Clutterbug - Real-Life Hacks and Tips to Declutter, Organize and Clean your Home Fast - Feeling Meh? Try This to Get Excited About Life Again | Clutterbug Podcast # 261

Episode Date: February 10, 2025

Ever catch yourself feeling “meh” about the future—like you just can’t see past tomorrow? It might be something called “horizonlessness,” and we’re diving in headfirst! In this episode, I’m sharing insights from a fascinating chat between Mel Robbins and Dr. Aditi Nehrukar that will have you going, “Aha… so that’s why!” Discover how the pandemic rewired our brains to focus on immediate survival instead of tomorrow’s dreams, and why it’s completely normal to feel stuck. But don’t worry—we’re not staying stuck. We’ll talk about tiny, doable steps to get your zest back, from embracing small daily victories (hello, clean kitchen sink!) to sneakily scheduling in those guilt-free moments of “me time.” If you’ve been searching for a spark to reignite your excitement about what’s on the horizon, this episode is your matchstick. So press play, grab a trash bag (or a notepad), and let’s reclaim that forward-thinking fire together!   Listen to Mel Robbins talk about Horizonlessness here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TiJuzF0iD0     You can find more Clutterbug content here: Website: http://www.clutterbug.me YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@clutterbug TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@clutterbug_me Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/clutterbug_me/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Clutterbug.Me/   #clutterbug #podcast #mondaymotivation #FreshStart #DeclutterYourMind Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Let's talk about horizonlessness. Hey, this is a new concept that I just heard about in its crazy pans, and I can't wait to share it with you. Hey, Clutterbugs, welcome back to the Clutterbug podcast. If you're new here, I'm Cass. And here on the Clutterbug podcast, we talk a lot about getting our homes together, getting in control of the clutter and the mess and getting routines established that our house feels more effortless so that it's not another thing on our to-do list because we have enough to do. So we feel good and proud about our space. And so it has a solid foundation so we can build all the other cool stuff in our lives on top like better finances and relationships and more happiness and more free time. It's really hard to do those things

when our house is chaotic. Today, I'm actually not talking about a house. Well, I mean, I'm going to tie it back in because I can't help it. But we're going to talk about this new concept that I had never heard of before, and yet it makes so much sense. But before we jump into that, I'm going to encourage you while you listen to do double duty. So if you're watching this on YouTube, do something cool. it in the background and sort paperwork or do those dishes. Put away some laundry, vacuum,

clean, work on a project that you can finish and feel really good or, you know, work out, do something to make yourself proud. So we're learning, we're getting motivated, we're feeling inspired, but we're also getting stuff done. All right, friends, this concept of horizonlessness, I had never heard of before, but I was listening to a podcast while I was driving between Mel Robbins and Dr. Adidi Nurukar. And I love her. She is like an expert on stress and she works for Harvard and she runs a bunch of studies. She's also a psychiatrist that deals with patients. And she has noticed a trend lately. And a few studies have sort of, you know, also noticed this trend.

of a lack of forward goal-setting vision, looking forward to the future in a greater percentage of the population than before COVID. And I, looking back my own life, there was a lot of times in my life that I felt like I was horizonlessness. This is like such a big word. But basically it's like when you think about you're looking forward to where you're going, you're like looking out at the horizon. there's like I'm looking forward to something I'm seeing possibilities I'm excited for the future

and there's a lot of times in my life pre-COVID that I wasn't feeling this I felt very like stuck in the day-to-day life and I think this comes because this is something nobody really tells you but when you're younger it's like go to school and then you can go to university and then you can meet someone and then you can get married and you can find your dream career and you can And then you can buy a house and have children and get a car and then go on vacations. And then there's like this big, you know, chunk and then it's retirement. You know, like maybe you get a trailer in there or a boat or something or you're buying other things, which maybe is why a lot of us really struggle with consumerism because there is this,

we all like innately want to grow and get to the next part in your life. But I found like after I was done having my children, And there was a period of my life where I felt like, well, what is next then? I didn't have the next thing that I was working towards or to look forward to. And I felt really very lost. And if I'm being honest with myself, when I don't have something that I'm working towards, when I don't have like something I'm excited about or a future vision, I don't feel really fired up about anything.

