Clutterbug - Real-Life Hacks and Tips to Declutter, Organize and Clean your Home Fast - How Balanced is Your Life? | Clutterbug Podcast # 166

Episode Date: March 27, 2023

Do you feel like your life is balanced? Are you looking for ways to simplify, lower stress or feel more productive?  In today's podcast, let's discuss how to find true balance in your life.  I'll break down the ten areas that contribute to overall contentment, known as the Wheel of Life. The Wheel of Life will help you understand and identify areas in your life that are currently unbalanced, and help you feel fulfilled and well-rounded. A balanced life can help you feel motivated, happy and eager to tackle each day!  You can get my free Balanced Life e-book here: https://clutterbug.me/products/create-more-balance-ebook     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/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Do you feel like your life is balanced? That's what we're talking about today. And what that even means? Because I hear this all the time, people say, like, you have to have a balanced life. But what exactly does that mean? That's what we're going to dive into right now. Hey, Clutterbugs. Welcome back to the Clutterbug podcast. Today we're going to talk about finding balance in your life. And I wanted to talk about this because the truth is I feel very unbalanced. I'm always. unbalanced. I know they say when you're a little boncadong, like mentally unstable balanced. It could be a bit of that too, but I know there's areas of my life where I'm spending too much time and attention and then there's other areas where I'm not spending enough at all. And that's what balance is really about. When I, you see her people talk about this all the time as like, you have to find balance in your life. I assumed that they were talking about like a work home life balance. And, and that

kind of what I thought. Like you, I know you shouldn't work too much, right? And neglect your family. But I also know that you can't just not have work in your life too, because that can make you go a little crazy. My mother's retired. I've seen this firsthand. And with so many people I know who've retired or even my husband who has been semi-retired since he was 35, there's definitely like when you don't have structure to your day and when you don't have something that you're working, towards a bigger thing outside yourself, it's very easy to feel unfulfilled. So even independently wealthy people who don't need to work need some sort of work in their life. But when I'm talking about real balance, what I've discovered through different therapists, because let's be honest,

I've needed therapy in my life. Multiple therapists that I had didn't exercise with me called The Wheel of Life. And the Wheel of Life is basically, I'm going to hold this up if you're watching the video, but if you're listening, it's a circle that looks like a pizza pie. And every slice is a different area of your life that we need to work on. And the goal is not to have everything like super a tense. So if it's a, if you're not really feeling very fulfilled, you kind of keep it in the, in the middle as like a one or whatever, like like small close to this. center and when you feel very fulfilled, you color all the way to the outside of the pizza pie in each of the little square pieces. But the goal isn't to have everything at 10. The goal is to have

your pizza slices all kind of filled in around the same size to achieve bounds. And I don't know anyone who has a completely balanced life, but I do find this exercise really was eye-opening for me because I really did have the impression that a balanced life meant that you have a good home life work balance and that was it. And yet, even though I did have a great home life in my family and and I had a great career that I loved, I still felt like not satisfied if that makes sense. Like maybe something was missing. I didn't feel as fulfilled in life as I thought that I should. and I'm not saying that I feel completely fulfilled now, but now I know why. And I know what's really lacking.

There's definitely an expectation that to be like a happy, you know, successful adult, we tick all of these boxes that society tells us we have to tick. We have to be like fit and healthy and we have to have lots of friends and a social life and a great career and lots of money and an incredible spouse and a clean and tidy house. And those are all kind of pieces on this pizza pie that add up to this balance. There's other things too. We're going to talk about each sliver of that pizza pie. And I'm going to talk about the areas where I am doing awesome and the areas where I suck really hard. But yet the truth is striving for all of these areas to get like a 10 out of 10

in all of these areas is impossible. We can maybe do it all, but we certainly can't do it all well. We can't do all of these areas at a 10, and I don't even think we could do all of these areas at an 8, if I'm being completely honest, because it's exhausting. Trying to be a present mom and a parent and always there for our kids and spending time with them and working a full-time job and trying to excel in our careers and trying to maintain friendships,

and maintaining time with family. I have aging parents trying to see all of them. And, you know, maintaining being good with our money and make sure we're saving and investing and not over spending and eating really healthy and exercising on a regular basis. This is all work. Every single one of these things require hours of our time. They require our attention. And it's like a lot. So of course we're dropping some balls.

