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

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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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Note: this is not an exact transcript and has been edited for clarity.

Episode 7: What To Do When Simplifying Isn’t Working

Hello, everyone, it’s Jen here, and welcome to episode seven of the Simply and Fiercely Show.

Today, we’re talking about what to do when you are doing the work to simplify your life.

And by that, I mean you’re doing things like decluttering, trying to be more intentional with your spending, and maybe being ruthless with your to-do list.

You’re doing all these things that fall under this bigger umbrella of simple living, and you’re doing them with the expectation that your life will be easier afterward because that’s why we do these things.

You’re not just decluttering for the fun of it, you’re doing it because you want less stress, and you want fewer responsibilities. You 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 it’s not magic. There’s sort of this disconnect between their expectations and the reality.

Expectations vs Reality when decluttering.

One of two things usually happens.

You get some people who don’t get the results that they want and they feel like giving up. I’ve been there, you start to think what’s the point? I’d been sold kind of a fantasy and it’s not worth all the effort. Then you just go back to your old ways. As I said, I’ve been there.

Alternatively, you have people who go to the other extreme, and they believe that they’re going to get the results, eventually.

They believe that minimalism, decluttering, and simplifying will evevntually make their lives easier. They tell themselves they just need to try harder, they need to do more. If they can declutter more and be more ruthless with boundaries, they will eventually get the simplicity they’re looking for.

Today we’re talking about why this happens sometimes, and what you can do about it.

The reason I think I’m interested in this topic, and why I wanted to talk about it on the podcast, is because it’s something that I experienced firsthand.

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 away.

If I just got rid of enough stuff and cut out as many responsibilities as possible, I could have this carefree life that was joyful and full of the things I loved.

That’s the type of message you get when you read about or listen to decluttering and minimalism. I know, because I’m part of the community that’s putting that message out there.

But I also think we have to be careful because if we’re talking about simplifying our lives yet we’re putting the burden on people that they need to declutter more and simplify more, it’s counterintuitive.

Instead, I would like to offer the idea that sometimes there might be more decluttering that you can do or more simplifying you can do, but often it’s less about what you need to do and more about how you do it. 

That’s what we’re really going to talk about today.

The myth about decluttering and simplifying

I think it’s this myth that decluttering and simplifying are going to magically make everything easier.

It reminds me of an author, her name is Dr. Susan David. She has a famous TED Talk and wrote one of my favorite books, called Emotional Agility.

In her TED talk, she talks about people trying to avoid their negative emotions. It’s almost like toxic positivity, people don’t want to feel pain.

I might be misquoting her, so I apologize, but what she says is, that those are dead people’s goals.

I remember hearing that and thinking, “Oh, my God, that’s so accurate.” Because it’s true, the only people who don’t feel pain are people who are dead.

It’s the same kind of thing with decluttering.

Just like how my expectations 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. That’s just part of life.

If you expect that you’re eventually going to feel completely at ease and always on cloud nine, you’re setting yourself up for disappointment.

To be clear 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. I’m not saying that there aren’t any benefits. But what I’m saying is that it’s not a magic pill.

Decluttering and getting stuff out of your house, throwing it out the door, crossing things off your to-do list, and canceling all of your social engagements will not magically make your life better.

So, what should we expect? Is the idea of simplifying just an illusion? Or is there something more to the story?

The initial benefit of decluttering – getting more space.

And, yes, of course, there’s this initial benefit to decluttering.

I won’t go on about it too much because if you’re listening to this, you already know that if you have less stuff, you’ll reclaim some time and money, and you’re not cleaning as much. It feels nice to be in a house with less stuff.

I think what’s really interesting is that, when we declutter, we have more space. Whether it’s physical or mental. We have space in our home, or maybe you’ve decluttered your schedule, and now you have more mental space.

When I first started experimenting with decluttering and minimalism, I just assumed that more space would mean more space for joy.

That I’d have space where wonderful things are going to happen, I’m just going to relax in my home, and I’m going to use this free time in my schedule to, you know, eat biscuits and put my feet up.

But in reality, what I learned is that the space you create in your life, is at least initially, going to be space to look at your problems.

So, again, if you’ve listened to me before, you’ve heard this, I used to be a shopaholic. My weakness was clothes, shoes, designer handbags, all that jazz.

The reason I was addicted to shopping was because I had such deep insecurities about myself. I didn’t like myself. So, I would use the things that I could buy as a mask.

That’s who I was and what do you think happened once I decluttered my closet? Do you think I just magically felt better about myself?

No, it 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. It felt horrible.

If we go back to the initial idea of this podcast, you know, what do you do when simplifying isn’t working, simplifying was not working for me. I did not automatically feel better having decluttered.

What would have been easier would have been if I just went out to the shops and bought all new stuff. 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 got simpler.

That’s what I think people are missing when they’re going on this path of simple living. They think it’s going to be, declutter, feel better, declutter feel better, declutter, life is easier.

In reality, how it actually works is to declutter, feel better for a little bit because you get this instant high, then 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.

