I do a lot of work on decluttering. In my coaching practice, I have a program called “21 Days to Declutter Your Life” in which I give my clients verbal and written assessments of their environments before setting goals to make such spaces serve them. Don’t get me wrong: these practices and this teleclass aren’t so much about how to put a ‘donate’, ‘consign’, and ‘trash’ bin in your closet; they’re more about creating better routines and training our brains to invite success into our lives. And I want to help you guys do the same. Clients LOVE the results and say they are really loving making military moves easier, and learn to stop letting stuff get in the way of success. I think decluttering is my favorite coaching topic because it impacts all the other areas of our life.
By signing up for my april teleclass spring clean your life you will…
- Learn how to maintain the mindset of ‘less is more.’
- Start practicing effective evening habits, such as meal planning, allowing you to make healthy and successful practices feel routine.
- Learn how to nurture motivation in order to tackle those bigger decluttering projects.
After listening to and following these steps, it will become super easy to accomplish things that used to be difficult to even imagine. Because there are hidden connections between our daily habits and creating healthy environments, making our action steps feel routine will bring us closer to success in many avenues of our lives in no time! This month’s blog topics will all be aimed at inspiring you to GET RADICAL and let go of stuff (and sometimes situations) that aren’t serving you. I am so excited to have you join me on the decluttering journey. Please reach out to me at krista@militaryspousecoach.com if you would like to share some tips on decluttering specifically helpful to military spouses that I can use on an upcoming The Military Spouse Show podcast or just want to join me community.
The Importance of Tidying Up
As a mom of four young kids and an entrepreneur, I feel like no matter how many times I “declutter” my life, the mess ultimately makes its way back. Many of my clients think that the seeming futility of our efforts explains why it’s often hard to motivate ourselves to clean in the first place. Deep down we think, “Oh, it will just get messy again”—and who can blame us, right?
However, as military families, it’s especially important for us not to get too overwhelmed by clutter. Messiness and the accumulation of physical items makes already tough moves and transitions even more difficult in the end! That’s why I’ve always worked with clients on this topic and encouraged them to adopt the ‘less is more’ mindset.
New clients sometimes look at me skeptically when the fieldwork I assign them for their goal of finding a new career isn’t going home and preparing their resumes—instead, it’s often just tidying up their desks! I am a big fan of old school cleaning out. Once my desk is organized, I feel like identifying that new career opportunity just becomes so much easier.
Attracting Success Through Decluttering
I believe that there is a huge correlation between decluttering and success; maybe its that after I clean my desk I run to Home Depot and buy a money tree or pretty green plant and the sun coming in the window just puts me in the mood to make an extra call or go the extra mile, but regarless of the causes of success, clutter blocks it. When I clean out my closet, something shifts inside me, and I attract new clients effortlessly. When I clean out my car, I get to work and feel more productive. When I tidy up my kids’ closets, they do an even better job keeping their rooms clean.
In many ways, less is definitely more. I love how simple cleaning up can be when there are only a few different types of toys in the room. I love how easy it is to find a particular garment once I clean my closet of clothing I no longer wear.
By having fewer things to sift through and put away, you really make the prospect of keeping your home clean and possible moves that much easier!
Look for Clues and Connections
I like to pay attention to where clutter builds up in my life and think of these messes as the accumulation of messages to myself. So often there are clues about our lives in our clutter—by looking at the problem areas in our homes, we can often discover where we may subconsciously feel blocked in our lives. After discovering these realities, we can deal with them and make great changes that serve our greater good.
I first discovered the science behind this connection while reading the A Slob Comes Clean Blog, but her article merely validated something that I noticed in my own life. When I’m on top of doing the dishes every night, I’m also better at meal planning; when I do my laundry every Sunday, I suddenly know where certain clothing items are—the week, in general, just goes by far more smoothly when I keep on top of my chores!
I know some of you listening in are thinking, “Well, that is SO obvious!” but the connection definitely wasn’t clear to me. Before learning to read for such clues, I innately knew that I needed to improve my daily homemaking routines, but I wasn’t sure that it would have an overall effect on other aspects of my life, including my relationships and career.
I believe that these small household chores exercise our mindsets and train our brains to work in the ways we want them to. Kind of like when we go to the gym to train our muscles, daily chores train our brains to just “do it now” and remind us that “it’s easier than you think.” Once we begin taking regular baby steps, the idea of taking those giant leaps forward becomes so much more palatable.