Home » Blog » What to Do When Simplifying Isn’t Working [Episode 7]

What to Do When Simplifying Isn’t Working [Episode 7]

Does it ever feel like you’re doing all the work to simplify your life—decluttering, controlling your spending, slowing down—but life isn’t getting simpler or easier? Or at least not like you were expecting? Listen to this episode of The Simply + Fiercely Show to find out why this happens and what to do about it.

In this Episode:

  • The reason we sometimes feel disappointed after decluttering
  • 3 things that lead to genuine simplicity
  • Why acceptance is an essential part of simple living

Featured In this Episode:

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Please note transcript has not been edited, please excuse any small errors.

Introduction of the episode

00:01   Podcast Intro 

Hello, and welcome to the Simply and Fiercely Show, a podcast for women who want to clear their clutter and create space for freedom and joy. If your life keeps getting bigger, but not better, keep listening to learn about decluttering from the inside out. It’s about creating a life that’s aligned with your values and priorities. So you can have more of what matters and less of what does it. I’m your host, Jennifer, and I’m so glad you’re here. Let’s get started. 

00:30   Introduction of the episode topic

Hello, everyone, it’s Jen here, and welcome to episode seven of the Simply and Fiercely Show. Today, we’re going to talk about what to do when you are doing the work to simplify your life. And by that I mean you’re doing things like you’re decluttering, you’re trying to be more intentional with your spending, maybe you’re being you know, really ruthless with your to do list, you’re basically doing all these things that kind of fall under this bigger umbrella of simple living, and you’re doing them with the expectation that your life is going to be easier afterwards, right? Because that’s why we do these things. Obviously, you’re not just decluttering for the fun of it, you’re doing it because you want less stress, and you want fewer responsibilities, and you just want to feel more freedom and ease in your life. But what happens is that some people do this work, or they’re in the process of doing this work and they’re a bit disappointed, because, like, it’s not magic, you know. There’s sort of this disconnect between their expectations, and the reality. And it’s a bit disappointing. 

01:38   Expectations vs Reality when decluttering. 

And so one of two things usually happens. So you get some people who don’t get the results that they want. And then they just kind of feel like giving up. And I’ve been there, you just think you know, what’s the point, if I’d been sold kind of a fantasy, it’s not worth all the effort. And then you just go back to your old ways. As I said, I’ve been there. Or alternatively, you have people who kind of go to the other extreme, and they believe that they’re going to get the results, eventually. They believe that minimalism, decluttering, simplifying will make their lives easier eventually. But they just haven’t done enough work yet. That’s what they tell themselves. I just need to try harder, I need to do more. And if I can just declutter more, if I can just be, you know, more ruthless with my boundaries, eventually, I will get the simplicity that I’m looking for. And what we’re going to talk about today is why this happens sometimes, and what you can do about it. And the reason why I think that I’m really interested about this topic, and why I wanted to talk about it on the podcast, is, it’s something that I experienced firsthand. So when I, when I first learned about minimalism and decluttering, I had these super high expectations. It sounds a bit silly, but I think on some level, I believed that I could declutter my problems, right? If I just got rid of enough stuff and I just, you know, cut out as many responsibilities as possible, I could have this carefree life that was just really joyful, and just, you know, full of the things I loved. And, and obviously, that’s kind of the message you hear when you, when you read about or listen about decluttering and minimalism. And I know, because I’m part of the community that, that sort of putting that message out there. But I also think we have to be a little bit careful, because you might be able to see the irony in the situation, if we’re talking about simplifying our lives, putting the burden on people that they need to declutter more and simplify more, it’s kind of counterintuitive, you know, it’s not more that you need to do. Instead, what I would like to offer is the idea that sometimes, of course, right, of course, sometimes there’s more decluttering that you can do, more simplifying you can do, but often it’s less about what you need to do, and more about how you do it. Okay. 

