Clutterbug - Real-Life Hacks and Tips to Declutter, Organize and Clean your Home Fast - Find REAL Balance in your Life. Let Jealousy be the Cue! | Clutterbug Podcast # 131

Episode Date: June 27, 2022

What are your priorities in life? In today's podcast, I discuss the best ways to balance your life and how jealousy is actually telling you what your priorities are!     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 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There's a viral TikTok going around that's always in my feet. I feel like it's the universe telling me something. And the audio says, use your weekends to build the life you want, not escape it. And I feel like it's really resonating with me because lately I've been spending my free time trying to escape watching movies and just surfing the web instead of really working towards what I'm really craving. Hey, clutterbugs and welcome back to the clutterbug podcast. We're going to be talking about. priorities, jealousy, and finding balance today. I'm definitely going through a change in my life. A year ago, if you would have asked me what my priority was, it was to build a business. I think I thought if I was more successful, then I'd be happy. I was really very single-minded, focused at that time. My family has always been a priority to me, but I thought I would find happiness in success. I was filming a television show, was in New York, working 40 hours a week on the television show,

and then also filming YouTube videos and running my social media and the other half of my clutterbug business was probably working 60 hours a week. And on top of that, on the weekends and evenings, I wanted to spend time with my family. So we were going to zoos and parks and museums and art galleries. And I was so miserable. I had this incredible experience. to live in a different city, to be working at this cool job, filming an HDTV show, doing the thing I thought was my top priority, which was building my business and my brand and spending so much time with my family. And I was mentally, physically, and emotionally exhausted. And that's when I really realized a few things about myself. One, I have a very low threshold for work. I am not the person who works

hard and plays hard. That isn't me at all. And I need to recharge my social batteries, even if I'm around my kids or my husband. I need me time too. I need alone time too. And I'm not someone who finds a lot of fulfillment in working, which really shocked me. I was craving doing nothing. So when all of that was over and it was done filming and I came back home, I really had to ask myself, like, what is is my top priority right now. And it went from growing my brand, growing my business, working on clutter bug to I want to simplify my life. I want to do less. I want to have days where I could just lay in bed and do nothing but crush Netflix. How can I still maintain my home, spend time with my kids and my husband, and do as little as possible at the

same time? And I really took that to the extreme too, because that's what I do. I'm I'm definitely a weirdo in that regard. So I spend a lot of time doing nothing. And now I'm finally getting to the point we're like, wait a minute, that isn't what I really wanted either. So I need to find balance. And I wanted to talk to you about this today because this is definitely something I'm going through, but I think this is also maybe something that you can relate to. I had in a little epiphany this weekend. I went to a YouTuber retreat where I met all my favorite YouTubers. It was incredible. And I met some people I had never met before and never even heard of before. And Lisa from Farmhouse on the Boon was there. She had a baby strap to her the entire time.

And she was talking about her homestead. So she has a farm and she makes everything from scratch. And she like milks her cow, you guys, for milk and has her eggs from chickens and all of her vegetables. She grows herself. And she has like sourdough starters that she made. Like she makes everything from scratch. And it's all things that she has raised herself. And I was like, oh, that sounds cool. But when I came back, I started following her on YouTube and Instagram. Like I started following everyone. I listened to her podcast. And it keeps popping up in my feed. And I find myself feeling so jealous. I'm looking at her life and I'm like, how is she doing this all? How does she have seven children, including a baby, gets up and milks her cow and gets her eggs and her house is spotless.

And she's doing all, as she washing her clothes on a washing board? I don't know. But it wouldn't surprise me. And she's doing it all with a smile in her face. And she's, she cooks everything. Like her kitchen looks like it's like a 1950s farmhouse. It's beautiful and all redone. And she's using like cast iron skillets. And she's cooking up a storm. And she's like preserving and making her own jam and she has like dozens of eggs and she's got all these things of cow's milk and she's making cheese with them and I'm just like oh my I can barely make dinner get the dishes cleaned put my load of bed without feeling exhausted doing a load of laundry a day for my family of five feels like effort and she's over there crushing the world and so I was feeling really envious

and any time I feel jealous I know that it's because I'm craving that Not that I want what they have. I used to think that. I used to think like, oh, if I see someone driving like a fancy car and I feel like a pain of jealousy that I want a fancy car, that's not it at all. I'm craving something about that. And I realized after some real thought this weekend looking at myself and like, do I really want to have a farm? That's a hard no. Do I want to milk a cow? That's a hard no. Do I want to have an entirely ginormous garden that I have to weed? Absolutely not. Do I want to have more vegetables in my garden? So I can like, yeah, yeah, I do. I have a great garden. We have lots, but it's not overly big. We have a lot of vegetables that we enjoy.