I'm not saying I get depressed, but I do have less zest for life when I don't have a clear path or excitement of things I'm working towards. And I think that this is human nature. But why I found this podcast so incredibly just like, oh, it struck me was because Dr. Aditi said that during COVID and during lockdown, what happened was, really like this psychological thing that stopped us from looking towards the future and the horizon due to the nature of the lockdowns. So at first we were told, you know, you just have to be indoors or stay away from people for like two weeks, three weeks. There was sort of like this wall put up where we couldn't make plans for travel. We couldn't make plans for doing things, going places,

achieving things because we were stuck home. And then the lockdown got a little bigger. and we got a little smaller and our world got a little smaller. And it lasted for so long. What Dr. Aditi is saying is we actually kind of got in the habit during this time of not really looking forward towards the horizon. We were looking at like, when is this going to be over and how do I survive today? We weren't thinking about five years in the future, 10 years in the future, 20 years in the future. 20 years in the future anymore. We were thinking about like right now and what's going on in this moment in the world. We were looking down and we were, our world got very small. And what's so

fascinating is we know, because I talk about this all the time and probably lots of podcasts that you talk to and people that you talk to, mention this over and over again. But our mind, honestly, controls everything. It really, really does. But we get in these thought patterns. So if you were a person pre-pandemic who was always like, I can't wait to do this and this is my one-year goal and five-year goal and I'm working towards this, that would be a thought pattern habit that you had, which is looking towards the horizon, looking forward to things, planning your future. And then suddenly all that comes to a grinding halt and we get in the habit of not doing that anymore. not thinking way in the future, not planning and being excited for things way in the future because we couldn't. Because we were in a state of like, we were scared and there was just a lot going on. And we had no idea. We had so much uncertainty. How could we possibly plan things when we did not know

what was going on? We didn't know when we would be allowed to go to restaurants again, right? We didn't know for a while if we could go to the gym here in Canada. We couldn't. At one point, we could only send one person to the grocery store. We didn't even know if we were going to have toilet paper for like a small section of our life. And now that's done and it's over. And like ideally things would just completely go back to normal. But our brain adjusted for that period of time, according to Dr. Aditi, where a big part of that was we stopped planning far, far into the future. and a lot of that became a pattern and a thought habit, and now we're still doing that to this

day. And why I find this like really coolly fascinating is even if you take the equation, I think that there are people who just naturally don't plan for the future and people who do plan for the future. And in my personal, this is my, I'm not no expert or nothing, But in my personal opinion, based on people I know and see in my life, people who get excited for future plans and planned things one year, five years, 10 years in the future are so much happier and more enthusiastic and generally are getting further ahead in life than the people who are just like, me, whatever happens happens. You know, I'm just living, I'm just getting through my day. we'll just see what the world gives me and I'll deal with it when it comes and there's this sort of like me there's this sort of like overall me you know not unhappiness not depression but not that zest and that excitement for life and yeah super fascinating I have an organizing experts group for people

who take my course and in there I often ask people like what is your big goal for this year what is your five-year goal. What do you want to do? It doesn't even have to be about your home or your business or like what are you really looking forward to? And it is insane to me how many people cannot answer that question. Don't really know. And I also know how often I've been there and I'm struggling to look forward to my horizon lately too. I really am. I'm fine to get difficult to concretely say what I want to do a year from now, what I want to do five years from now, what I want to do 10 years from now, where in the past, this is like something that I naturally just always did. There was that period of time after I had children that I got a little

horizonlessness for a bit, right? But then it was like, okay, it's clutterbug, it's my business, it's this, it's that. And that like sparked like a fuel, a little fire under me. It made me feel very passionate about my life. So I guess I want to show this with you because I, I just, it's just a thought. Like, right, we're doing stuff together right now. We're cleaning. We're working out. We're organizing. You're decluttering something. You're catching up on dishes. But it's just something to think about in your own life and maybe your loved ones that you have in your life because I look at my husband and he says he's happy. He is. He's a happy guy. But he quit work during the pandemic so that he could support my children and I because I was traveling to New York

to film Hot Mess House. And I had to leave for like a whole month without my family. So he He was home with my kids to help them with online school. So he wasn't working. He wasn't looking for another job. And then he moved to New York with the children. They all moved with me. So we got to be together for six months in New York, which was amazing. And then after that, when we came home, it was just nice having him home, not having to go to a job or worry about working.

And so Joe hasn't worked since. And he also hasn't, we haven't had any really, like, big life things that we were looking towards. We did move into this house. And during that time, he was excited every day during the moving process. And when we first moved in here, he was like fixing things up and he had a real zest because he had something working, he was working towards. But lately I've noticed that zest has gone. And honestly, the zest in my own life is gone too because we don't have something on

the horizon. We just don't. And that's all there is to it. And so while I was listening to this Mel Robbins podcast, and I'm going to link that down in the show notes if you want to listen to it too. I was waiting. I was like waiting to hear how you fix this. You know, I'm like, tell me, Dr. Aditi, something so great. Like give me a one, a one, two, three steps to fix this and feel excited about life again.

