How I Took My Home From Chaotic To Clutter-Free

Hey, welcome here. Today I got smart and I got actual coffee in this coffee mug because I found that after last week, even though I was holding an empty coffee mug and flinging it about, I found that it did help me to keep my hands more steady. You probably noticed that I am a big hand talker. I like to do a lot of this. So I think that holding a cup of coffee, especially when it actually has coffee in it, it's going to help me to keep my hands down here. This time it's an intentional cup of coffee, but that's not what we're here to talk about today. I'm here to talk about the path that got me to where I am now in regards to my holistic home space and the happiness that I'm able to get from it. So I've shared a lot over the years about why I'm so passionate about home spaces and how I came into it. And I'll talk more about this on Friday whenever I go into more personal details about how I started and that side of things. If you haven't already registered to join me, then be sure to use the link down in the description. You can find the link and then I would absolutely love it if you would hop on and join us. It's going to be a lot of fun. It is totally free and it is 100% live. I will be there in person answering questions. It's going to be this Friday, which is April 9th at 1pm pacific time. So if you are watching this before April 9th, 1pm pacific and 2021, then you are 100% invited to, uh, to this free workshop where I'm going to share about how I create these holistic clutter free spaces for myself and how I help my to do the same. But when I first came into this, it wasn't about aesthetics or needing to be a clean freak. I wanted support. So at the time I was a single mom with two little girls. And by the way, those same two little girls are now teens. And you know, I'd also at that time struggled with years of anxiety and depression, just ups and downs, you know, the drill. I had unpredictable energy patterns for some reason, despite all of the chaos, I had enough insight to know that I needed a home space that was going to majorly help me hold things together. I also needed a home that was not going to fall apart anytime I needed to take a break. So six years later, here we are, and I guess it worked. Um, but what I don't talk as much about is the process from getting to that moment of decision to the end result that I'm living with today. I'm learning after several years of helping several others to track that same path that we seem to all get stuck at similar places. I think that you can learn from my journey, even the mistakes. And honestly, I think that there's a really good chance that you're going to find yourself in one of these same four phases. And if you do, if you can identify yourself as being in one of these phases that I'm going to share with you here in a minute, I'd love to know if you can identify which one you're in, if you happen to be in any of them down in the comments. And I'm going to share both the good and the bad of those phases, because I really, I like to keep the balance. I don't want to say this was the bad phase because of this, and then this was the bad phase because of this, and now everything's great. I think that all of it was a learning process. There were a lot of milestones that I feel like I personally had to go through in order to get to where I am now, where I can help other people get there quicker. So here we go. Here are the four phases that I went through. The first phase was what I like to call information hoarding. This is where I was collecting articles, information, checklists, you know, reading and just absorbing information from everywhere I could get my hands on it. I know a lot of people, whenever they find one of my articles or checklists, it's because they're in that phase and that information collecting information hoarding phase. It can be really beneficial, right? I mean, it got me informed and it led me to the information that I needed in order to get to where I am. So I think that there's definitely value in that first learning, budding, information gathering phase. So many people get stuck here because it feels productive, although it doesn't actually move the needle forward at all. When you're learning and absorbing information, I mean, yeah, there's a lot of value that can come out of that phase, but it's not going to change your home. Those are actions that you have to take. I like to say, you know, knowledge isn't power. Knowledge is potential power. You have to actually take the actions and do more than just learn the stuff, or you're just constantly going to be learning and never actually seeing any results. I've even had people read articles of mine before where I talk about information hoarding and then just be dying down in the comments because they can totally relate. This is so me. I've got all of these articles on my counter right now. So I know that it's an area where people can get stuck. And it's because, like I said, it still feels like you're being productive and it ticks off all of those dopamine ticks of feeling like you're accomplishing something, even though you're not actually yet accomplishing anything. You have to be sure that you get what you need, you get the information that you need, but you don't just settle there. You grab the information and you move on to the next phase. Now, for me, the phase after I felt like I had gathered as much information as possible to get me motivated and pumped to move forward was creative organizing. So I went from collecting a bunch of information to trying probably multiple organizing systems that I had found in the process of gathering information. You see all these articles, people