Clutterbug - Real-Life Hacks and Tips to Declutter, Organize and Clean your Home Fast - Borrow some Motivation | Clutterbug Podcast # 50

Episode Date: May 2, 2018

Here is how I borrow motivation when I am lacking my own! A simple trick to find motivation and inspiration when you need it most. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey guys and welcome back to the Clutterbug podcast. Today we're going to talk about borrowing motivation and tools from other people to improve our life. So thanks so much for joining me today. I've got to be honest with you. I've been going through a funk. I do this. I'm like an up and down like a freaking roller coaster. and maybe it's the weather, maybe it's, I don't know, honestly, I think a lot of it is just

boredom. I'm the type of person who I'm like impulsive and yeah, like new and exciting things. I always want to move. I always want to redecorate. I always want to try new things. And once I've done there, been there and done that, my, I guess, motivation to keep doing those things sort of wanes. So while I love organizing and talking and motivating other people about cleaning and organizing their home, we're going on eight years now. I'm getting pretty sick of it. So without an external boss, like I don't have a boss, I have no one to hold me accountable to. I'm my own boss.

It's hard to keep that motivation to want to get up and keep talking about it every day going. I'm bored of it. And I know I need to. I need to because, well, I need to because it's my job. and I need to because it still makes me feel good about myself at the end of the day. It really does. It gives me a purpose. It gives me direction in my life. And without those things, I'm just, I'm just Netflix and chocolate, right? I'm just left to my own devices. I need some sort of structure in my life. So obviously my career gives me that. But I'm, I'm not feeling it. I have a third

book contract that I just signed to write a book about sort of, I guess, the psychology around clutter and the different organizing styles and how knowing yourself can can help you overcome some challenges that you have and I'm not really feeling the motivation to write it I love the concept of the book but I've already written to and I'm just like you know I'm just not feeling it there so what do you do what do you do when you're not feeling that motivation for whatever it is that you really want to do in life or you really have to do in life how do you how do you how do you fake it. How do you get some? And here's something that I do that I'm going to share with you. And the truth is I borrow it. I borrow it or I steal it, I say, but no, it's borrowing. I borrow it

from others. And I do this through audiobooks. I do this through TED talks. I do this through podcasts, watching other people's YouTube videos. What I don't find motivating when I'm in this type of mood is Pinterest or Instagram or watching YouTube videos of people with like beautifully cleaned amazing spaces and watching them like dust their already clean house. That I find sometimes can make me feel worse about myself. That I'm like, well, look at how great they are. Look at how far I would have to go to get there. And so why even bother?

Right. And I, and I, so I'm, it's the opposite of motivating. But there are self-help gurus out there that despite the fact that they're winning at life and they're amazing, they still come across from a place that feels authentic and vulnerable and a place that I feel like I can relate to. So I find them inspiring instead of intimidating. So I wanted to talk about those people today and how I borrow from those people on a regular basis. And I'll just, I'll start with this morning. This morning I didn't want to get out of bed.

I put the kids on the bus. I got, made them breakfast, gave him kiss goodbye, and I went back to my bed. And I was like going down the Facebook rabbit hole, just reading garbage, you know, Dipli, top 10, I don't know, celebrity makeovers. This is so stupid. I'm wasting my time. And I can literally waste hours doing this. And I do waste hours doing this.

And instead I decided to watch a Tony Robbins, Ted, talk and it was just a quick one and I'm not going to lie I skipped I skipped some of it as uh I'm not feeling my ADD is kind of going crazy right now but I got something from it and he said to me well he didn't say it to me but I felt like he was saying it to me sometimes in life you have to just step up you have to just make yourself get up and do it because not doing it being lazy isn't going to make you happy it's the hard work it's the tough stuff that's going to bring you happiness. And I mean, I don't know why, but for some reason, that really resonated with me. And I got up in my pajamas and I took the dog for a walk.

And while I was taking the dog for a walk, I decided to listen to a Bernay Brown TED Talk while I was walking. And she was talking about vulnerability. And again, it was motivating. I was feeling, I was borrowing some of her zest for life and motivation. to use for myself. And then that got me thinking, because this is what I do, thinking about all the other times in my life where I was able to transform something into something better. And it always was because I had borrowed a tool from someone else. When I think about myself, my finances, and I claim bankruptcy in my early 20s, I was struggling with three minimum wage jobs, and I was living paycheck to paycheck and I had some really horrible financials. I had no financial tools in my toolbox.

