Clutterbug - Real-Life Hacks and Tips to Declutter, Organize and Clean your Home Fast - How to be 10% better in 2022 | Clutterbug Podcast # 118

Episode Date: January 4, 2022

Want to improve your life? Are you looking to make a big change in 2022, but are not sure how? In this podcast, I break down EXACTLY how you can make HUGE leaps in your life with tiny atomic habits.  Learn more about the Take Your House Back course at: http://takeyourhouseback.com         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

Today we're talking about motivation, accountability, and how you can be 10% better in 2022. Hey, clutterbugs, welcome back and happy new year. Today we're talking about changing our lives in 2022. And listen, I am not a New Year's resolution person only because I make myself these really big goals and then I go hard for maybe a week if I'm lucky, sometimes too, if it's a miracle year. And then I fall off the wagon because I've given myself these really hard changes that I want to make in my life, these big changes. And it's a concrete goal and it's sort of all or nothing. Like I'm going to go on a keto diet and no longer eat carbs or I'm going to run three times a week. Or I'm going to only eat healthy food and I'm going to give up junk food.

Or I'm going to declutter and organize my entire house. They're ridiculously big, insane things that I usually do when it comes to New Year's resolutions. And then what this does when you give yourself a really big concrete goal like this is it sets you up for failure. When you have this all or nothing approach and you fail, which we all will, it gives ourselves permission to just quit. Instead, my goal for this year is to be 10% better. I just want to be, and not even, I just want to be better. I don't want to work out three days a week. I just want to be more active.

I want to be healthier. I want to eat less sugar and less carbs. I want to be nicer. And I put this on my Facebook page on New Year's Day. And somebody said, I also said I want to be kinder, 10% kinder. And somebody said, how do you measure that? How are you 10% kinder? is it that you're only kind to one out of every 10 people? And I find this so hilarious. Like,

obviously I'm not doing a really good job articulating this. I just don't want to give myself concrete goals because I know I'm going to fail. I just want to give myself overall goals and really make an effort to achieve them. Maybe I'll be 25% better or 100% better. But the point is to not give myself an out. Because it's, If I mess up, that's okay because I just have to be a little bit better than I was the day before or last year. I don't have to completely change myself. And I look to one answer when I'm thinking about this, and that is James Clears Atomic Habits.

The book Atomic Habits is by far the most motivational, inspirational, and life-changing book that you can read about habits because it breaks them down into tiny microscopic atomic habits, hence the name of the book, small things that you can do that add up to a big difference. And James Clear says, instead of saying, I'm going to only eat carb-free food, you can say, what would a healthy person eat every day? And you're looking at things differently and you're just making, you're just adding more fruits and vegetables to your diet. You're just cutting out some carbs and sugar. Instead of reaching for the pot of gold chocolates, you're going to grab some grapes instead. Right? There isn't room for failure if it's okay if you eat the pot of gold chocolate. Doesn't mean you've failed

because your goal is only to be a little bit better. It's only to make small changes. And all of these small changes will add up to a huge, huge goal. We're breaking this all or nothing cycle. instead we're making small tiny habits towards the person that we want to be and focusing instead of the goal the end goal instead we're focusing on the why we want to achieve that goal and it always comes down to the person we want to be so instead of saying I'm giving up carbs you're going to say I'm going to be a healthier person I'm going to feel better about myself I'm going to put really nutritious food into my body so that I can improve my health. You're really making it a positive thing and you're taking pressure off yourself and but you're still having those goals. So instead of

I'm going to get my house organized and be a tight, you know, be like this really organized person, you're just going to say, I'm going to live a less chaotic life. I'm going to be more organized so I have more time and feel less stressed. That's what this is really about. And what would an organized person do? They would probably spend a few minutes every day just working on a small thing. It doesn't mean you have to rent a dumpster

and completely become a minimalist in 2020 too. It means every day you're going to spend 15 minutes doing a small thing that gets you closer to the person that you're. you're craving and the home that you're craving. We talk about this a lot in the Take Your House Back course. So Don from the Minimal Mom and Dana from a Slab comes clean and I have gotten together to do an online course called Take Your House Back. And the whole focus of this is making small, tiny changes as a group to have a big impact. It's five minutes a day. It's starting with just