And so when we talk about finding balance, what I think this really means is kind of evening and like going even across the boards if that makes sense. So I know for myself that I dedicate a lot of time to the things that I really enjoy, which is work. I do. I love my job. I spend a lot of time on that. But then there's other areas where I'm like, I kind of suck at that anyways.

so I'm not really spending a lot of time and effort in that area. And overall, that could be contributing to why I feel very unfulfilled. So why I wanted to talk about this with you today is because, of course, I made a printable, you guys, because I'm a giant nerd. So you can head over to my website under the printable section and find this quick little ebook called How Balanced is Your Life. You can go to clutterbug.com and then the printables page. So up at the top, click Printables and then scroll down to you see how balanced is your life ebook.

Go ahead. It's completely free. You can download that. And inside that you're going to find the wheel of life. So grab a pen, a highlighter, a crayon, it doesn't matter. And you can color your wheel in each of the little pie slices and really see which areas of your life you feel very fulfilled and which areas you really are not feeling as satisfied and fulfilled. And you'll see if your pizza pie is anything like mine, how drastically unbalanced your life is. And this is part of that self-awareness that we talk about all the time. Just how eye-opening this was for me the first time. I was like, oh my gosh, I am not balanced at all. And this is probably, it is definitely why I need to work on some areas and actually like kind of stop working so hard

in some other areas so that I do have that extra time to throw to the spaces that are lacking. So I need to dedicate less attention to the things where I'm already at a nine or a ten and obviously dedicate a lot more attention to the spots where I'm like a one or a three. that's not good in the overall life balancedness. Now is this important? I don't freaking know. Experts say this is important to feel balanced. At the end of the day, I think if nothing else, it's a cool, it's a cool tool, right? It's something just like to learn a little bit more about yourself. So let's dive in. I want to talk about mine. I want to walk through my circle with you. And we'll talk about all the different slices of that pie.

And as we talk about this, I want to think, I want you to think of your own life and what number you would give to this area. So a one would be you're feeling like not really satisfied. You're feeling very unfulfilled in this area or it's something that you definitely want to work on because, you know, it's bad. You're doing bad. That's a one. And a 10 is like, I'm nailing it. I'm killing it. like I'm doing awesome at this, that would be a 10. And of course, you know, two, three, four.

That's all in the middle. It's the scale. You're getting it. I don't have to explain the scale to you. But okay, okay, so you ready? We're going to jump right in. The first one at the very top is money and finances. And I actually gave this pretty high because for years and still today, this was a huge priority in my life because I sucked so hard at it. I claimed bankruptcy in my early 20s. I am very impulsive. I shopped too much. I've always been bad with money. I always used credit cards. I never paid them off. And I got into a lot of financial trouble, as you can imagine. And I also had to work really hard just to keep my head above water. I was working two or three jobs basically my whole life and still never getting ahead because of my spending problems. So I started reading all of these incredible financial books and just immersed

myself in learning how to pay myself first, to make saving a priority and having to do it first. Because if I waited until, you know, I paid all the bills and bought the cool stuff, there'd be nothing left. So I had no choice but to pay myself first. And I put that in a savings account that I couldn't touch unless I physically went to the bank and we all know I'm too lazy for that. So I really have got to a point where I'm very happy with my money and finances. I mean, everybody could use more money. I'm not rolling in the dough over here, but I'm satisfied. I feel like I genuinely do have enough and I could definitely have more, but it isn't a priority. me, I feel content.

So I gave myself a really high number in this, only because I do feel like, yeah, I got this. I got, I got this. The next sliver of pie, the next piece on your wheel is career and job. And again, I gave myself a high number on this because I freaking love my job. And I feel very satisfied. But the truth is, when I look back in my life, when I ran at daycare, I was super satisfied. When I ran the lung association, I was super satisfied. I've been so blessed to always, well, for at least the last 20 years, really loved my job.

There's very few jobs I've had in my life that I didn't genuinely love, whether I was being a personal trainer. I loved that. I worked at a pet store. I loved that freaking job. I worked at multiple charities. I've always been a person who I just like working. Is that weird? It's weird.

Now that I'm saying it out loud, that's weird. But I like having a purpose. I like having, I like having a purpose to my day. And something that makes me feel like, yeah, I accomplish something today. And I always really try to find that in any job that I have.

So I'm very happy in that sliver too. So think about your life. And again, we talked about money and finances. What would you rate yourself? And then your career and job, what would you rate yourself? It doesn't mean is this your dream job. It means are you feeling like pretty satisfied, pretty content? We all want more in life.

And that is normal. And this isn't about perfection. This is about that feeling that you have where you're like, I don't think every day, man, I wish I had a different career. or man, I'm not wishing I had more money. I'm content. And for me, that that means a high number. The next piece on the pie is health and fitness. Health and fitness for me, I mean, I almost put a one because I really like, I'm like, I'm so out of shape and I'm, this is something I want to work on. But the truth is I am pretty healthy. I don't have any like illnesses or anything. So I gave myself a four and a half.