And I read books like The Wealthy Barber and Rich Dad, Poor Dad. And I learned. I borrowed their knowledge and their tools. I mean, I wasn't an expert like them, but I got something from them that made me better. It made me, it transformed me from living paycheck to paycheck to having that pillow to catch me, that financial little nest egg to protect me when I do lose a job or when I did have financial hardship, I was good. I had something. And it taught me how to invest my money, to make my money grow for me. It gave me the knowledge and the tools to live a better life. And you guys know I was drowning in clutter. I was absolutely without a doubt a complete and utter slob and I tried to clean and organize I really did it wasn't from lack of effort I just didn't

I didn't know how I didn't have that tool in my toolbox and I borrowed it from Peter Walsh I borrowed his I borrowed his knowledge he he I read his books I watched his show Clean Sweep I sucked up every drop of the things that he said and I didn't become the expert that he is but I got little pieces from him that made my life better And that, I think, why I became such a huge fan of organization is in structure, I guess, is because I was unstructured. I was a disaster. I have zero self-control.

I still am not the type of person. I just don't have self-control. I'm all over the place. I'm up and down, roller coaster. I'm impulsive. I have ADHD. And so I was struggling every area of my life. And I was trying so desperately hard.

I read the secret. I remember in 2006 it came out and I read the secret and I was constantly just drinking up these self-help books and I was getting things. I was getting little tools, but it wasn't having a huge, huge impact in the way that organization did. Because what I found for me is when I actually took the time to give structure and routine to my external environment, it sort of transferred over internally. So when I minimized the amount of crap that I had, like, looking at every day, my stuff, I was calmer. I was happier and I was more relaxed.

So my physical environment had a huge impact on me internally. So this might not work for everyone. I mean, I know people who are clean freaks and they have anxiety out the wazoo. And I know people who are living like a crazy slub and they're, you know, know, they just have, they're not happy and they have their life together in every other aspect. So I'm not saying that these two are 100% connected, but for me, there was a connection. There was a clutter connection. And when I realized that and made changes, I found it was a whole lot easier to change the external environment than it was my brain. It was a whole lot easier

for me to take 15, 20 minutes, an hour and organize something. than it was to, you know, make myself not be such a basket case. Yeah, to changing the outside's way easier than changing the inside, but the great thing is changing the outside changes the inside. And it doesn't only change the inside of me. It helps my whole family. So I'm not just improving myself by organizing the drawer. I'm helping every single one of my family members as well alleviate stress.

and that, you know, that mental clutter that comes with having all these visual distractions all the time. So, so that's why I became totally addicted to it and why I talk about it and why that's my job right now. And maybe that would work for you and maybe it wouldn't. But nothing bad comes from borrowing tools and motivation from other people. Nothing bad is going to come from learning from someone else, even if it's something that you don't feel really applies. to you, it can't hurt. It can only help. So I'm, I totally recommend listening to podcasts. Some of my favorites are Gretchen Rubin, the Happiness Project. And I really recommend listening to

Dr. Bray Brown. She has a lot of free TED Talks that you can watch on YouTube. I totally recommend her. Ted Talks in general. I mean, I watched a TED Talk the other day on evolution. And I was like, this is amazing. And I learned so much. And I just, you know, it was, maybe I'll never use those things that I learned, but they're in there. And all of this stuff, all of these positive, inspiring, and, you know, educational things we're getting from other people, all this knowledge that we're soaking in can only make us a better person. So that is how you borrow motivation from someone else. You look and you find those inspiring people in the world who are sharing it, who are giving it away. Take it. Take advantage of that because I promise you it will 100% improve your

life. I'm going to tell you a little bit of a story because sometimes I feel like the people that I connect the most with are the people who I felt have come from a place where I can relate to. So they're not, you know, born with a silver spoon in their mouth and live in a gorgeous mansion. But they built it. They grew it for themselves. And so I want to share a story about myself with you. Not that I have my crap together and I, because I absolutely don't. But I want to share with you where I came from.