getting trash out of your house, just doing the dishes every single day, just making sure that you're doing laundry consistently so that you're never falling behind. And we stack and we stack on top of that. Well, then we'll start decluttering your entrance way and then we declutter the kitchen and then we declutter other areas. And before you know it, your entire house is under control. And then we add in organization and then we add in routines. But we do it in a way that is really achievable because it's all about tiny changes in your mindset and tiny changes in your habits. So let's talk about the two most important parts of creating a new habit. Whatever it is you want to do in 2022, if you want to focus on your house or your health or your

friendships, your relationships, your finances, your career, or all of those things, how do we actually do it without having a brain transplant or giving ourselves these insanely unattainable goals and then failing and feeling like crap about ourselves for the rest of the year how do we really do it it comes down to two things we need motivation and we need accountability so let's start with motivation sometimes you feel really motivated especially at the beginning of the year it's like a new It's a new you. You can really make a difference. But what it really comes down to is your why. Why you want to change? Because suddenly we see organizing the house as I'm going to feel good about myself. I'm going to be able to give my kids the house that they deserve. I'm not going to fight with

my husband about clutter anymore. I'm not going to have to spend my weekends cleaning the house before I can have people over. I'm no longer going to have to spend time in the day looking for the extra shoe or my keys or my cell phone or that thing I knew I was supposed to. return but I have no idea where it is my life is going to be less stressful and less chaotic that is your why you don't want to get organized because you want it to look like a magazine that's a bonus when it really comes down to the why it comes down to how you want it to make you feel and that is your motivation but that wanes we forget that's what it really comes down to why are we why do we lack motivation because we we forget we forget to be inspired we forget about the why we want to achieve

these things and then we only look at oh yeah i said i was going to declutter oh man i'm putting that off till tomorrow we no longer feel that that that excitement anymore and how do we get that back all the time how do we consistently have that we have to be reminded of our why and i think the best way to do this is with a vision board. Now before you start thinking that I'm talking about you cutting out pictures from magazines and putting it on Bristol board and hanging it on your wall, that is not what I mean by a vision board. What I mean by a vision board is a place where you're visually reminded of your wise, of your motivation, of the things you want to achieve in a way that makes you feel excited and in a way that is also subconscious.

Visual reminder of your goal is a subconscious reminder of your goal. Subconsciously, if every day you open your phone and your lock screen, it could be your vision board, right? Is a picture of, I don't know, healthy food and someone jogging and, and, you know, whatever it is that else that you have for a goal that you find inspiring. If you're glancing at that every time you pick up your phone, you're subconsciously going to be reminded of your why. And then 10 minutes later, will you head to the kitchen, are you going to grab the chocolate or are you going to grab the fruit? You might be more inclined more often to grab the

fruit because you're reminded that it's important to you, that you make healthy choices. And so I have a vision board that I have in my office. I have a vision board that I have in my craft room and I have my lock screen on my phone. I also have a reminder every morning when I get up. My alarm on my phone has the title of my goals. Listen, I don't always follow them all, but this I found in the past, this subconscious, subtle, visual reminders of a vision board. Again, you can write these things down. You can write motivational words or your goals on your bathroom mirror. You can have them printed out and put them on your fridge. You can print pictures that are your why that motivate you and remind you of your why and put them in frames in your home.

You can print them in black and white and just have them on a bulletin board. You can have reminders of your phone that just pop up alarms, your Alexa can remind you. You can create a graphic and use it as the lock screen screen on your phone or a screensaver on your computer. Whatever it is. or you can print out pictures or use magazine clippings and make it on a big Bristol board. Whatever it is, it doesn't really matter. This is about making your dreams come true by reminding yourself of what's really important to you all throughout the day. A lot of people call this manifestation. I don't think it's the universe giving you some magic woo-woo stuff.

This is you doing it. You are giving it to yourself because you're subconsciously reminding yourself that this is a priority for me. And this is something I want to focus on. Okay, so motivation. That's a really easy way to motivate yourself on a daily basis to achieve the goals that you want to achieve. And this doesn't mean that you're not going to not do them sometimes. You're going to fail. There are going to be days where you screw up and eat a box of chocolates or don't do your dishes or don't tidy or don't pick up or don't spend 15 minutes decluttering. But I promise you that you're going to to do it at least 10% more than you did before you had the visual reminders or the auditory