04:01  The myth about decluttering and simplifying 

And that’s what we’re really going to talk about today. And so, I think we should start as I said, I really think it’s this myth that decluttering and simplifying is going to magically make everything easier. It reminds me of,  there is someone, an author, her name is Dr. Susan David. She has a really famous TED Talk and one of my favorite books, which is called Emotional Agility. But in her TED talk, she talks about people trying to avoid their negative emotions. Okay, so it’s like, you know, almost like toxic positivity, like people don’t want to feel pain. But what she says and I might be misquoting her, so I apologize. But what she says is, those are dead people’s coals. And I remember hearing that and be like, Oh, my God, that’s so accurate. Because it’s true. It’s like only people who don’t feel pain are people who are dead. And it’s the same kind of thing with decluttering like my expectation used to be, I can declutter enough and simplify enough that I will not have any problems. But those are dead people’s goals. It does not matter how much you declutter, it does not matter how much you simplify, you will always have stress and problems because we are human. And that’s just part of life. And if those are your expectations that you’re eventually going to feel, you know, completely at ease and just always on cloud nine, well, then you’re setting yourself up for disappointment. And, you know, to be clear, it’s not to say, obviously, if you know me, if you’re listening to my podcast, if you’ve read my blog, you’ll know I’m a huge fan of decluttering. So I’m not saying that there is no benefit. But what I’m saying is that it’s not a magic pill, okay. Decluttering, just getting stuff out your house, throwing it out the door, just crossing things off your to-do list, just canceling all of your social engagements will not magically make your life better. Okay. So what should we expect? Is the idea of simplifying, you know, is it just an illusion? Or is there something, you know, more to the story? 

06:12   The initial benefits to decluttering –  getting more space. 

And, yes, of course, there’s this initial benefit to decluttering. I’m not even gonna go on about it too much. Because if you listen to this, you probably already know, if you have less stuff, you know, you reclaim some time and money, and you’re not cleaning as much. And it just feels nice to be in a house with less stuff. But I think what’s really interesting is that, when we declutter, we have more space, right? Whether it’s physical or mental. So you know, we have space in our home, or maybe you’ve decluttered your schedule, and now you have more mental space. And when I first started experimenting with decluttering, minimalism, I think I just assumed that, that space would be like, space for joy. Like just space where like, wonderful things are gonna happen, I’m just gonna relax in my home, and I’m gonna use this free time in my schedule to, you know, eat biscuits and put my feet up. But in reality, what I’ve learned is that the space you create in your life, is at least initially going to be space to look at your problems. Okay? So, again, if you’ve, if you’ve listened to me before, you’ve heard this, I used to be a shopaholic. And my weakness was clothes, shoes, you know, designer handbags, all that kind of jazz. And the reason I was addicted to shopping is because I had such deep insecurities about myself. Like, I just, I just didn’t like myself. And so I would use the things that I could buy as a mask. Right. So when I, I wouldn’t let myself provide the right shoes and expensive handbag, I could kind of hide behind it and pretend that I did. So if you’re coming from that perspective, that’s who I was, you know, what do you think happens? Once I decluttered? You know, decluttered my closet? Do you think I just magically felt better about myself? No, what I had was actually the opposite. What I had was this huge fallout, because now I have to go out into the world and be vulnerable, and sort of say, Hey, this is who I am, without all my things to keep me safe. And it felt horrible. Alright. So if we go back, so to the very initial idea of this podcast, you know, what do you do when simplifying isn’t working, you know, simplifying was not working for me, I did not automatically feel better having decluttered. And what would have been simpler, in the sense of it would have been easier, I would have felt better quicker would have been if I just went out to the shops and bought all new stuff. Right, that would have made me feel better in the short term. But what happened was, I had to use that space, I had to go through that discomfort, so that I could deal with the bigger problem of my overwhelming insecurity. I had to go through that pain and discomfort before life gets simpler. So it’s kind of like, and that’s what I think people are missing when they, when they’re going on this path of simple living. They think that it’s going to be, you know, we’ll just say we’re just talking about decluttering. It’s going to be declutter, feel better, declutter feel better, declutter, life is easier. Where in reality, how it actually works is declutter, feel better for a little bit because you get this instant high, then sort of have to deal with some kind of big issue, whatever was causing your clutter in the first place. And then once you’ve gone through that kind of struggle, then you come out on the other side, and things feel better, things feel easier. But unfortunately, what happens with most people is they never, they feel that kind of discomfort and instead of going through it, they think, Oh, I’m gonna go declutter something else. And so they never sort of have to hit that rock bottom of doing the hard work to feel better. 