And unsurprisingly, it was not that. There was a lot of like meditate and go for a while. When I hear stuff like that, I immediately roll my eyes because it feels just like, it feels just like you're tossing out, you know, I don't know. It's like that's what everybody says. It's what everybody says. And I don't see how that would fix the issue. But then again, I'm not exactly trying it if we're being real. But then she said something that did strike a chord with me.

And that was start looking forward. to the small things. Start looking forward to your cup of coffee sitting and relaxing in the morning while looking out the window. Start looking forward to your bubble bath at night. Start looking forward to make a plan with a friend. Maybe to go, I'm going with my mom to the casino on Monday afternoon. I just was like, let's do something fun. Let's make a plan. Looking forward to that, I'm going to a Super Bowl party. I'm looking forward to that. It's like actively thinking about things, even small things like a cup of coffee that we can look forward to in the future.

And why this really, when she said this, this really struck me was because, yeah, this is retraining your brain. This is training our brain now to start, again, looking towards the horizon and being excited for the things that are coming. and we can start five minutes in the horizon and then push it back and then push it back and push it back. And what I appreciate that she didn't say was like, make giant goals for yourself. Because when we're in this mode, just saying the big goal isn't actually helpful. It just feels overwhelming.

And we can say like, yeah, I'm going to run a marathon next year. but if we're not actually taking the steps and doing the movement towards that goal, it doesn't feel like we're working towards a horizon. It's just lip service. It's just us saying a thing and not actually doing anything. We can't go from zero to running a marathon tomorrow. It feels really big, so we procrastinate and we're like, just having a goal isn't enough.

We have to be like taking the steps towards it. So maybe what we need to do is really start small. And it's like, we know this. We know this. We know this in our own house. How do we deal with a house that's so cluttered? It's insane. We can't even walk in it.

We grab a bag and we just look for five pieces of trash. And yeah, that's not going to make a huge difference. But tomorrow you do the same thing. And tomorrow after that, you do the same thing. And the next day and the next thing. And before you know it, you've made a huge difference. dent, but more importantly than how it looks in the progress that you're making, you are now training yourself that this is something that doesn't feel hard, you're just doing it without

thinking, and you're actually enjoying it. And I think that's the, everybody says that's the real secret. If you listen to James Clear, who's like one of my favorite all-time, you know, self-help gurus, he talks about atomic habits. He's like, this is the secret to success. These tiny little steps that change your brain. So if you're feeling like when the thought of what are you looking forward to this year, what are you looking forward to in the next five years, what are you looking forward to the next 10 years? And if you're drawing a blank, that is not your fault. And there is nothing wrong with you. You just have not been in the habit of looking forward and getting excited about the future and tomorrow. And you are in a state of horizonlessness.

So super fascinating, right? So fascinating. Let's get excited about the little things coming up in the future so that we can start practicing and then stretch it out a little further and a little further. And I've got some really cool examples of things that we can do coming up right after this quick thank you to my sponsor. Factor is something new that I've tried recently because my goal for this year is to get healthier, but I'm also lazy and I work full time. So I love that Factor provides chef-made gourmet meals that are delivered right to your door and you can heat them in two minutes. They're kind of like TV dinners but not frozen, actually good and delicious and everything is fresh, dietary and approved. And you can focus on what your health goals are.

so you can have them be keto factor meals or vegan or whatever it is that you are kind of like extra extra protein less calorie delicious nutritious filling meals that are perfect for lunch for me if you want to give this a try right now you can get started at factormeels dot com slash clutterbug 50 off use the code clutterbug 50 50 off to get 50% off your first off your first box plus free shipping. That's Clutterbug 50 off at factormeals.com slash clutterbug 50 off. So if you are listening to this podcast and thinking, wait, wait a minute, I have not thought about next year in ages. I haven't thought about what I'm going to do in 2026 or five years from now. You are not alone. You are not alone, my friend. And it could be that we were stuck in survival

mode for so long during the pandemic that we just stopped being in the habit of looking towards the future, or it could be that there just wasn't, you know, you were just stressed and in burnout for whatever reason, because life is insane sometimes. And maybe you had horrible things happen, or maybe you just got busy with work and trying to take care of kids and the house and everything else. And the last thing you had time to think about was next year or next decade. You're like, I'm just trying to figure out how I'm going to make it to bedtime without passing out here. So I think all of these triggers of stress and add on to that the pandemic when there was just like so much unknown and so much added stress. And of course we feel like this. And even though maybe we're