reminders before you had your vision board. So the second thing that we do, the second part of creating and really achieving new habits is accountability. So if your motivation is your why, your accountability is your how. Accountability means, okay, it's really, and it's really, great I'm feeling motivated and I'm feeling inspired but how do I actually do the things? How do I how do I actually like do the things on my to-do list or these goals? And it comes down to accountability. We need to be accountable to either ourselves or to someone else. We need to set an actual goal with a date and be accountable to either ourselves or someone else. I really suck at being accountable to myself. But what that looks like for a lot of

people is, okay, I'm going to start being a healthier person and eating healthier. So every Sunday at 9 a.m., I'm going to create a meal plan for the next week that has healthy meals for dinners and lunches and breakfast, or maybe just dinners. But you're going to set a date with yourself to meal plan or you're going to set a date with yourself to budget or you're going to set a date with yourself to spend 15 minutes decluttering and maybe that's every day at four when you get home from work or every day at 9 p.m. before bed you're going to spend 15 minutes working on yourself. This is what accountability looks at looks like. It's setting a small goal and setting yourself a time that you're going to do that goal or a day that you're going to do that goal and hold yourself accountable. But if you're

like me, I really suck at self-accountability. It's really easy for me to say, oh, I'll just do it tomorrow. I don't feel like doing it right now. I'm going to do it tomorrow, which is why I need accountability from someone else. So this is where you reach out to a friend or a family member and say, hey, can you bug me every week to do this thing? Or you join a Facebook group where everyone else is holding each other accountable and you're doing weekly tasks and you're joining, you know, these support groups where you're talking about it with other people and you're on your phone and these pop-ups are coming up of other people doing it and you're like oh yeah i got to do that too i'm accountable to that person which is why people hire coaches and life coaches and why people join courses because that

holds them accountable and sometimes just spending money on something hold you accountable to that thing because you're like i just spend a hundred dollars on this course i better show up because I paid for it. And that course is holding you accountable, which is why, shameless plug, so many people have had so much success with the Take Your House Back course. Not only do we have ongoing weekly challenges in the Facebook group, but you have thousands of people who are wanting to declutter their home too that are in the group, supporting you, cheering you on, and holding you accountable. Plus, you have Don Dana and I with our course and all of the videos that you watch, reminding you, holding your hand, pushing you,

cheering you on through the steps. And on January 15th, we have an all-day live declutter, which I think is like the most motivating thing because you're on Facebook alive with literally thousands of other people. And we're going room by room with you. And it's like boot camp. We're, during my sessions, I scream at you to let go of things. And it's like so much energy. and you're because it's accountability it's accountability but you don't listen yes it's a shameless plug for the take your house back because i'm really proud of it but you don't need to pay for that course you just need to find a way to either hold yourself accountable or to have somebody else be your accountability partner and that is the secret to achieving your goals maybe it's a gym partner

you're joining a gym with somebody and you're going to go with them or you're going to start walking with a walking group with a bunch of people you don't even know just by putting a post on Facebook or joining even a free decluttering group on Facebook or organizing group or a health group or a low carb group or whatever it is find like-minded people that can help hold you accountable so you have your how you have your why which is your motivation. You're going to do a vision board. You're going to make it a lock screen. You're going to set reminders. You're going to write something on your fridge or on your bathroom mirror, whatever it is. So you can every day be reminded of your goals. And then you're going to have your

accountability, your how. So you actually show up for yourself and do the work. I just want to finish by saying two more quick things. And that is, I think it's really important. that you never stop learning and that you never stop having self-discovery and and this when I think of all the people in my life that I find really inspiring and they're doing great things or they're just oh they're like ridiculously happy successful whatever it is that I find really admirable about them they all have one thing in common all of them and that is they've never stopped trying to self-improve they're reading self-help books or they're watching YouTube videos on self-improvement or they're listening to podcasts they're learning they're educating themselves they're growing as a person and you're doing

that right now just by listening to this podcast so if you do nothing else this year i would encourage you to read the book atomic habits by james clear and also to read the book the four tendencies by Gretchen Rubin. If you're not a big reader, get the audiobook. Get them from your local library. They're free. You can download the MP3. You can listen to it on your phone or wherever you listen to your podcasts or find a podcast about these subjects. It's all about just being the best person you can be, especially for 2022. Listen, things have been crazy the last couple of years. But we're taking back control of our lives, of our homes, of our happiness, and we're striving to be just 10% better than we were last year. Thank you guys so much for listening. I hope you enjoyed

and I'll see you next time.