well as a new perspective?
Let’s look at the new perspective for a minute from the learning aspect. Dictionary.com defines learning as: knowledge acquired by systematic study in any field of scholarly application or the act or process of acquiring knowledge or skill or the modification of behavior through practice, training, or experience. Did you notice two of the definitions referenced ‘acquired knowledge’ and the last reference a ‘modification of behavior’? Why? The objective of learning something new, even if it is triggered by instinctive behavior, is to modify your behavior. And, why does the modification of behavior take place? Because, what you have learned grants you the ability to look at your world from a different perspective, good or bad or indifferent, but differently. In the lathering process, you want to acquire knowledge that will modify the type of decisions you make in life. For example, when you were younger and thinner and moving all the time you could buy a box of Girl Scout Cookies, consume the whole box, and not suffer any consequences. Perhaps, as you grew older, you noticed the pounds beginning to stay with you no matter what, except the no matter was an improper diet. You began to pay attention, acquired knowledge about the affects of poor or healthy eating habits. You learned how that very tasty box of cookies could possibly add two or three pounds to your ever increasing thighs.
If you are lathering properly though, you will use the acquired knowledge to motivate a change in your behavior. You will now make the decision to eat a few cookies at a time over an expanded period of time, and not the whole box in one sitting. You will look at that colorful and delicious box of cookies from a new perspective. You will deem those cookies as a means to satisfy your sweet taste little by little, without overindulging and reducing the likelihood of those cookies adding even a centimeter to the diameter of those thighs.
What were the Lather Rinse Repeat practices in this article?
Lather – you learned you could change your outcome (the size of your thighs)
Rinse – you assessed what you learned (the effects of poor diet versus a healthy diet)
Repeat – you made the right choice (smaller portions of the cookies make your thighs happy)
Dilsa Saunders Bailey is in the process of writing the non-fiction book, Lather Rinse Repeat. If you would like to learn more about the concept, contact her for your next speaking engagement. Or, blog with her here at simplydilsa. Don’t forget to pick up her novel, Dreams Thrown Away
. The romantic suspense novel that tracks a couple whose drive to reach their dreams drives them to make all the wrong decisions leaving all sorts of havoc behind including sex, lies, and murder.
I heard a quote today that says it all, "it begins with you and it ends with you." In essence you make the decisions that determine your destiny, so that decision begins with you determining how its going to end for you. Your life is your choice. 