on the other side of the pandemic, maybe you're not on the other side of stress and overwhelm and burnout. And so thinking about tomorrow is tough. And I don't want to, I thought about doing this podcast and the last thing I wanted to do was be like, here's how to fix this because I don't think there is this magic wave your wand. This is an easily fixable thing. What I more wanted, and I am still going to give you some tips because I can't help myself. Okay. I can't help myself. But I do think that it's important to talk about this because it is more prevalent than we think. I think this is a really common thing that a lot of people are struggling with and don't even know that they're struggling with. Just have this feeling of me, a feeling of just going through

the motions and not really feeling excited or hopeful or looking forward to what's next. Not even thinking about that. And sure, we go to the store and we buy things. And maybe we look forward to getting that new big screen TV or, you know, a camping trip that's coming up or even going on a vacation. But outside of that, what's on the horizon for you? What bigger thing is on the horizon? And I would say probably the large majority of people have no idea. So first, I want to say that you're not alone. And secondly, I want to say that this is like a natural response to prolonged uncertainty. So living a life of where you have no control and you're not sure what's coming for a very long

period of time, of course, this is how our brain is now working and wired. This is like, this is survival 101, man. Our brain is protecting us. We are staying small. We are closing in. We are not giving ourselves the like, I'm going to be super helpful for this amazing future because the future was unknown and scary. And why would we set ourselves up for failure like that?

So Dr. Aditi gave some great examples of ways that we can start to retrain our brain to looking forward, to looking up at the horizon and getting excited about the future. And like everything else, it's kind of like those fake it to you, make it trick your brain type things. So while you're listening to this right now, I want you to just think of some things that you can do. One is, I'm really looking forward to having all my dishes done before bed tonight. I got to throw it back to the cleaning the house. It's a clutterbug thing, but that's something small. Something small that we can see the end. We can visualize, but it's something we have to work towards. And it's like, yeah, I'm going to be excited about that and giving ourselves permission to be

excited for something or happy or looking forward to something in the future. We can set a date with somebody to do something fun. If you're like me and you're a bit of an introvert and you like don't actually like overly, you're not super excited about hanging out with people outside your house, then that maybe isn't the thing. Like something honestly that you're like, yeah, that's going to be really nice. I'm looking forward to that. Going for a walk, sitting on your back deck, drinking a nice coffee, watching a movie you've been meaning to watch that you haven't. Like, I'm going to watch that tonight at 8 o'clock with my husband. And like actively, maybe that's something you were probably doing anyways, but did you set the

intention? Did you say it? Did you think it? Did you make a plan in the future? And did you allow yourself to look forward to that? That's what Dr. Aditi's talking about. it's the training our brain to now make plans in the future and look forward to them to set small goals in the future small goals and look forward to them and then actually achieve them or take

steps towards those tiny goals it's it's about the momentum so many of us have been stuck we have been stuck and i'm sorry i'm going to blame the pandemic and i look at my own children and i look at my own children and I can see. I can see how this happened to them. My daughter, Izzy, missed her grade eight graduation because we were on lockdown. So she didn't have that to look forward to. She didn't have high school, like going back, going to high school for the first time to look forward to or making new friends to look forward to because she wasn't sure. She spent the entire year of grade nine in her bedroom doing online school, not seeing another person. How could you, she look forward to like meeting new friends or getting a boyfriend or none of that she had to

shut all of that out from her brain because otherwise it's just disappointment there was too much uncertainty she had no idea when any of these things would be coming back and so it was like not even something she she didn't even allow herself to daydream about and i think we all did this in different areas of our life and over time, shutting down the hope for the future, shutting down the excitement for the future, shutting down the planning for the future, shutting down making goals for the future, added up to this just isn't something we do anymore. So let's change that, friends. Let's do it. Let's acknowledge that this is going to be hard. Let's acknowledge that stress adds to this because if you're overwhelmed

and stressed and have a ton going on in your life, of course you're not going to want to think about future, exciting, making plans. Well, we can think about what can I do that will relax me today, later today. What can I do that I find relaxing? Can I book a massage? Can I ask my spouse to massage me? Just massage. Just that. Can I just literally run a hot bath and watch show on my phone or something while I'm soaking little tiny small steps to regain that thought process of looking ahead and planning ahead and it is it's all about that mindset shift and we do have to be like I hate the word oh the mindfulness and blah blah blah but what that really means is getting control of our thoughts and having that self-awareness of realizing what our brain is doing and what it's

not doing. And that's why I found this podcast so so cool because I didn't even realize that I was in the habit of not looking forward. And I didn't even notice that all of my loved one and the people around me were also in the habit of being really horizonlessness. I don't even know. if that's a word. That's the word she said. So that's what I'm holding on to for sure. I guess my point of this podcast is let's rekindle a future-oriented mindset. Let's start to get those juices flowing and take small steps to looking ahead and being excited about what's coming up. And I have made a plan to update my vision board for years. And I just haven't done it.