The four and a half is all the point that I'm like not dying basically. I don't have some terminal illness or some like disease or or illness that I'm struggling with. But I am certainly I have zero fitness and I eat like garbage. And this is something that I think about every single day of my life every there's not a there's not a day actually there's not an hour in my life where I don't think I should work out I got to eat better I should be eating healthy what am I going to have for dinner that's healthy what can I have and I'm yet I'm never following through I'm always like eh I'll work out tomorrow I'll put my gym membership on hold again um I'll you know it's okay I'll have a couple cookies just it's not a big deal I'll do better later the next snack will be salad

It never is. So this is an area where I am very unbalanced. I, obviously, it bothers me. And denying, like saying that this doesn't bother me is a lie. And you, I want you to think of your own health and fitness and on a scale of one to 10 where you are. And this doesn't mean that you are, you know, a supermodel completely like, yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm super happy with the way I look.

It's, are you content? Are you content? Is this something you think about often that it's an area of your life where you want to improve or are you pretty happy with where you are? And it doesn't matter if you are overweight. If you are happy, it doesn't matter if you are underweight. It doesn't matter if you are content. If this isn't something that you're thinking about often that you want to improve,

and that's awesome. And go ahead and fill it in whatever number that'll be or even thinking about it in your mind. The next part of the sliver is fun and recreation. And I put a five. And the truth is it's probably more like a three. Because I have a lot of hobbies. I have a lot of supplies for hobbies.

but I don't actually have fun very often. Isn't that so sad? Now, I think my job is fun. And so a lot of times when I'm doing things for work, I'm like, oh, this is fun. But I don't make a lot of time for play in my life. When I am tired at the end of the day, I just want to put on Netflix. And I wouldn't call that fun in recreation. On the weekends, my weekends, my My idea of like what I want to do is curling up with a book in bed and nobody talk to me. I'm exhausted, probably, because my career on here is a nine. I spend a lot of time on my job and doing things like that. And I'm not spending a lot of time for play.

This is an area that I need to work on. And I don't even know if I want to, but I know I should. And I should probably combine fun and recreation with health and fitness. like I should probably join a softball team or or join a walking group with a bunch of other people, right? Which would add another piece of my pie too. So there are ways that we can kind of double up on these things. But you'll definitely, I'm seeing a trend here on mine. Okay.

I'm anti-social and I don't like to leave my bed except for work. So think about your own life and your fun and recreation. I do go out and do some things every now and then, but it's definitely not. not a priority in my life. And it's definitely something that bothers me. It does. I know that I need to have more fun in my life and have more fun with the kids and do more recreational activities. So it's something I want to work on. The next piece of your pie is home environment. And if you've been listening to my podcast or if you've been watching my videos, you know that I would love to move. You know, I think my house is, we're bursting at the seams here. I would love a

separate office because I work from home. I would love to be able to just have more privacy when I'm doing a podcast. I have to tell everybody in the house to be quiet, no stomping. And I just wish, especially in the summer when my kids are home, I didn't, I wasn't my workspace, wasn't also my home space, if this makes sense. So despite that, I put an eight. out of 10 for my home because I am very content despite the fact that I would love a bigger house, despite the fact that I don't love a lot of this house and would love to renovate it and make it my taste. I am really content. It's clean. It's organized. It doesn't feel like work and effort to keep it that way. There's definitely things I want to change, but this isn't something that I

think about often like it doesn't bother me. I love my home. I'm happy in my home. Even though it isn't perfect, even though I want to change a million things, I gave this an eight. What about your home? Your home environment. How do you feel about your home environment on a scale of one to ten? So the next on my pizza pie here is community. And I gave this almost the lowest out of everything and that's a two. And when I first looked at this, I was like, oh, my online community is the best and I love it and I feel like it's a 10 out of 10. But my physical community, I think, is what this is really meaning. My physical community, I am not involved in my community at all.