09:55   Decluttering to reclaim time to reconnect with yourself.

So for example, I’ll tell you, I’ll give you some more examples because I know this might feel really theoretical at the moment. But a lot of people declutter and simplify to reclaim their time, right? So, or, you know, some people, they’re not even decluttering, or simplifying, but you might have experienced this if you’re retired, right.  You’re going and you have all this stuff filling up your day. And then for whatever reason, you’ve simplified and you have more time in your hands. And your expectation is that it’s going to be easier, that it’s going to feel good, you’re gonna have all this time, you’re going to do all the things you always thought you’re going to do, you’re gonna be, you know, on the sofa with a cup of coffee and your feet up. But in reality, a lot of people find it very uncomfortable. I’ve talked about this before, because I went through the same thing. I went through a period where I intentionally went from working full time to part time, thinking I was simplifying, thinking I was, you know, going down this path of simple living, and I was gonna have this wonderful experience. But in reality, sometimes more time, it’s just more time on your hands, to think about things that you were avoiding thinking about before. Okay, so you might find a really common one I found with lots of my clients, is actually as they declutter and simplify, you know, the thing that we always say is that you declutter to create space for more of what matters. But what happens is they declutter, and they simplify, and they realize they’ve lost touch with what matters. You know, maybe you’ve spent 20 years taking care of other people. And now you don’t know what your dreams are. Now, you don’t know what makes you happy. And that can be very confronting, right? So you’ve done the work to declutter, done the work to simplify expecting joy and instead, it’s almost like dread that you’re feeling because you feel so lost. Because there’s nothing, you’re kind of – you feel like maybe you’ve locked for some people, it’s like a loss of purpose, or it’s just, you. There’s just too much time on your hands to think about things maybe that you regret, and it’s not a good feeling. So again, people tend to think that the solution is maybe I’ll go declutter something, maybe I’ll go find some, you know, other way that I can try to simplify, where in the reality, what you need to do is spend some time in that space, to reconnect with yourself, and to, you know, figure out what makes you happy. 

12:13   Decluttering in the kitchen 

So one more example about this, again, this one’s a little bit more practical. Some people, let’s say you’re decluttering your kitchen, I’ve just picked this example out of the air. But you know, maybe you had a lot of stuff in your kitchen, lots of expired food, lots of appliances, lots of just unnecessary stuff. So you’ve gone in, you’ve decluttered. And now you’re expecting that it’s just going to be great, it’s going to be so easy to cook. And you’re just going to love being in the kitchen. But what you might realize is that you don’t. And that is a sign that maybe you need some systems, maybe you need to meal plan, if meal planning is your thing, or maybe, you know, it could be one of a million things. But the idea is that there were problems that you couldn’t see before, because the clutter was in the way. And so when you declutter, you don’t find necessarily simplicity, you don’t necessarily find this wonderful place where everything’s easy and stress free. Instead, you find the problems that you’ve been avoiding, for a really long time. 

13:13   What do you need to do before doing this project of decluttering? (… What do you need to understand when decluttering?)