Unfortunately, what happens with most people is they feel that discomfort and instead of going through it, they think, Oh, I’m going to go declutter something else. And they never hit that rock bottom of doing the hard work to feel better.

Decluttering to reclaim time to reconnect with yourself.

I’ll give you some more examples because I know this might feel really theoretical at the moment.

A lot of people declutter and simplify to reclaim their time, right?

For some people, it’s not even about decluttering, or simplifying, but you might have experienced this if you’re retired. You have all this stuff filling up your day. And then for whatever reason, you’ve simplified and you have more time on your hands.

Your expectation is that it’s going to be easier, that it’s going to feel good. You’re going to have all this time. You’re going to do all the things you always thought you were going to do. You’re going to be relaxing 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 working part-time.

Thinking I was simplifying, thinking I was going down this path of simple living, and I was going to have this wonderful experience.

But sometimes more time means more time to think about things that you were avoiding before.

A really common one I found with a lot of my clients, is 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. You don’t know what makes you happy. That can be very confronting.

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. There’s more time to think about things maybe that you regret, and it’s not a good feeling.

People tend to think that the solution is to go declutter something else or find some other way to simplify, where what you need to do is spend some time in that space to reconnect with yourself and figure out what makes you happy.

Decluttering in the kitchen

Another example, this one’s a little bit more practical.

Let’s say you’re decluttering your kitchen. Maybe you had a lot of stuff in your kitchen, lots of expired food, lots of appliances, and a lot of unnecessary stuff.

So, you’ve gone in, you’ve decluttered and now you’re expecting it to be great. It’s going to be so easy to cook and you’re going to love being in the kitchen.

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. When you declutter, you don’t necessarily find 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.

What do you need to do before decluttering? (… What do you need to understand when decluttering?)

If you are on this journey of decluttering and simplifying your life, and you’re not getting the results you want, 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 and will also create 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.

If you want to sum this up in a neat little package, when you are doing the initial round of decluttering, you’re removing the superficial clutter from your life. It’s like this layer of dust that’s on your life and distracting you so you’re getting rid of it.

You’re probably not going to feel like your life is easier or that you have less stress immediately because you’re going to reveal the problems that you’ve been avoiding.

But the good news is, now that you’ve gotten rid of that top layer of clutter, you have more time and energy to deal with those problems and that is where simplicity comes from.

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 what I believe to be the normal experience of simplifying your life.

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 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 make some progress and then you have to deal with whatever comes up. Then you make progress and you deal with what comes up.

Slowly but steadily, you start to achieve 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.

If you are struggling with that, understand that it’s normal.

You don’t need to push forward too hard. 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 when you do that.

Why you don’t need to push or rush yourself into decluttering. (…Changing your mindset about decluttering, minimalism, and simplifying.)

For example, last year, in my Clear Your Clutter program, one of the students was really struggling to declutter her home office.

She was self-employed and she had closed down her business, so she was dealing with the grief of mourning the business. It was something that she had worked hard on, and decluttering was hard because those things represented that business to her. Getting rid of it was like saying that final goodbye.

What I always think is, if you are trying to rush through your decluttering like she was, she could have had a day where she was just like, I’ve had enough of this and enraged throwing everything in a bag and got rid of it all.

But she’s still going to wake up the next day, and probably still feel that grief for the business. She will still struggle with letting go.

Whereas if you take the time to 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 feel like I did this, I let go and I’ve come out the other side.

So again, how you declutter and allow yourself the space to deal with whatever comes up is just as important as what you declutter.  

What to do when you are feeling in limbo on your journey of decluttering?

Another reason you might feel like you’re simplifying isn’t working, why you’re decluttering, and you’re not getting the results that you want, is because sometimes we see it like a checklist item.

I am going to declutter my life, check. Then I’m going to feel happy, at ease, and less stressed, right? But what happens is that you end up in a Sunday mindset, where you are waiting to be happy.

It’s like when people say 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 often what happens is that when you achieve those goals there’s always something else. Or you don’t achieve those goals and you feel like you’re living in limbo the whole time saying will I ever be happy?

It almost feels like it’s impossible to feel the way you want because you haven’t achieved certain things yet.

If the limbo you’re feeling revolves around decluttering, simplifying and minimalism because you’re so focused on an end goal I would like to argue that there is no end.

You will never be done simplifying.

Yes, you can make a lot of progress with your decluttering. But there will always be more. There are always going to be new things that come into your life, there’s always going to be the temptation to buy new things, and there will always be more demands on your time and your energy.

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. It’s more like a skill that you can learn or a lifestyle change, versus something that you complete.

If you think about the analogy with healthy living, you could go on a diet. 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.

The same thing with clutter. 

So many people come to me and feel so disappointed about how much decluttering they have to do. They say, I’ve made progress, but there’s so much to do so much more to do.

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.

It doesn’t feel good to be in that mindset of just thinking of how far you’ve got to go.

One thing I like to think about is the example of playing the piano.

