Clutterbug - Real-Life Hacks and Tips to Declutter, Organize and Clean your Home Fast - How To Be Proud Of Yourself Right Now | Clutterbug Podcast # 96

Episode Date: August 27, 2020

In this podcast I share some simple things you can do right now that will improve your mood, motivation and make yourself REALLy proud of yourself.        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

What is one small thing that you can do right now that'll make you really proud of yourself? Hey guys, welcome back to the Clutterbug podcast. Today we're talking about being proud of ourselves. We're talking about things that we can do right now, things that we can do today before we go to bed. That is going to make us feel good about ourselves in some small way. And I think this is one of the biggest misconceptions. when it comes to happiness is that it comes from someone else or something else like buying something or, you know, your spouse telling you you're amazing. No one else can really give you long-lasting happiness and it definitely doesn't come in a store and maybe this is just me but I've really seen a correlation between my happiness and me being proud of myself, feeling like I've

done something, accomplished something, that's what really at the end of the day, honestly, makes me happy. It makes me happy to help someone else. It makes me happy to create something, to do a craft. It makes me happy when I've accomplished a goal, however small it is. I mean, I can get really happy about organizing a junk drawer. But the thing that's like uniting about all the different things that I do that bring me happiness is that I am feeling proud. of myself. I feel great when I spend time with my kids or do something with my kids because I'm like, oh, I'm being a good mom. Again, I'm proud of myself. I feel good when I make something because I'm like, oh, look at this cool thing I made or when I do a blog post or anything that I do that honestly

brings me that joy, that feeling of joy, it always comes down to the same thing. And now that I've sort of keyed off on that. And I've realized the correlation between happiness and the things that make me happy, I'm able to motivate myself a lot more. I think procrastination, I'm pretty much the queen of it, but it's a universal problem. We all procrastinate. And I get, that's probably one of the number one questions I get is, how do I, where do I get started? How do I get motivated? How do you do so much? I can hardly, you know, find time to take a shower during the day. And I don't honestly do that much. I am a lazy person and I spend a lot of downtime. But when I do do something, I'm always thinking, what can I do that's going to make me feel really good about myself today? And some days it's catching

up on laundry. Some days it's just cleaning the kitchen. Other days like today, I honestly was supposed to film a video. I had this huge to-do list. I didn't do really any of it. It's 7.30 at night. I'm like, oh, God, you didn't accomplish anything today. You're going to do a 10-minute podcast, right? You're going to put something out. You're going to do something that's going to make you feel really good about yourself. So I don't go to bed tonight feeling like I've wasted a day or feeling regret about all the things that I didn't accomplish. I can focus on this one thing that I've done that made me really proud. And I totally recommend you do the same. I guess this is what this podcast is. We're going to talk about different things that you can do that are going to make you really proud of yourself.

And there's simple things, easier than you think. One thing that you can do like right now is call your mom or your dad or your sister or your grandmother or a relative and just check in. Right? Just make time to let somebody else in your life know that you're thinking about them and that you love them. Another really simple thing that you can do is acknowledge somebody. Even if it's a complete stranger, you know, you're on Facebook and somebody posted something. Just take the time to say something really nice. Like, man, that's an amazing, I don't know, craft you made or you're such a good mom. You know, being kind to others.

really does make you feel proud of yourself. Like, yeah, I'm a good person. So we're doing this maybe selfishly, but everybody wins. Everybody gets a drop in their bucket when we're spreading positivity and kindness and acknowledging other people for the great stuff that they are doing. It also makes me really proud when I take a second to do something that benefits my home. So I feel house proud when my kitchen's clean. I feel proud of myself when I've loaded the dishwasher and caught up on all the dishes or laundry. I feel really proud of myself when I've decluttered something because decluttering is so hard. Like getting things out of your home. It is. It's emotional and it's stressful and I always feel so good when I've found a couple of things in my home that can leave. And I feel

good because yes, I know that my life's going to be easier and my home looks better and it's going to function better, but really what it comes down to is I'm like proud of myself, right? Like I I totally pushed through the fear and the anxiety and the stress and I did it anyways because I know it's good for me. Organizing gives me that same feeling and I think this is why, well, let's, okay, I'm going to be totally honest with you. This is why I started getting really addicted to organizing in the first place was because there is nothing else in this world that I found anyways that you can do for 10, 15 minutes and see such immediate and long-lasting results. So I can organize a drawer, a shelf in a closet, one kitchen cabinet, and I can immediately feel