So I think what’s really helpful to think, if you are on this journey of decluttering, and simplifying your life, and you’re not getting the results that you want. Before you jump into your next project, it helps to spend a bit of time reflecting and understanding your relationship with clutter. And what created those problems in the first place. It will help you let go, but, but also creates a roadmap for your next steps. It kind of tells you what you need to work through on a deeper level to simplify your life. Okay. So as I said, if you if you just want to, if you want to sum this up in like a neat little package, I guess sometimes that can be all over the place. But just think that when you are decluttering, you are getting at least the initial round, especially, you’re removing the superficial clutter from your life, kind of like this layer of dust of clutter is everything that’s on your life that’s distracting you, and you’re getting rid of it. And you’re probably not going to feel like your life is easier or that you have less stress immediately, because what you’re going to reveal is all the problems that you’ve been avoiding. Okay. But the good news is, now that you’ve gotten rid of that top layer of clutter, you have more capacity, you have more time and energy to deal with those problems. And that is where simplicity comes from. Okay, so it doesn’t mean that you are not simplifying right. It doesn’t mean that you’re not decluttering right. It just means that this is the normal, what I believe to be the normal experience of simplifying your life. And something else to say and again, most of you have heard me say this before it takes time. Nobody wants to hear that it takes time. And nobody you know in the decluttering space wants to talk about it taking time because it’s not what people want to hear, but it’s true, right? When I think about my own minimalism journey, it came in waves, everything is waves, you know, you make some progress. And then you have to deal with some, you have to deal with whatever comes up. And then you make progress and you deal with what comes up, and slowly but steadily, your let you do start to achieve that, that freedom and that ease. That is your end goal, but it takes work and the work doesn’t end with filling a few bags of stuff and taking it to Goodwill. Okay, so if you are struggling with that, understand that it’s normal. And you don’t need to push forward too hard. Um, you don’t need to force yourself to be faster or to declutter more. Because in a way, I think you’re almost missing out on the benefits of decluttering.

15:49  Why do you not need to push or rush yourself into decluttering? (…Changing your mindset about decluttering, minimalism and simplifying.)

So for example, last year, in one of my programs, my Clear Your Clutter program, one of the students was really struggling to declutter her, her home office, excuse me, because she had closed down her business. She was self employed, and she had closed down her business. And she was sort of dealing with the grief of mourning the business, you know, mourning, something that she had worked hard on, and decluttering was hard. Because you know, those things, they represented that business to her. So you know, getting rid of it was like saying goodbye, that final goodbye. And so what I always think is, if you are just trying to rush through your decluttering it like if she was just rushing her decluttering, sure, she could have had a day where she was just like, I have enough of this and enraged throwing everything in a bag and got rid of it all. But she’s still gonna wake up the next day, and probably still feel that grief for the business. And she will still struggle with letting go. Whereas if you take the time to, you know, really work through your relationship, work through your grief, work through whatever the emotional struggle is, that you attach to your stuff as, you’re decluttering. When you’re finished, it’s going to be a different experience. It’s going to be empowering, you’re going to sort of feel like I did this, I let go and I’ve come out the other side. Okay, so it’s just, again, important. It’s how you declutter is as important as what you declutter. And it’s allowing yourself the space to deal with whatever comes up. 

17:27  What to do when you are feeling in a limbo into your journey of decluttering?

