Clutterbug - Real-Life Hacks and Tips to Declutter, Organize and Clean your Home Fast - Motivational Mindset - How a simple change can create motivation in your life | Clutterbug Podcast # 71

Episode Date: April 30, 2019

Are you waiting for more motivation in your life? Do you struggle to find the drive you need to be successful? In this podcast, I share a simple trick that can help you create more motivation and become more productive.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey clutterbugs, today we're talking about motivation and how to find it and create it when you just need it most. So thank you guys so much for tuning in. I'm Cass from Clutterbug and today we're talking about motivation. And it's this like elusive weird thing, especially in my life. Maybe you can relate. Sometimes it hits me like in the middle of the night when I should be sleeping or at other crazy times and I feel like I could light the world on fire. But most of the time, it's completely elusive. And no matter how much I look for it and try to wait for it to come or even to create it myself, I find it really, really hard to achieve. So we're going to talk today about some tricks and tips and little things that I've found that work to create motivation in my life.

And we've talked about this before, but right now I'm just going through this thing where I'm not feeling overly motivated. And I say lots of things. I say it's the weather and it's all of these different things. But when I really look at it and I dig deep inside myself to find out the reasoning, it always comes back to mindset. So that's what we're going to talk about today. We're going to talk about how you can have motivational mindset. And this doesn't, it's not a lot of work. It's not some crazy yoga, woo-woo, essential oil sniffing, crystal wearing kind of stuff. This is real life things that you can do that are really simple and easy to create more motivation in your life. And I'm old. I'm old. So, and therefore I've tried lots of different things. And this is the thing

that I have found again and again that just works. I can't explain why. I'm sure there's some scientific reason. There's lots of people who have different theories on this, but the only thing I know for certain is that this works. This motivational mindset works. So let's dive in and talk about what it is and how you can create it in your life right now. So basically mindset, when people talk about mindset. They're talking about the power of your thoughts, the control that you have over your thoughts and the power that your thoughts have on every aspect of your life. And so we've heard about a negative mindset versus a positive mindset. But I'm going to give you an example, especially when it comes to housework. This is one of those things. Housework is one of those things that sucks.

It's always there. You'll wake up in the morning. You have to clean again, do dishes again, do laundry again. And so it's mundane. It's boring. It isn't always fun. It isn't ever really fun. But it's something we have to keep doing because it will pile up and make the situation worse if we don't. But how do we stay motivated to do the daily adulting stuff that we have to do? And how do we use mindset to look at the reasons that we are doing it and we're not? So a negative mindset when it comes to housework would be saying, ugh, I have to do the dishes again, groaning when you look at the dishes. Immediately your mind is associating this with a chore with something negative, something that you don't have to do.

And then therefore you have to not only overcome the challenge of doing the dishes, but you have to overcome your mindset of it being this big, horrible thing. There's a simple thing that you can do that's adjusting your thought consciously, realizing that you're having this negative thought about the dishes and looking at it in more a positive way, consciously making the effort to have a positive thought about it. Now, I'm not saying we're going to be skipping and, yay, I get to do the dishes. Let's be realistic. But we can say, I love having a clean kitchen.

I want to have a clean kitchen. We're not focusing on like, oh, washing the dishes stinks. Instead, we're going to look at it as like, okay, I'm going to have a clean kitchen. I get to have this. I enjoy it. I deserve it. I like it. And so the process of washing the dishes and cleaning up after we've eaten dinner or made a big mess is instantly easier.

We only have one mountain to climb now. That's the actual work. We don't have to fight against our internal thoughts of like, oh, this sucks. I don't want to do it. And this definitely comes with practice, but you will also see. immediate impact when you change your thought from a negative to a positive and I really try to be aware now of these thoughts in all aspects of my life and I'm seeing a really big difference but this is how I really made that transition in the beginning all those years ago 10 years ago from somebody

who was drowning in clutter and struggling just to do the daily things that adults do keeping up on laundry, keeping up on clutter, making sure the kitchen was clean, making sure I was like not late for everything, I was remembering a point, all these little things that go with running your life and running a home, I was struggling with every single one of them. And it was a lot to do with my mindset. So I would say things to myself like, I suck at organizing. I'm just terrible at organizing. Ugh, I hate planning. Planning isn't me. None of this works for me. I've always been messy. always will be messy. And they'd even take it a step further by saying things like people who have a clean house are neurotic or there's more important things in life than having the dishes done.