really good about myself because I've accomplished something. And then the next day I go to use it, I open up that closet and I'm like, dang, it still looks good. And I feel really good about it myself again. And so that's why it became really addicting for me because it was these little bursts of joy that I would get all throughout my day. Not only when I did the act of tidying, organizing, decluttering, but seeing the results the next day to reinforce that joy all over again. So it wasn't like I did it once and I only felt it once. It was like I felt good every time I did it and I get the same feeling about crafts or decorating. I just recently decorated for fall. Yeah, I know it's early. Listen, I'm just trying to catch the YouTube algorithm. But every time I walk

into the room and I'm like, I made that sign or oh, look at that box that I filled with dollar store pumpkins. Again, it's that it's that feeling inside of pride. And that really is an underlying feeling of happiness for so many people. And when I do talk to other clients or friends and family and they trust me enough to be open about their own depression and their own anxiety and their own restlessness that they're feeling in their lives, the trend, that the thing that connects all of these things is that they don't feel like they're contributing. They don't feel like they're doing enough in their life. They don't feel like they're making a difference or they're think they should be doing more and all of this means they're really not feeling very proud of themselves.

They're not feeling good about what they're doing in their day to day. And a lot of this is mindset. A lot of this really is them focusing on the negative instead of the positive and it's leading to feeling sad and restless and depressed. Of course there's clinical depression and there's chemicals in your brain and I'm not talking about that. What I'm talking about is that feeling that I think we all get as humans, which is like there's got to be more. This can't be it. I feel like something's missing. I feel like I'm sad more than I'm happy. I feel like I need something and I don't even know what it is and I escape that feeling into maybe television or surfing the web or you know shopping whatever it is that we are doing this escapism that we're doing

because when it comes right down to it we're really just trying to escape our own thoughts and our own what is a good word disappointment in ourselves maybe that's the word we're disappointed in ourselves and i really struggle with this i think this is again human nature but for me i I feel like, oh my God, I could be doing so much more. I should be doing so much more. I'm not really, you know, happy with myself as a mother, as a homeowner, as a business owner, as a human being. I really beat myself up. And that is a downward spiral, right? Once we start focusing all of that stuff, it's sort of like we're circling the drain. And the only thing that comes out of that is just feeling like absolute crap. And so realizing the correlation between

those feelings of inadequacy, those feelings of depression, and me not doing things that are making me proud of myself has really helped me. It's helped me be motivated to do these small tasks that make me feel good. And it's helped me just be more mindful of my feelings in that moment. So today, I was like watching missing on Netflix or Amazon Prime. I mean it's bad. I don't recommend it. I'm like, why am I doing this? Why am I sitting here wasting time on a show that I don't even enjoy sort of zoning out?

And I realize I'm doing this to escape the fact that I'm feeling like I didn't accomplish the things I should really be doing today. I'm procrastinating because I feel a real sense of inadequacy. I don't want to do this huge mountain of stuff. I feel like it's too much for me to even accomplish. I'm feeling stressed out. And so I'm avoiding. I'm avoiding the things I want to do.

And the only thing that does is like make me feel extra crappy tomorrow, right? It's like, now I have even more stuff I need to do tomorrow. And so instead of doing things on the list, I'm doing a podcast. It's quick. It's easy. It's something really short that I can do to feel proud of myself. And hopefully I'll check some more things off the list too, but just doing this one thing, this little minute, itty-bitty thing, instantly does make me feel a whole lot better.

So I want you to make a list. I want you to make a list of things that you can do right now that are going to make you feel proud of yourself. Maybe you're going to do 20 sit-ups or push-ups. Maybe you're going to go and take the dog for a walk around the block. Maybe you're going to bake a loaf. Don't even get me started. Listen, anyways, I'm just saying. Maybe you are going to take those rotten bananas and you're going to bake some banana bread. Maybe you're going to sit and read to your kids, like a whole chapter from a chapter book, or just lay on their bed and talk about their day.