Okay, so, another reason why you might feel like you’re simplifying isn’t working, why you know, you’re decluttering, and you’re not getting the results that you want, is because sometimes we sort of see it as like a checklist item, like, I am going to declutter my life, check. And then I’m going to feel happy, I’m going to feel at ease, I’m going to feel less stressed, right? But what happens is that you end up in a Sunday mindset, where you are waiting to be happy, right? So you’re gonna, it’s like, it’s like, people sometimes say, like, when I get a promotion, I’m going to be happy, when I finally earn more money, I’m going to be happy when I lose those last 10 pounds, I’m going to be happy. But you know, often what happens is that you achieve those goals, and there’s always something else, or you don’t achieve those goals and then you feel like you’re living in limbo the whole time, to saying, Will I ever be happy? Am I ever going, you know, just really, almost like, not blame, I guess you’re just sort of in this limbo, I suppose is the best way to say just we feel like it’s impossible to feel the way you want, because you haven’t achieved certain things yet. And what I just want to suggest, especially if your feelings, the limbo that you’re in, revolves around decluttering and simplifying and minimalism is that there’s no point in, in being so focused on an end goal when the reality is, there is no end. Yeah, I mean, I would really like to argue that there’s no, that you will never be done simplifying. Yes, you can make a lot of progress with your decluttering. But you know, there’s always going to be more, isn’t there? There’s always going to be new things that come into your life, there’s always going to be temptation to buy new things, there will always be more demands on your time and your energy. And so how I like to think about simple living is that it’s not an end goal to achieve. Instead, it’s more about changing the way that you think and changing how you make decisions. So it’s more like a skill that you can learn or a lifestyle change, versus something that you, that you complete. So again, like I think, if you think about the analogy with healthy living, you could go on a diet, right? You’d go on a diet for eight weeks and hope that you’re going to feel different at the end. Or you can take the time to learn about nutrition and healthy exercise and kind of change your whole lifestyle and change the way that you make decisions and accept that it’s going to be something you do every day for the rest of your life. Okay, so the same thing with clutter.  You know, people feel so cluttered, like, so many people come to me and just feel so disappointed about how much decluttering that they have to do. Alright, so they say, you know, I’ve made progress, but there’s so much to do so much more to do. And if you have that mindset, let’s be realistic, it’s not going to be very pleasurable, you’re not going to feel good about the journey, you’re not going to feel like your life is getting any better. You’re just really going to feel like you’re, I don’t know, on a treadmill, maybe I’m running out of analogies. But yeah, it doesn’t feel good to be in that mindset of just thinking of how far you’ve got to go. Actually, I do have an analogy I like, one thing I like to think about is the example of playing the piano, let’s say that you’re learning to play a piano. And today is your first lesson. And all you can think about is, you know, how you can’t play like Beethoven. It’s gonna be really depressing, isn’t it, you’re gonna feel like, oh, there’s no point in trying, you know, I’m not going to enjoy this, I have so far to go on my journey. Where alternatively, you could say, alright, I’m learning to play piano. And today, I learned a little song. And then you’re really gonna be like, I’m excited. You tell people, I’ve learned this. And you can appreciate the progress that you’ve made so far, knowing that it’s just one step on that bigger journey towards, you know, playing for the symphony orchestra, or whatever your goal is. 

21:25   Becoming a new person when you declutter, noticing the  changes and

feeling proud of what you’ve become.

But it’s the same with decluttering and simplifying. You can focus on how much more you have to do. And during that time, you’re probably gonna feel disappointed, and you’re not going to feel like your life is changing. Or one thing I really like to do is that when I’m decluttering, I’d like to think a lot about the person I’m becoming. And I really revel in that. And that really brings me that feeling of like, you know, things are getting easier and better while I’m still on the journey. Okay, so, you know, you declutter something, that’s something that maybe six months ago, you thought you’d never be able to let go of. And you think, wow, look at who I’m becoming, I’m becoming the person who doesn’t need these things. Or, you know, I’ll tell you a really simple one with me, is that one of my biggest weaknesses used to be, I would say yes to anything, when people ask me favors, like, I get a lot of emails, having a blog, and sort of being in the public space where people want, you know, want me to participate in interviews, or just just do, just so many things that I want to do, like students who want me to help with their projects. And look, I really want to do it, I do. But there’s only so much that I can do. But what I used to do is I would always instantly write back like, as soon as I get an email, I’ll be like, yes, yes, yes, of course, I can help you just tell me what you need from me. And a couple years ago, I really got better at saying, well actually, even before, not even what I would say I just got better waiting, instead of replying to the email right away, sitting on it at least overnight, to see how I feel. And then quite often writing back and saying, hey, you know, thank you so much for the offer. I really wish I could help you. But it’s just not I don’t have the capacity right now. And I remember just feeling so proud of myself when I was doing it. I was like, Who am I like, pat myself on the back, and just feeling really proud of myself for being able to step up and enforce my boundaries. And so again, it’s not like, oh, well, I still have other things on my To- Do-Lists. I’m not stress free, I still have things to do, right. But I am becoming someone who protects their time. And that feels really good. And the more I focus on that, it is, it’s just a really different feeling. And so I’m not in that place of lack. I’m not thinking, Oh, I’ve got so much to do. And instead of thinking I am, I’m growing, I am becoming someone, I’m becoming the person that I want to be. And really, it’s such a positive cycle. Because when you think about who you are becoming, through your decluttering, through your boundaries, through your spending habits, as you change these things, to align with your values and your priorities, and you become the person that you want to be, it is a positive cycle, because then it becomes easier to declutter, it becomes easier to continue with your positive spending habits because you are no longer forcing yourself to do these things. You’re acting, you know, from, from a new place of being, which I hope makes sense. But it’s sort of like I can, let me think of how to explain this. It’s kind of like if you, okay, I’m so sorry to use this analogy again, I know I keep talking about healthy living, but it’s such a good one. If you are sort of resisting a doughnut, and it’s because I’m on a diet and I’m like, Oh, I can’t eat that doughnut, right? It’s not easy. It’s hard to like, but I really liked the donut but you’re like forcing yourself to right. But if you walk by that doughnut and you think I’m not the kind of person who eats donuts every day, I just don’t. I don’t even want that doughnut because I really want an apple. And look, I’ll be honest, I’m not really a healthy person. But if the decision comes from that place of being, it becomes easier to keep making those kinds of decisions. I guess that’s what I’m trying to say. So if you focus on every time you declutter, every time you simplify, if you really celebrate every step of the progress, if the progress that you’re making, it’s going to be easier to keep continuing down that path. So, yeah, and then I guess, if we talk about simple living, in the terms of making life easier, life is going to keep getting easier. Because the drama’s not there, you’re not. If we go back to the donut, you’re not beating yourself up about like, Oh, should I get the donut, should I not get the donut. It’s just easier, the drum is not there, you’ve already decided not really the type of person to eat donuts all the time.