But then I thought, maybe I can push myself a little more and have a few more vegetables. So I went to the hardware store and I got some dirt for pots I already own. We planted more peppers and Brussels and some jalapinos and sweet peppers and hot peppers. So we went to the hardware store. I'm trying something new. It's a little bit out of my comfort zone. I watched a whole video of her with her sourdough starter and making all this bread and I thought, do I want to keep something alive? I can barely keep my pets alive. Do I want to keep some sort of yeast ball alive? No, I really don't. I mean, I admire that about her, but that isn't me. But what am I craving? Why am I feeling jealousy about this? You know what? I would like to bake more. I would like to make. I would like to make

more things from scratch. So I took a cue from her and I made bread. I had instant yeast. Listen, it's baby steps. And I made some homemade muffins and we baked a pie. Yep, I bought a pre-made pie crust and just sliced up some apples. But you know what? I still feel really good about myself because one of my priorities still is to simplify, but I want to find balance. I want to add more to my, I don't want to be a workaholic. But I definitely look. to others to see what areas of their life do I want to like whenever I feel that pain that like ping of jealousy I know that there's something that they have and I want a piece of it my own life and so jealousy can really be such a positive thing sometimes because it can tell us a lot

about what really we are craving when it comes to our priorities my priority obviously isn't that I want to lay in bed all day and just watch Netflix it certainly isn't that want to be a workaholic and work 60 hours week. Now I'm going to find balance in the middle. The other thing about priorities that I've definitely realized in my 43 years on this planet is they are constantly shifting and evolving. Just because something was important to us once and that was like the number one thing we wanted to focus on, we need to reevaluate our priorities on a regular basis, if not monthly basis. And this is really easy to do. You can literally grab a piece of paper and write down all the things that are important to you, all of them, just brain-dump all the important

things. And then beside them, sort of number them one to 10 or 1 to 20 or whatever it is, with the first one being what you think is the most important priority. And so family is very important to me. When I was a stay-at-home mom and I was just doing the stay-at-home mom thing, I wasn't feeling overly fulfilled. I loved being a mom. I hate saying this, but let's be honest, why it's okay to admit to ourselves and to other people that sometimes being a mom isn't enough for everyone. I wanted something else. I wanted a career. I wanted to feel like I was having an impact on the greater world, right? I wanted something that was stimulating my mind outside of just my children. I wanted a hobby. I wanted lots of things. But then I had to realize that my career also

couldn't be my top priority because focusing on that and going full out and working really hard on it it wasn't really fulfilling me either I was definitely craving a simpler life I was always talking about retiring and anytime I saw somebody who was retired like they could be 70 years old and they're retiring and I'm like jealous at 43 I'm like feeling so much jealousy that they get to retire that's when I realized I am working too much I need to find ways to do less in my life because obviously if I'm feeling jealous of people who are retired they're like geriatric and I'm still jealous of their life I'm craving to do less right that's something I'm craving so I really I really am using jealousy to sort of teach me where my true priorities are laying

if this makes sense and I'm realizing I really need balance I need balance between spending time with my kids. I want to spend more time with the kids. Anytime I'm, you know, surfing on Instagram and I see people and they're posting like they're at the beach with their kids and they're doing a, they're going to the art museum or they're just hanging out in the backyard in the pool. I was feeling that little like, oh, I should do more with my kids. So we've, we've started making every Saturday family fun day where we're doing something together as a family. And we have Friday movie night and we play games on Tuesday night. And that feels so good. And that feels like enough. And that feels like enough. and I've definitely toned down the work and the amount of work I'm doing in my business and that feels good.

