Clutterbug - Real-Life Hacks and Tips to Declutter, Organize and Clean your Home Fast - How Happy Are you Really? The Wheel of Life Can Help You Find Out | Clutterbug Podcast # 37

Episode Date: January 26, 2018

How happy are you really? Are you focusing your time and energy on the areas of your life that really need it most?  I found the wheel of life SO fascinating and such an eye opening experience! 2018 is my year from personal growth and development and this Whele of Life graph was on point! Print yourself a copy and give it a try today.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, welcome back to the clutterbug podcast. Today we're going to talk a little bit about personal and self-development. I know what you guys are thinking. If you've listened to my podcast regularly, you're probably like, where's the other bugs? We're talking about different clutter bugs, and we're right in the middle of a clutter bug series, discovering your personal organizing style. and I apologize. I'm coming with that, but the reason I've sort of been not podcasting as much lately, not making videos as much lately is because I'm very distracted in my life right now.

And I'm distracted with personal development. I'm distracted with this idea, I guess, of living a happier and fuller life. And that was sort of my mantra, I guess, for 2018. Instead of coming up with a New Year's resolution, which I never stick to, I just wanted to work on being the best me that I possibly could be. And in my mind, what that looked like originally was growing my business and working on, you know, growing my brand and earning more money and just really working on this little clutterbug business that I have.

And I was going full gung-ho with that. And I made all these plans and I contacted PR companies to hire them and I was looking at different business coaches to hire a business coach and a life coach. And I was really going to go full in on my career. But then my sister actually, who we talked about coaching, emailed me something called the Life Wheel of Life. And I want you to Google this, The Wheel of Life. It's like a circles thing. It's a graph you fill in. And I just, I found it on Google Images. I looked like Wheel of Life, Google Images. I printed one off and I printed it off my husband. and one for myself, and I decided to fill it in.

So it is a circle graph, and it's divided into eight sections. And these sections sort of represent the different aspects of your life, right? And then they're divided. Each section is divided, you know, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 4, 3, 2, 1, 1 being in the center, going out to 10 being the outer circle. And in each of these, you're supposed to, I guess, put a dot or color in to 1, 2,000, to what level your happiness is in this certain area of your life. So I'm quickly going to talk about those areas really quickly.

And definitely I want you to take a second when you're done listening to this podcast and I want you to Google Wheel of Life and give this a try for yourself. I found this extremely eye-opening. So the different categories are career, friends and family, significant other slash romance fun and recreation health money personal growth and physical environment and when I was you know first looking at this my focus for this year of course is career it's like the big and money I want to earn more money right and that's what I thought I really needed to do in order to get happier this year I guess or what personal development for me really look like but when I

started filling out this graph, I realized that I'm really happy with my career. I mean, my career is like an eight out of ten on the happiness level. And my money right now situation is a nine out of ten. I'm really content where we are financially. And if we never made any more money, I would be okay with that. And I found this really eye-opening and just like a punch to the gut because this, I guess, is where I wanted to focus all my time for this year. I wanted to put my energy and my focus into growing the only two squares on my entire circle, the only two pie pieces on my entire circle that were already really, really high. And I think we all fall into this. We all fall into where we're nurturing and working on the areas of our life that come easy, make us happy. And,

are already doing pretty well because that feels good. It feels good to have success and we know we're going to have success in those areas because we've already had it. So we continue to want to grow and grow. So looking at the other areas of my circle of my wheel of life, my friends and family was at a six. I mean, I'm happy with my immediate family, but the truth is I don't have a lot of external friends at all. I have a few close friends and I do not make enough time to spend with them.

significant other romance was very low. It's a three and it's not that I don't love my husband. He's amazing and he's such an incredible guy, but we're not connecting like we used to because we're both so busy with our own stuff. We're, you know, at night after the kids go to bed, we're going in our separate areas of the house and working on our businesses or working on the things that make us happy and not making time for each other. The fun and recreation, I have a one. because I do nothing just for the fun of it. I don't have like some recreation thing that I do or something that I do that brings me happiness outside of working, outside of my job or cleaning the house. Like I, that's literally what I do. And I'm like, oh, it's a Saturday night. I've got

nothing to do. Maybe I'll mop the floors. Like, what the heck is wrong with me? And my health. My health is a one because I focus not at all in my health and fitness. And, Even though it's a big issue, I ignore it. And I ignore it because it's hard and I don't even want to think about it. And then personal growth was really, really low as well because I'm not doing anything really to work on any aspect of my life outside of my business, outside of my career. So careers and money were a separate pie. So I couldn't even have my personal growth go into that category. and physical environment, even though I'm always daydreaming of a bigger house and I want to decorate and I want to renovate and that takes up a lot of my focus and my time. The truth is it's a seven. I'm

already pretty content with that. So again, why am I focusing on the areas where I'm already having happiness and ignoring the areas where I'm not feeling fulfilled at all? And the reason is those areas I'm not feeling fulfilled at all, feel really icky. They feel like, I don't want to do them at all. They're going to be challenging. I might not succeed. Yeah, I'm just not feeling good about those areas at all, which is exactly why I need to make them a focus in my life. So let's start with personal growth, which also I have combined with fun and recreation. The first thing I did when I came to this realization is I went on Facebook and I looked up every single woman's group in my area and there's a lot of them and I joined them all. I joined all the women's group, women in business. There's a tribe.