25:48   Cultivating the acceptance that you have already done enough – deciding on two options.

And so this brings me to my next important point. If you feel like you are doing a lot of work to simplify your life, and you are just not getting there, like you’re just not getting the feelings that you want, you do not feel like life is easier, even though you’ve done a ton of work, then you might have arrived at a point where the next step is to cultivate acceptance. Okay. So think about this. If you think about the clutter, the stress, the anxiety, all the things that weigh us down in life. So much of it comes from the things that we don’t want. We don’t want to be worried about this, we don’t want to have this in our house, we have all these things that we don’t want. So when that happens, you have two options. You can get rid of those things, or you can reframe them. Okay. And up, I’ve got a funny story that I want to share about this. I was watching, I’m watching the show at the moment called Peaky Blinders. It is like a British, a 1920s gangster show, I don’t know if anybody else is watching it. If my husband hears this podcast episode, he’s going to die laughing because I’m obsessed with this show. And just a warning, it’s like very crude and violent. So it might not be for everyone. But anyway, I was reading this kind of like bonus that was put out there by the writer where he talks about one of the characters. He’s not a very nice guy. And he talks about dealing with problems. And he talks about like the idea, If he is a landlord, and someone complains about the rainy roof, he’s got two options, he can fix the roof, or he can deal with the person who’s making the complaint. And look, I’m not obviously promoting violence. But you can kind of do the same thing in your mind. When you have something like if you have already done a lot of simplifying and things are still stressing you out. You’ve got two choices, you can continue to declutter, but you might have reached the limit where you’ve decluttered enough. So now it’s time to deal with the complaint in your mind. So let me give you a practical example. As some of you know, I have two kids. We live in a 660 square foot apartment. So while we don’t have tons of stuff,  you know, they’re kids, they do have toys. It’s a small place. During the day on any given day, if you walk into my house at like two in the afternoon, it’s probably a disaster zone. So I have got, I’ve got two examples, two options, two options in front of me. I can try to declutter more. And you know, in full disclosure, sometimes that’s what I do, but realistically, they’re kids, and I’ve got some limits, right? There’s only so much that I can, I get rid of, I can’t get rid of all their toys. So what I can do is, I can declutter what I’m going to worry about. Yeah. So what I mean by that is, I can decide that their toys are going to stress me out all day when they’re all over the floor, or I can decide that I don’t care during the day, as long as everything is clean at the end of the night, but before bedtime. 

29:05   Simpliflying is to create rules and setting boundaries for ourselves.