Maybe you're going to go and give your husband a kiss and a hug and hold his hand and make an effort to really pay some extra attention to your spouse. Maybe you're going to do something just for you, do a craft, or do the dishes, or do some yoga. It doesn't matter. Everybody's different. Everybody's things are different. It only has to be five, ten,

15 minutes that you can dedicate to doing something really small with the only purpose is that you can feel good about yourself, something that you've done that you can feel really proud of yourself for. And yeah, I think you'll be surprised

at how much easier it is to motivate yourself to do things if you're looking at it from that standpoint. If you're not like, oh, I have this huge list of things to do and I don't know where to start and I'm feeling overwhelmed. Instead, you know, your kitchen's maybe a total disaster instead of like, oh, I have to clean the kitchen. You say to yourself, I'm going to feel really proud of myself when just the dishes are done. I'm just going to fill the sink with hot soapy water. I'm going to let these soak and I'm going to be really proud of myself for doing just that. And you will, you will. You'll feel so good. you'll be motivated to do something else. And it is just that shift in mindset, right? It's like instead of

looking at something and saying, oh, I should be doing this, I have to do this. Your brain is instantly seeing that as work as negative. And your brain is designed to save you from hard work. Your brain, it's a defense mechanism. We're supposed to be resting and doing like relaxation until we have to run from a predator later or chase down our food. So procrastination is this, it's nature's way of really conserving our energy for those bursts when we have to do something really important. And so we don't live in the wild. We live in a house and we got to do like little boring, horrible, mundane tasks all throughout

the day. So how do we switch that part of our brain? How do we switch that part of our brain that's trying to conserve energy and avoid those mundane, mundane, boring, mind-numbing tasks so that we have the energy for the good stuff later, we do that by making those boring, mundane, crappy tasks that we have to do, a positive by focusing on the fact that we're going to feel really proud of ourselves when we do them. And breaking them down into smaller things so that we can accomplish it. If you're living in a really messy or disorganized or cluttered home, the last thing you want to

tell yourself is, oh, I got to totally organize my entire. house. That is the most unrealistic and depressing thing I've ever heard because the truth is that's going to take a long time and if you're never going to feel that sense of pride and accomplishment if that goal isn't easily accomplished isn't something that you can do in just a few minutes. If your goal is so big it's going to take days or weeks to accomplish, you are setting yourself up for failure before you've even started. You really do have to break. it down into small chunks so you can feel that sense of accomplishment and pride in just a few minutes. So instead of, oh my God, I have to organize and declutter my entire home, you're going to say,

today I'm going to, I don't know, just declutter my t-shirts or just go through my bras and underwear and get rid of anything that is wires poking or wholly underwear. And then you do that and you're like, look what I did. That's a maze balls. And tomorrow you do something else. You go for a walk around the block or you get rid of all the topboard containers that don't have lids or the extra lids that don't have bottoms. You know, it's a small thing. It's a small thing, but it's all going to add up. And even more important than that, even more important than our end results of our home being organized and tidy, this is about you feeling really good about yourself. This is about going from someone who every day is feeling sort of sad and unmotivated

and restless. And I know you feel me on the restlessness. I know you do. And instead of covering that up with Netflix or Facebook or food or drugs and alcohol, we do the opposite and we really build ourselves up with doing small tasks. that make us feel good about ourselves. Instead of distracting ourselves, which makes us feel bad, we're focusing on feeling proud. What can I do right now that's going to make me really proud of myself? And so, that's it.

It's a short little podcast today. I made a podcast. Now I'm feeling proud of myself. So thank you. Thank you for listening. Maybe you could do a podcast. I don't know. It's very easy to podcast.

I'm just saying, if you're ever looking to do social media, podcasting is the way to go. You just talk to yourself in a room and don't even really have to edit or anything. You just upload it to the internet and you're done. But whatever it is that you do, whether it's doing the dishes, doing some decluttering, doing some organizing, going for a walk, doing some push-ups, kissing your spouse for an extended period of time, reading your kids a story. just make sure that you're focusing again on what can I do in a short amount of time that's going to make me really proud. Thank you guys so much for listening and I'll see you guys next time.