"We are constantly being bombarded by stimuli. Our environment is full of distractions, which limit our ability to focus on one thing at a time, and inhibit our ability to make decisions."
-Arianna Huffington
The quote above from Arianna Huffington illustrates the importance of clearing out physical clutter in order to clear space for new thoughts, feelings and behaviors. In today's blog post, we will be discussing how you can clear mental clutter so that you can create more space for something new!
In the late Fall of 2020, I embarked on a journey of clearing the clutter. This was more than just " Spring Cleaning." It was a purposeful mission to strategically, remove the stuff in my life that was literally getting in my way, leading to mental and physical angst, and so much more. There are different types of clutter, but for simplicity, I will only be discussing two types, physical and mental.
Physical Clutter is the clutter we see in our home, office and car. It fills up space that could be used for something else to help us live a more relaxed life with less stress! Physical things such as clothing or decorations are some of those items you can get rid off if they no longer have meaning - either because it doesn't fit, it doesn't represent us anymore, or its not in good shape. There is no use hanging onto things that don't serve you anymore.
Mental Clutter is the clutter in your head! This is hard to see, but it manifests itself as anxiety and depression. Mental things like thoughts or memories that negatively affect our moods are good examples of mental "cluttering".
Here are a few tips for clearing physical &mental clutters. For physical clutter : ask yourself if you really need the times. A simple test is to pack up a few boxes of items you haven't used in over a year, put it away in storage. Then over the next 3 months, reevaluate , and see if you actually missed those items. Most likely, you will wouldn't even think about them. I've personally used this strategy many times in my life. Then months, and in some cases years, I look at the boxes and have no attachment to the items whatsoever, so I purged it, gave it to goodwill, a friend or for someone else that needs it.
For mental clutter, you need to ask yourself what thoughts are cluttering your mind. One thing that I've found to be helpful is the DARE method! This means Discard, Assign a time limit for thinking about it (i use 24 hrs), Re-frame and Evaluate if you really need this "clutter" in life or not
We live in a very material world, and we tend to collect things. The bigger the house the greater is our desire to fill it. However, is all this stuff necessary? The question to ask yourself, are these items, either physical or mental, helping push me towards my ultimate, desired results. If the answer is "no", well , you know what you need to do.
Clear the clutter in your lives and make a habit to do it regularly. I practice this at home, in my personal life, and even in my professional life. Life is too short, to live anything but being productive, and surrounded by positive thinking, like minded individuals.
What is your experience with clearing the clutter? Would you like help in this area. Please feel free to contact us for a free consult.