So this is really rooted in something that I talk a lot about with regards to decluttering. And simplifying in general.  I believe that one of the easiest ways to simplify is to create rules and limits for ourselves. It’s just to care. It’s just it’s just decide boundaries, I guess, in our mind. So for example, I don’t buy dryclean only clothes. I don’t keep more toys than we can clean in 15 minutes. I have one shelf in my closet where we keep towels, right? And so if I have more toys, we need to get rid of them. If I have more towels than what will fit on the shelf. I’ll get rid of them. But in the same way I can create these rules about what to care about. Right. So as I said, I don’t clean during the day. Sometimes I do a bit of laundry, if I cook I’ll put my dishes away. But I do not pick up all day and I don’t even make my kids do it either. I mean if they dump a puzzle or something, we’ll put it back. But I’m not stressed, and I can do it by two ways trying to get rid of everything, or it was by deciding not to care about things. Okay. And then I think this is just where you see this balance with decluttering and simplifying. Okay, so this tactic, I suppose you could say, works for me, because we’ve already decluttered. And we don’t have a lot of toys to begin with. So I did that. And then I could have thought, and that’s what I mean, if we’re looking at this journey, so you’ve decluttered some things in your life and you could be thinking it hasn’t worked, I need to declutter more. Or you can be taking the space that you’ve created and think, What is another solution? So I declutter toys, thinking, Gosh, it’s still not enough for me. And the space, in that space, I decided, okay, well, now I’ve decided that I’m not going to care during the day. So it’s sort of this give and take between doing things. And I guess decluttering, physical decluttering, making things happen, getting rid of stuff, and at the same time, doing kind of simplifying work in our head, right. Where we’re just deciding what to care about, or thinking about what we can learn from the experience, how we can make life easier. And that requires some slowing down. 

31:10   Recap

So let’s sum things up. And it’s a bit of a long episode. I’ve been rambling a bit today, but hopefully, you have found it helpful. If you are decluttering, and simplifying, but life doesn’t feel easier, first, know that it’s not magic, okay. You’re not going to magically just get rid of all your problems, but what you can do is create space to do the hard work, right space to do the work, of getting to know yourself, of setting boundaries of figuring out, you know, what caused your clutter, and how you can deal with that before moving on. Then you need to accept that there is no finish line, right? We need to pace ourselves. We need to celebrate the journey, and focus on what you’re creating and not what you’re giving up. And then finally, a big part of decluttering is in your mind, and making intentional decisions about what to care about. Okay, so remember, there’s only so much you can, there’s only so much you can physically declutter from your home, there’s only so much you can cut out of your schedule, there’s going to reach a point where you’ve reached your limits. And then your next option is just to decide what to care about. 

32:23   Ending CTA and Closing

Okay, and I will just mention that if you want some help with this, I just want to remind you that this is the kind of work we do in my program, Clear Your Clutter, which is a group decluttering program. And to be honest, I probably didn’t choose the best name, I think sometimes people hear Clear Your Clutter, and it kind of sounds like a decluttering bootcamp. But that’s not what it is. It is not a program where we’re going to go through your house room by room, and I’m going to tell you what to get rid of. Instead, we’re going to do the work of examining your relationship with clutter. We’re going to create clarity about your vision and about what matters. And then we’re going to do the intentional work of releasing the things that are holding you back. So the physical clutter in your home, the clutter in your spending, the clutter in your schedule, the clutter in your mind, right. We work on all the aspects of our life, and we look at what’s no longer serving us and how to let go. So that’s my group program. It’s only open twice a year. Doors are going to open at the start of July and then the course will kick off mid month. So if you want to learn more, you can go to simplyfiercly.com/clearyourclutter all one word, and have a look. Okay, so that’s all today. Thank you so much for listening. Bye.

33:42  Outro 

Thank you for listening to The Simply and Fiercely Show. If you want to learn more you can download my free mindful decluttering guide and learn all the secrets that helped me go from Shopaholic to minimalist all you need to do is visit simplyfiercely.com/free guide that’s all one word to get instant access. Until next time, thanks again.

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