I was watching a little bit too much Netflix, doing a little bit too less, and that wasn't feeling so good. So I'm going through this thing with finding my priorities and my balance in adding new things in. And I'm realizing now when I'm feeling that little pain of jealousy that I want more hobbies. I want to bake and I want to garden and I want to get back into doing crafts or painting. I want to have hobbies and I want to do these things. But again, I don't want to go back to where I'm constantly feeling like I'm working. Because everybody has a different threshold. So I guess my whole point of this little short, sweet podcast is I want you to take some time to kind of flesh out your priorities.

And go ahead and use jealousy as a cue. Whenever you feel envious of somebody else's life, where you're looking at social media and you feel like, Oh my God, that person's so fashionable and they're always wearing like the best outfits. You probably are craving an updated wardrobe. And it doesn't mean you have to go all like full what they're doing. But there's a part of that that you feel like you're missing out on in your own life. And we can add it in little baby ways. Joe and I went for a boat ride tonight and we were going down our river and I looked over

at this amazing wild garden in someone's backyard. they had shasta daisies and they had cone flowers and they had lilies and it was all colorful and blooming and gorgeous and i felt that pain i felt that oh i wish that that was my backyard i wish i had that i don't want that big of a garden i there's no part of me that wants to be gardening and pulling weeds all day i think what i'm really craving are a few more colorful beautiful flowers because my first thought when i looked at that garden was oh my gosh I would love that because I would love to go in the backyard and cut myself some more flowers for a bouquet from my table. So you know what I'm going to do tomorrow? I'm going to go to the hardware store and pick up some Shasta daisies and a couple more perennial flowers and just

plant them in my existing garden that I already have. I have a garden. I water it. I could just add a couple more flowers and have that same feeling without adding more work to my plate. Just like I was craving having more fresh vegetables in my garden, I just added a couple of more to the garden I already had. I didn't have to make new planter boxes. I didn't have to go crazy. I didn't have to like buy the lot beside me and plow it and become a farmer and have a homestead. We can still get that part of our life, we can still emulate someone else's life in a small way without having to completely change the life we currently have. And I think that's the secret to finding balance. So I'm curious what your priorities are. And if you do ever feel jealous of other people or

envious of other people's lives, and what really is it that you're feeling envious of? And a lot of people, I've talked to friends just this weekend and my one friend said, I'm so jealous of people who have money. And I said, why? What, like, what, what is the first thought that you have when you see people? She's like, oh, they get to travel and I don't. What she's craving is to be able to travel, to go on a vacation with her family. And so every time she looks at other people and they're, like, you know, in Europe posting pictures or videos or they've gone to Disney with their kids, she feels so much jealousy. And it's not really about her completely unhappy with her financial situation, it's that she's really craving a freaking vacation. And she might not have

money to go far away, but she can, they have a trailer, they can go camping, they can go glamping, they can do a road trip, they can go somewhere in this, you know, where we live, they can do a little staycation and still get that same feeling that they're craving. So let jealousy guide you towards new priorities. Brain them on a list. Just circle the ones you want. If you look at people with a clean house and you're like, oh my gosh, I'm so craving that. I'm so jealous of that. What it probably is is you're sick of feeling like you're on this cycle of cleaning and tidying all the time, right? You're just like, I clean the house and it's messy again or I wish I could have people over and not feel embarrassed. And when you feel those feelings, you're craving a home with less.

clutter. You're going to fill some trash bags. It doesn't have to be like overnight wave of magic wand and your house is spotless. You can just declutter one space. Why not take time to make your bedroom clutter free? Get rid of all the dirty clothes. Take them down to the laundry room, hang up your clean clothes, get things off your dresser. Have a space that makes you feel calm and that makes you feel like you're in control. One room. It's about finding balance. It's about adding little baby steps into our life to work towards what we're really craving and creating these new priorities and finding balance. So yeah, I'm going to watch more Farmhouse on Boone. I totally recommend her. Her name is Lisa. Her life is amazing. Even if you

don't want to be a homesteader, even if you don't want to make everything from scratch, if you look at her life and you feel a little pain of jealousy, if you feel like, oh, I wish I was more like that, let her motivate you to add a little bit of that life into your current life now. I feel really good about myself. I have homemade bread right now baking in the oven and I have those muffins and just I had a great weekend and I'm so grateful to her as an influencer for inspiring me to add a little more of that into my life. Thank you guys so much for listening. I hope you enjoyed and I'll see you guys next time.