And there are people who have suffered way more adversity than me, but I'm going to talk about my story with you. You guys know, maybe some of you know, that I was just a, I was a confused kid. and I left home at 15. And I think looking back of why I left home, it was loneliness. It was wanting to fit in. It was wanting to have a tribe. And I found some friends. And I lived really far away from them.

I lived in the country. And my parents were busy. And we lived way too far for me to walk or even ride my bike. We lived about a half an hour away. And so my friends were hanging out and they were doing teenage things and they were going to the mall. and I couldn't go ever to any of those things. I didn't go to birthday parties. I didn't go, you know, trick-or-treating on Halloween

because my parents just absolutely would not drive me into town. And there was no one around me that was my age, and I was an only child. So I was very, very isolated and just lonely. And I think loneliness drove me to do stupid, impulsive things like leave home. And stubbornness stopped me from going back. So I met up with another group of kids. I had friends, right, but I was homeless. I was living on couch to couch to couch to friends.

And finally, my friend's parents were like, enough is enough. You know, you've lived with us for a couple of months, and I'd move on to a different friend. And eventually I ran out of friends. And I lived in a teen homeless shelter where I met a new tribe. I met this tribe of homeless teens who were living in this teen homeless shelter. And I connected with them. I dropped out of high school.

And once we were all kicked out of this teen homeless shelter, you could only live here for 30 days, we sort of all tried to make it work together. And we were homeless, but we were a little team, we were a little family of ourselves. And we made poor choices. We did, we got involved in criminal activity. We, there were substance abuse issues. I mean, all sorts of things, right? And I did what I did, because I was part of that family. And I, and I wanted to be included in that. I didn't want to be lonely and I wanted to be part of that tribe. I made a really bad decision for a long time. And then eventually, you know, I fell in love with someone from this tribe and we did horrible

things together and it was a really toxic relationship. And finally, at the age of 21, I just, I couldn't do it anymore. I wanted to be, I wanted to just stop living that life. And so I left the toxic abusive relationship. and I got a part-time job and I had saved up and I got my own little tiny apartment and I had nothing. I had literally nothing. I was sleeping on the floor and I was struggling. I was eating ramen noodles and skittles and I had absolutely nothing.

And I was struggling and I felt at this point that I was already behind the train. Like the train had left the station and all of my other people that I was friends with or that I went to school with, they were already in university. and I was a high school dropout with a criminal record and not like huge amounts of debt because I lived off credit cards for as soon as I could get my first credit card at 18 I was like woohoo we'll just live off those right because again I had I just I didn't care I was just doing what I had to do to survive and so when I finally sort of dragged out of that lifestyle I felt like I was starting at the bottom again and I was starting at the bottom again with absolutely nothing and a lot of people at 21 have absolutely nothing but again I yeah I was behind the eight ball and I didn't have the

knowledge I dropped out of high school very young and I good luck finding a job with a criminal record and without a high school diploma and that's the situation I was in and that's when I really started discovering self-help books and I remember reading the secret for the very first time and just it making a small change in me and every time I reading the wealthy barber for the first time. Reading all of these books. Back then, that's what I did as I read books, improved my life a little bit more and a little bit more and a little bit more

until I got to the place where, you know, I was adulting, I guess. I was finally doing okay. I'm not doing stellar and I'm not crushing life. That's absolutely true. But I found my passion. I found my passion and I turned it into a cruise. career and I'm so, so, so grateful for that. But the reason I was able to do that was because I borrowed all this knowledge and tools from other people who were also doing that. And I soaked it in

and I took a little piece here and there and then patchworked myself something together that that is turning out to be something really great. So I wanted to share that with you because sometimes out of adversity, sometimes out of struggle can come something really, really amazing. And looking to others for that inspiration and that motivation is the best, fastest, and easiest way to improve our lives. So go to the library and borrow a self-help book or listen to a free podcast or watch a YouTube video of something inspired. today and then borrow a little bit of that for yourself and and we're all going to have a happier healthier more amazing life when we're sharing with others and borrowing what they're

sharing so thank you guys so much for listening i hope you enjoyed and i'll see you next time