And I was going to do it again this year. And I got a bunch of things printed out and I never put it up. And I am a true believer that a vision board really like allowing yourself to dream big and to like hope big and have dreams and goals and then putting them out there to see every day, that can be a bit of your horizon. But if that feels like I can't even think about any of that right now, I'm really in a burnout mode. We got to start small and that's okay too. Maybe we can put on our vision board 15 minutes of just quiet relaxation every day.

We're talking to our best friend on the phone every day for 10 minutes instead of just texting and looking forward to that. Giving yourselves a little treat. I don't know. Are you a chocohol? Maybe you have like a piece of chocolate every night after dinner. Let's look forward to that. Maybe you're going to like try to bake homemade bread again this weekend. There are so many things. Please in the comments, let's share. Let's talk about this. Let's share some small steps that we can take. Let's help other people with advice on how they can

start rekindling that looking forward to the future mindset. Let's all do this. Let's look towards the horizon and get excited and feel passionate about what's to come. And if you're listening to Clutterbug, because you're like, I got to get this house under control, there are so many horizons right there in front of you. You cannot wait to have a closet that's decluttered. You cannot wait to go to bed and crawl into a nicely made bed with a tidy bedroom. A tidy bedroom is an awesome horizon goal. When are you going to do it? Let's set it and let's look forward to it.

Each little thing, maybe it's one pile today. Maybe it's putting away the laundry and looking forward to that. We got to start planning and getting excited about the future. Dr. Adidi also gave other suggestions that I thought were really amazing, and that is getting more involved back into the community. Because we spent so long trapped in our bubble, I mean, what, we were only allowed to be around five people, and I have a family of five. So it was like, we couldn't see anyone else. My kids couldn't be with friends. Everything had to be virtual.

And it was, ugh, it was depressing, and it was sad, and it was lonely. And we got in the habit of being lonely and not being out in the community doing community things. What's insane is the dramatic drop in people who volunteer. And a lot of that has to do with the fact that, yeah, people are crazy busy. But also, even people who did volunteer pre-pandemic are no longer volunteering post-pandemic because we're just in the habit of not doing that anymore. We're losing this sense of community. So what small things can you do that get you out and involved? Can you go to a comedy club?

It doesn't even have to be that you volunteer. If you have young kids, though, you can volunteer with your school to like do hot dog day or something. But can you go watch a local play put on by your theater group? Oh, can you join the theater group? Have you been thinking about doing pickleball? But you're like, I don't know. or have anyone to do pickleball with. Guess what? There's other people who don't have people like people to play pickleball with. You just show up and they match you with somebody and now you have a pickleball partner.

And then every week you're looking forward to pickleball or join, you know, one of those art classes that teaches you to paint or pottery or go to a cooking class. Get out. Try something new. Get excited. Make a plan for the future. make a plan for a new you, join a gym, hire a personal trainer, or just go to some classes, some yoga classes. Let's get excited. Let's get excited to get back out there because we are resilient.

And we went through a dark, horrible, scary time, and we came out on the other side. Let's be stronger than ever. Let's not let that affect us for the rest of our lives. Let's rewire our brain and get back to the excitement, the joy, the passion for what's to come on the horizon. So I hope you're proud of yourself for whatever you accomplished today while listening to this podcast. Hope you're feeling pumped and have some ideas and pick one. Even if it is, I'm looking forward to that cup of coffee. I'm looking forward to catching up on all the dishes. I'm looking forward to calling my mom and having a chat with her.

this takes practice, but we can change our brain to be back to the way we were. And if, even if we were never like that, we can be like that now. Make a vision board. Let's get excited, you guys. I'm feeling really pumped and I'm feeling excited and I'm going to right now do what I've been procrastinating and make that vision board right over there of all the things I'm looking forward to this year and in the next five years. And I hope you are inspired to do something similar. Thank you guys so much and I'll see you next time.