And so I was telling myself this story that these things were horrible, that I didn't have to do them, that they were chores, and that they were kind of beneath me. And this is the story I was telling myself to sort of justify the reason why I wasn't getting them done. And it was a vicious cycle. So I was mad at myself and beating up myself for the way the house looked, but then I was having such negative self talk about the way that the house looked, that I wasn't finding that motivation to actually do the work because I had made it into this huge mountain in my mind that I had to climb before I could even start climbing the mountain of my home.

And the day that I decided to change my mindset was the day that I decided to treat my home like I would a business. And so it was a simple, nothing else changed except my mindset. It was a simple shift from me getting up in the morning and saying, okay, I'm going to run this house like a boss. If this was a business and I was hiring someone to do this, what would I have them do? And I was no longer looking at it of all the little crappy tasks. I was no longer saying like, I suck at this. I was playing like imagination station and telling myself that I was going to a rocket, that I was going to have a clean kitchen and that I loved having a clean kitchen and that it felt good. Yes, not be excited about doing the actual dishes, but excited about the end. I was

focusing on the positive. I hate putting away laundry, but I tell myself, I love going to bed in a clean bedroom. I love going to bed knowing that all the laundries put away and being kept up on the laundry. And that is what motivates me. Did anything change? change from the one day to the next? No, obviously, nothing has changed except the way that I'm telling myself, the story I'm telling myself about housework. And that is mindset. That is what can really create motivation in your life, is catching yourself having those negative thoughts about things and looking at how you can turn it into a positive. Or looking at how you can change your thoughts and change your mindset to really focus on the positive. I am not going to tell you that I love

doing housework. I'm not going to pretend that I'm like singing with an apron and like birds and mice are helping me or some crazy. It still sucks. It still sucks. But I focus on the fact that I love the end result. And I and I stop telling myself, oh, this sucks. I don't want to do the dishes. as soon as those thoughts come into my head, I push them out and say to myself, oh, I love, but I love having a clean kitchen and so it's worth it. I love that feeling I get of coming in in the morning and having the kitchen be clean. And I deserve that and I'm worth that. And over time, the negative thoughts about the housework have definitely depleted and the positive

thoughts have taken over. And so at first you had to be conscious about your thoughts and be mindful about your thoughts, but over time it becomes a habit. And that is what really creates the motivation to keep going and to get started. So let's talk about some other ways besides mindfulness, as they would say. So controlling your thoughts, trying to focus on the positive instead of the negative in every different situation can really impact your motivation. But let's talk about other ways to create new habits and to create motivation. So one of my favorite ways to create motivation is to borrow it from other people. And I love doing this by reading self-help books, listening to self-help audiobooks, watching YouTube videos of other people cleaning, if that's where I need the motivation.

for me, sometimes I wane motivation in my business. So I'm self-employed. I don't have a boss. I'm the only one telling me what I have to do in a day. So it's really easy for me to say, oh, I'll just take the day off. Or, oh, I'll just, I'll do it later. I'll do it tomorrow. Because there's no one to hold me accountable. And obviously, this is a terrible way to be a business owner and to run a business. So I borrow motivation all the time. When I start to feel like I'm taking too much time away from my business or I'm not feeling that passion again, I'll pick up and read a Tony Robbins book, just a chapter,

just a page even. Or I'll watch a YouTube video that has something to do with business. Or I'll call a friend who is sort of in the same industry and I'll borrow some motivation from them. and I cannot express how amazing this feels and how this really works. Definitely audiobooks are my go-to for this, but there's lots of little ways that you can watch YouTube, you can read a blog post, borrow motivation from others.