Let’s say that you’re learning to play the piano and today is your first lesson. If all you can think about is how you can’t play like Beethoven, it’s going to be really depressing, isn’t it? You’re going to feel like there’s no point in trying because not going to enjoy it.

Alternatively, you could say, alright, I’m learning to play piano, and today I learned to play a little song. You’re really going to be excited.

You appreciate the progress that you’ve made so far, knowing that it’s just one step on that bigger journey towards playing for the symphony orchestra, or whatever your goal is.

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 going to feel disappointed. You’re not going to feel like your life is changing.

One thing I really like to do when I’m decluttering is I like to think a lot about the person I’m becoming, and I really revel in that. That really brings me the feeling that things are getting easier and better while I’m still on the journey.

I’ll give you an example. One of my biggest weaknesses used to be saying yes to anything.

With my blog and being in the public space people want me to participate in interviews, or students want me to help with their projects. And as much as I want to do it all, there’s only so much that I can do.

But I used to instantly write back and be like, yes, yes, yes, of course, I can help you just tell me what you need from me. Then I got better at waiting to reply to the email. I’d sit on it at least overnight, to see how I feel.

Quite often I’d write back and say thank you so much for the offer. I really wish I could help you but I don’t have the capacity right now.

I remember feeling so proud of myself for being able to step up and enforce my boundaries. I am becoming someone who protects their time and that feels really good.

I’m not in a place of lack. I’m not thinking, I’ve got so much to do. Instead of thinking about how I’m growing and becoming the person I want to be.

It’s such a positive cycle.

When you think about who you are becoming, through your decluttering, through your boundaries, through your spending habits, etc.

As you change these things to align with your values and your priorities, you become the person that you want to be.

And then it becomes easier to declutter, it becomes easier to continue with your positive spending habits, etc. because you are no longer forcing yourself to do these things.

You’re acting from a new place of being. I hope that makes sense.

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 resisting a doughnut, and it’s because I’m on a diet and I’m like, oh, I can’t eat that doughnut. It’s not easy. It’s hard to force yourself to not eat the doughnut.

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.

That’s what I’m trying to say.

If every time you declutter, every time you simplify, if you really celebrate every step of the process. You celebrate the progress that you’re making, it’s going to be easier to keep continuing down that path.

And then if we talk about simple living in terms of making life easier, life is going to keep getting easier.

Cultivating the acceptance that you have already done enough – deciding on two options

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. You’re not getting the feelings that you want.

You don’t feel like life is easier even though you’ve done a ton of work. You might have arrived at a point where the next step is to cultivate acceptance.

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.

When that happens, you have two options. You can get rid of those things, or you can reframe them.

I’ve got a funny story that I want to share about this. I’m currently watching the show called Peaky Blinders. It is a British, 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 very crude and violent so it might not be for everyone.

But anyway, I was reading this bonus that was put out there by the writer where he talks about one of the characters who’s not a very nice guy.

He talks about dealing with problems and he uses the example of, 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.

I’m obviously not promoting violence, but you can kind of do the same thing in your mind.

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.

Let me give you a practical example. As some of you know, I have two kids and 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.

On any given day, if you walk into my house at like two in the afternoon, it’s probably a disaster zone.

I have two options in front of me.

I can try to declutter more. And, in full disclosure, sometimes that’s what I do, but realistically, they’re kids, and I’ve got some limits. There’s only so much that I can get rid of. I can’t get rid of all their toys.

But what I can do is, I can declutter what I worry about.

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, before bedtime.

Simplifying is to create rules and setting boundaries for ourselves

This is rooted in something that I talk a lot about with regard to decluttering and simplifying in general. I believe that one of the easiest ways to simplify is to create rules and limits for ourselves.

For example, I don’t buy dry-clean 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.

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.

In the same way, I can create these rules about what to care about.

As I said, I don’t clean during the day. Sometimes I do a bit of laundry, and if I cook, I’ll put my dishes away. But I do not pick up all day and I don’t 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.

I think this is where you see the balance between decluttering and simplifying.

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 take the space that you’ve created and think, What is another solution?

It’s sort of this give-and-take between doing things.

Physical decluttering, making things happen, getting rid of stuff, and at the same time, doing simplifying work in our head.

Where we’re deciding what to care about. We’re thinking about what we can learn from the experience and how we can make life easier.

And that requires some slowing down.

Recap

It was a bit of a long episode so let’s sum things up.

If you are decluttering, and simplifying, but life doesn’t feel easier, first, know that it’s not magic.

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 of getting to know yourself, setting boundaries, figuring out 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. We need to pace ourselves. We need to celebrate the journey and focus on what you’re creating, 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.

Remember, 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 be a point where you’ve reached your limits and then your next option is just to decide what to care about.

I will also mention that if you want some help with this, this is the kind of work we do in my group program, Clear Your Clutter.

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 boot camp.

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.

Then we’re going to do the intentional work of releasing the things that are holding you back.

Things like physical clutter in your home, the clutter in your spending, the clutter in your schedule, the clutter in your mind, etc. 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.

If you want to learn more, you can go to Clear Your Clutter and have a look.

Thank you so much for listening.

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