I want to be. I do. I want to volunteer more. I recently joined St. John's ambulance because I know that this is someplace that I'm lacking. I am not involved in the community. I don't go out to a lot of women's events anymore like I used to. I don't, I don't, if there's like a gala happening or an art show, I don't go to those things. To tell you the truth, I don't even know like the leaders in this community. I wouldn't even be able to, I couldn't even tell you the mayor of my town. is. I have no idea what's going on in my community, and that's a shame. I remember being a kid and my parents, my grandparents, everybody was so much more involved in the community back then. We did fundraisers for families in need, and everybody volunteered in some capacity. And I worked at

United Way in my early 20s. And there was a ton of people who came out to festivals and events to volunteer and to attend the event to give to charity. And that's something that I really notice is kind of falling away. Younger generations are just not getting as involved in the community as older generations did. And charities are suffering. But the community is suffering. We are suffering as individuals in that community because we don't have that sense of

connection that I think is so, so important. And I don't have that sense of connection with people in my community. So this is definitely an area that I need to work on. But there's only so many hours in the day, which is why I find this whole finding your balance so fascinating because it isn't, is it possible to have this all completely balanced? I don't think it is but can it ebb and flow can we work on one area to kind of build it up and maybe let some other areas drop while we do that and then focus other attention other places to get a circle that ebbs and flows but feels more balanced like i think that's the whole point okay the next piece on the pie is friends and family and i'm actually quite happy when i really think about this

I'm quite happy. I don't have a lot of friends, but the friends that I have are awesome and I love them. And I don't love hanging out with other people. There I said it. I'm not really a people person. I'm very introverted. And so do I really want more friends in my life? Probably not. I love the ones I have. I don't ever want to bail on them. Like that's how you know. I never. I never. when we have a day that we've scheduled to hang out, we just did trivia two nights ago together with friends. I didn't want to call in sick. You know what I mean? I've had a lot of friends in my life where we'll set up a date to go out for coffee or get together. And I'm like, oh, I don't. I would rather, I would rather do anything else. I would rather clean my toilets than go for coffee with

this person who's supposed to be my friend. And in my old age, I'm in. my mid-40s now. I've really realized that when I feel that way about hanging out with someone, I probably don't need to. That's probably not a fulfilling relationship. And it's okay to let those go. So I really have the time to devote to those fulfilling relationships. And relationships are work. They do take work. And I'm not saying that they don't. They do. You have to actually schedule and you have to keep up with people and you have to reach out to people. But the ones that that don't make you feel happy, those friendships that you're kind of doing out of obligation, it's also okay to have boundaries and let those go. And when it comes to my family, well, they're family. I love them.

Sometimes I don't want to hang out with them. I'm not being honest. I do that sometimes a little bit obligation, but she gave birth to me. So here we are. You got to you got to, you got to That's my mother. I got to see my mother. You know what I'm saying? Even when I don't really want to. I still got to see my mother. But overall, I gave this pretty high. But I want you to think of yourself, are you craving more friendships? Are you happy with your family dynamic? Are there toxic people that you should cut out so that your numbers higher? Or do you have to make an effort to reach out and create more friendships so that you feel more fulfilled in this area? Because I think this is a very important. area the next area it's partner and love and this is tough for me because i've been married to joe for a very long time and i love him we've been together 20 years we have a very happy marriage but i want to punch him in the throat a lot a lot you guys i want to punch him in the throat a lot and so i only gave this a seven out of ten because i know i have to work on this i have to work on this i have to have to work on sort of rekindling that passion that kind of wanes as you've been together for this

long. I also need to work on being more patient with him, not so naggy. Yeah, because I can't change him. I can only change my own thoughts and how I react to him and treat him. And lately, there's been more throat punching, wanting this than non-throat throat punching. So I gave it as I gave it a seven. I'm still very happy. I'm still very much in love. But it could be better. It could be better.

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And the last one, I don't know, I'm just going to be honest with you. We'll get to the last one in a second. The second last one is personal growth and learning. And I, I, I'm just, I'm stuttering here because I read a lot of self-help books. I do, but I haven't been doing it a lot lately. And I think that there is definitely, I feel better about myself when I am consistently acquiring new knowledge, when I'm learning new things, when I feel like I'm growing as a person. And there was a really long time in my life, like a few years ago, where I was doing this. I was learning how to code a website.

I had never done that before. There was times where I was learning how to, to use a camera and learning how to edit videos, learning how to grow a business. Every day, I was learning something new. And it's been a while since I've acquired a new skill, since I've actually, I've kind of gotten kind of content, I guess, where my business and how it's going. So I don't have new skills to learn in that area. But that doesn't mean that I can't learn new skills outside of my business in other areas of late maybe i should take a cooking class maybe i should look at some health and fitness books probably i need to probably learn some things in that area but the point is there's so much joy and happiness that comes when we take time to work on learning and personal