Do not be afraid to do this because it's a great way. Another way that you can create more motivation in your life, I guess, is by, or create more, yeah, I guess we're going to call it motivation, creating new habit even is with habit stacking or doing that instant gratification type thing when it comes to habits. So for me, I love watching Netflix. You guys know I love watching Netflix, but I don't really love working out. And I was really struggling to find the motivation to work out until I decided to stack those. Some people call it a temptation bundle. So now before I get to watch the walking next episode of The Walking Dead, I have to do it on a treadmill. I've told myself, I get to watch

the Walking Dead, but I have to do it while walking on the treadmill. So I've kind of bundled those together. So it's a habit that I did every day. I would get up and I would like, instead of charging in my day, I'd watch an episode of something stupid on Netflix. But now I'm telling myself that I have to do that while walking on a treadmill. I've combined those two things. So I've taken something that was a habit for me that I like doing, that I enjoy, that's fun, and I've paired it with something that I really, really want to do. So another way of doing this is every morning if you get up and you make yourself a tea or a coffee, but you want to get in the habit of planning, why not put your pad of paper,

your planning book or whatever it is that you have right beside the coffee maker or the kettle or in with your tea so that you're combining those, you're bundling them, you're stacking those together in order to motivate you to do that. If you're like, oh man, the kitchen is a mess, I want to clean it, but I don't want to. And every night at night you watch like, I don't know, your favorite show or something. Why not see if you can watch it on a mobile device, on a tablet and put it above the sink? So you're doing the dishes while you're watching your show. or if you really wanted to like read a great book, why not get the audio book of that and listen to it when you're doing a chore that you don't want to do?

So you're combining, you're bundling those things together. You're taking something really positive that's already a habit, something that you like doing, and you're stacking it with something that you don't really want to do. So that's another way to generate motivation for yourself. So those are just the three things I wanted to talk to you about. day we'll just do a quick little rundown again one is mindfulness so catching yourself having those negative thoughts about things like oh i don't want to clean my room or oh i don't want to pull the weeds today and instead of focusing on that negative ugh and creating a mountain for you to climb in your mind focus on the positive like i love having a beautiful garden or i love it when my garden's weed

free i love having a clean kitchen um it feels amazing to go to bed every night in a made bed with all my laundry put away. Stop the negative thought. Be mindful of your thoughts and instead focus on the positive outcome that comes from the chore that you don't want to do. And that's a really great way to get some motivation. Another great way to get more motivation in your life is to borrow it from others. So listening to this podcast, hopefully you're feeling motivated. Are you feeling motivated? Hopefully. But watch YouTube videos of other people cleaning their house or listen to audiobooks about something that you want to get the motivation from. And last but not least, do that temptation bundle or that stacking of habits with something that you already do and you love doing, whether it's

listening to books or watching a television show or, I don't know, talking to your best friend on a phone that you do maybe every night. Stack that was something that you don't want to do like the dishes. And see if that really helps with motivation. Taking something that. that's already a habit that's a positive, and stacking it with something that you're sort of like, ugh, you know you have to do, but you don't really want to, to make that thing much, much easier. So these are just a few little tips that definitely help me.

I really, I'm passionate about this because I really want to help you guys achieve the same sort of freedom that I feel in my life. I know what it's like to struggle to adult. I know what it's like to live in a mess. see chaotic home and feel chaotic in my mind to feel like there's never enough time in the day and yet I'm working all the time but I'm really achieving nothing to feel like I deserve more out of my life but not know how to achieve it I can tell you that once you get your environment your external environment under control internally you start to feel in control it has this huge effect on every area of

of your life, more time, less stress, more money, feeling confident in yourself when you have the ability to take control of your home and your environment. So that's why I'm so passionate about this. Am I a clean freak? Absolutely not. Do I clean all the time? Absolutely not. But that was the whole point. I wanted to have the benefit without having to constantly work. And I've achieved it. And so that's why I'm so passionate with sharing all of this with you guys. I want that same thing for you. So thank you guys so much for listening. I hope you enjoyed and I'll see you guys next time.