There's a women of Windsor group. There's a whole bunch of women's groups here in my community where they meet once a month. And I went. I went to the first one and I had a great time. And listen, First of all, I hate leaving the house. I hate meeting new people. I feel just very uncomfortable. So I really put myself out there. I went by myself. I knew no one going and I showed up to like an event where you have to mingle and make small talk with complete strangers.

And I had an amazing time. And I learned a lot about myself in the personal growth category. I met a counselor there. She's a social worker and she gave a. talk and I was really inspired that I hired her on the spot and she is coming to my house once a month and we are going to work on some stuff I don't know I just found her I don't even know if I have stuff to work on but but I feel really good about that and the next this weekend I have a seminar coming up on designing a vision board and next week I have another women's group meeting

that I'm going to and I joined a book club and so I'm being really really proactive to fill up the fun and recreation and fill up the personal growth. Joe and I also really are committed to spending more time with each other, bringing back the date night, even if it's just watching a movie once a week together and playing board games and playing chess, even though it always beats me and it enrages me because I love chess and he hates it, yet he still beats me every time. We're making that a priority. And I honestly, I It feels so horrible to say, but I'd rather work on my business. I'd rather go downstairs and, you know, work on my website or work on my e-book or try to do something like that than sitting and spending time with my husband.

And it isn't that I don't love him. I don't know what it is. I, but I need to make it a priority. I need to make that a priority in my life because then my whole life circle will be fuller. and that's really what it's all about. And I'm still looking at this health pie that's very low. It's a one. Listen, we'll get there.

We'll get there. Maybe I'll start, you know, walking on the treadmill while listening to a podcast in the morning. I don't really know what it's going to look like yet. But I really am going to focus less on the pie areas that are already doing really well, even though I'm happy, even though I'm excited to do better in those areas. I'm going to focus on the things that really needs some work. So I guess that's what I've been doing, personal growth and all that jazz. So I wanted to talk to you guys about it because you might be in the same boat as me.

And honestly, I was oblivious to this. I mean, I knew, I guess subconsciously, I'm like, oh, well, I'm happy in this area, but kind of not happy in that area. But I really thought in order for me to feel better about myself, to be happier, that the answer was growing my business. and that was the exact opposite. And unfortunately, there's only so much time in the day to devote to these different pies in your pie chart.

And every time you're choosing to devote your energy and focus in one area, it's taking away from the others. So focusing solely on my career has really hindered and is really effective. The other areas in a negative way. So I'm going to try to find balance. That's the whole point. I'm going to try to find balance in my circle and not have some things nine and ten and other things one, but maybe have some areas all five, six, sevens, right?

Instead of really trying to grow just one area by neglecting others. So that's what I want to talk about today. Again, it's called The Wheel of Life. I want you to Google it and fill it in and fill it in with your loved one. Maybe have your husband fill it out or your significant other or your kids. it's really yeah it was my husband and I did it together and then we showed each other and it was uncomfortable we both had significant other rated pretty low which was like oh god you're feeling the same way I did and we don't talk about it I mean we don't fight we get a long grace so for us both to be feeling a little

I guess unhappy in that area was a great way to start communication about it and to try to work on it and make it better for sure and it is better and we have been spending time together and that's all we needed was to make time for each other but I also saw some areas that he I thought he was really happy in that he wasn't other areas of life and I didn't even know if he knew he was really unhappy in those areas so it opened up a lot of communication and yeah it was a really great experience so I wanted to share that with you I want you to give it a try filling this out and see where it takes you and really think you know am I focusing my and effort and energy into the right areas. Is it bringing me the same level of happiness that it would

as if I tried to improve my score in one of the lower pie areas? So that's it, a really short podcast today, just quickly talking about that personal development. I'll keep you guys posted as I put myself out there and attend these women's meetings that I'm just like, oh, I thought it'd be so horrible and it ended up being really amazing and there was women from all walks of life there was teachers and stay-at-home moms and doctors and lawyers and you know one woman worked at tim hortons and she was amazing and had like the best story and it was really a huge array of a lot of different personalities and careers and people in all different places in their life and we all just got together and mingled and chatted about ourselves and listened to an amazing guest speaking

speaker and I loved every second of it and there's retreats coming up that I'm going to go to and I'm going to really put myself out there and meet new people and just yeah try to expand my circle and focus on some personal development this year so I'm going to keep you guys and fun focus on some fun I need to I need to have some fun cleaning the toilets is not fun cast watching Netflix I I mean, that's terrible. When I think about the things I do for fun, it's like, yeah, I watched a Netflix movie in my bed. I mean, that's great. But it's not having any long-term happiness effect, right?

It's not, it's like instant gratification, like eating a cookie. And it wears off and it's gone. You have nothing lingering. Whereas getting out and meeting people or spending time with your loved ones, it has a real impact, long-lasting feel-goods kind of stuff. so that's more bang for your buck so anyways i'm rambling thank you guys so much for listening definitely 100% promise me you are going to google the wheel of life and you are going to fill it out today i promise you you will not be disappointed thanks so much and i'll see you next time