growth when we look take time to develop a new skill joe learned to learn to play guitar during And while he was like learning new songs, I could see it in him. He was, he was feeling fired up. He was feeling really passionate about these new skills that he was learning. And I am the same way when I'm learning something new when I'm, even if it is just a self-help book that I'm reading about, I don't know, something, you feel really good. You feel that spark of of real passion in your life. And that's something that comes from continuous learning and continuous growing. And so this is an area that even though I used to do it all the time, I would say it used to be an eight, nine. It's not a priority right now. And so it's a six

and I miss it. And I probably need to build that up. I probably should work on health and fitness. Definitely this last one. I don't even know if I need to work on the last one. Let's talk about the last one. be honest. The last one is spirituality. And I don't even know what that means. I put a one. I should have put a zero. A lot of people say, I know obviously what religion is. And I'm not a religious person. I grew up, my parents are divorced. Both of them are atheists. You know, I would ask my parents that age old question, what happens when we die, mom and dad? And the answer is like, worm food, you're worm food. That was just always something that was told to me.

And it never really bothered me because I was just a way that you get one life, live it well. When you're gone, you're gone. And people will miss you. But you're not in a scary place or a bad place. you're just gone. And I've always really been okay with that, to be completely honest. And I look at people who have religion in their life. And I do think that's wonderful and beautiful.

And I'm super happy for them. But I don't think that that's for me. And I understand when people say, I'm not religious, but I'm spiritual. That's something that people say a lot. but I have no idea what that means. I don't know what it means to be spiritual. I definitely am not. I don't think, since I don't know what it is, I don't think I'm spiritual. I don't know if I'm missing because I don't know what to miss. I put this as a one, but I wouldn't even know where to begin to be a more spiritual person. And I don't even know if I need this in my own personal pie. Now, my in-laws are very religious people, and this is something that brings them an immense amount of joy and contentment.

And on their pie, they would have a very high number, and that's a beautiful thing. And I'm very, very happy for them. But I don't know if everyone needs that to be high on theirs. Now, I say that you've probably heard me talk about karma before. It isn't that I think that there's some magical universe force. I do believe that if you are a good person, you're happier with yourself because when you, when I, I used to do bad things when I was a teen. I was a terrible, terrible teen, even in my early 20s. I was not the best person. And bad things happened to me. But I felt guilty a lot and I felt a lot of low self-worth. I wasn't proud of myself. That's for sure. And I think you do. whether consciously or unconsciously, create your own life and your own destiny.

And so when I try really hard to be good and kind and do things for other people, I feel better about myself and better things happen in my life. So when I talk about karma, that's what I mean. Positive thinking, positive action gives you positive results. And negative thoughts and negative action. and negative action tend to lead to negative results. So I wouldn't call that ideology spiritual because I don't think it's some magical force that I cannot see.

I think it's science. But that being said, I'm not against spirituality. And I'm definitely open to the idea. So I gave this a one. I guess I'm just talking because I'm not spiritual. So I gave it a one. But I want you to think of your own life. And the whole pie, you guys, the whole pie, if you're watching this video, I'm going to hold mine up.

It's very unbalanced. There are areas where I'm feeling a lot of contentment, a lot of fulfillment. And there's others where it's like, not at all. There's like no pie slice there. And that's pretty bad. But it really does give us a roadmap. It gives us a visualization of our life. And when people say you want to be balanced, when people say you want a fulfilled life, a full,

round, well-rounded life, this is that circle that they're talking about. It's all these slices of pie that add together to this rounded life. Where is your piece lacking? or which pieces of pie are you lacking in and which ones are really high that maybe you can steal some of the time that you dedicate to those to give to the pieces that are not very fulfilled. Because at the end of the day, the goal is not to have everything a 10 out of 10. The goal is to have all of our slices more evenly matched so we feel fulfilled as a whole. as a life, as a whole big life, we feel like we're living it well.

I don't know if that's possible. I'm actually curious. If you want to put in the comments, can you comment on a podcast? I am curious if you feel like which areas of your life you feel like you need to work on or if you think it is possible to have a truly balanced life. Again, not just talking about work, career, and home, but in overall. all, your community, your health, your, how spiritual you are, is it possible to feel well-rounded in all these different areas? So that's what we're talking about today. Thank you guys so much

for listening. I understand that that was different than what we normally talk about, but this was an eye-opening experience for me when I worked with therapists in the past and we did this exercise. and so I wanted to bring the wheel to life to you. And if you've done this before, I would encourage you to give it a try again. You can download your own paper copy of the Wheel of Life for free from my website. And you can color it in, maybe have your family colored into, your children even, and really teach them the importance of having that self-awareness to look at your life in a visual way and see where you're killing it and where you could dedicate a little bit more attention.

Thanks so much for listening. I really love spending time with you guys and I'll see you next time.