telling you all of these steps to organize, and everybody has their own system, and there are so many products out there that you can use. But I would say that this method or that this creative organizing phase really did help me know for certain what I don't want and what doesn't work for me. So I'm able to tell other people, at least as far as my solid opinion goes, what not to buy, what necessarily not to try, and what's worth the investment. You know, it turns out that I really like real simple solutions when it comes to organizing. The bad thing is there's a time and a place for organizing, and that is after the decluttering process. And I didn't do that, and I see many people who are also not doing that. And it's essentially trying to make this organizing, this creative organizing, and trying one organizing tactic after another, trying to make that a replacement for letting things go like I did. And it just doesn't work because the stuff's still there. Most of the organizers don't work. A lot of them are not made well, and they don't last very long, and they end up contributing to the clutter situation altogether. But in general, even if were great organizing systems, the stuff is still there. You've made progress in streamlining it, making it maybe more livable, more functional, but the clutter is still there. And what is there is always going to eventually find its way back out. So it doesn't solve the problem. Phase three that I went into, probably after my last organizer had fallen apart, and I was probably getting really frustrated because I remember that time of my life being really frustrating because I felt like I was never really making progress, and that drove me crazy because I was doing my homework, and I was trying the things that you were supposed to try, and it still felt like it was just never lasting. So it was a pretty frustrating phase. So somewhere along that path, I came across minimalism, and I started absorbing information about that. And so many people would tell you that you need to get rid of everything that is not really a necessity. You know, like this whole, if it's not a biological necessity, then get rid of it. It's clutter. Just discard, discard. And so I went bare. This was, I would say, on the right path, maybe, because I did become very comfortable with letting go and creating space. And also, I did learn from this experience as well, that I personally need more from my space. I don't necessarily need more stuff to shove places or, you know, but I do need more of a support system built into my place that I felt was missing when I went just completely bare. You know, if you're worried about every little end table that you're using in your house, for example, and so you get rid of them all, and now all you have is a couch and nothing else in that room, well, that's not very supportive. Where are you going to put your drink? You know? So I think there's a line that exists for everybody as far as what's too bare, what's too minimalist for them, and what meets that balance of what I like to call holistic clutter-free spaces. I went back to the drawing board, at least in some ways. I started doing more research, and I also started working more internally on myself. I was getting into meditation and yoga. I was really in this space of self-development at that time in my life. And so I think a lot of that influenced how I interacted with my home and the new things that I tried in order to really make it that support system that I'd wanted from the very beginning. And so I call this tapping into holistic clutter-free spaces. This is the sweet spot. This is my jam. And it is so rewarding when you get it right, when you find that right balance for yourself, when you're not like too bare and you're not keeping too many things because of various excuses, when you really find that sweet spot where every space is curated just for you and it's providing some kind of intrinsic value to you constantly. When you get to that holistic clutter-free space, there really aren't any downsides. There are no downsides for it because that would be the ideal living situation. I can't think of a reason why it wouldn't be. So if you see yourself making some of the mistakes that I did, don't be discouraged. I've been there too, obviously. If you feel like you're stuck in the information hoarding phase and you've been collecting for years now and you know that your home just isn't looking better, don't stress about it. That's the past. Now we can start focusing on where you're at today and how you can move forward to getting these spaces that you really want. If you're trying a new organizing solution or system every week and you're incredibly frustrated and stressed out and that's why you're watching this video right now, don't worry about it. That's in the past. I want you to learn how to really make those spaces that are holistic and supportive and clutter-free at the same time, but really that work for you. That's why I'm so excited to be teaching this workshop on Friday, which is my formula for holistic clutter-free spaces. I'm offering it totally live, which I very rarely do, like once or twice a year. That's going to be April 9th, this Friday at one o'clock pacific time. So go ahead and click the link that's down in the description and that'll take you to the information page so that you can get even more details. But we're going to dive into the five key ingredients for lasting clutter-free holistic spaces. You're going to learn how to turn your home into your greatest support system, which like I said, for me, from ground zero when I first got started, that's what it was. That was the sweet spot, is finding that support system. We're also going to talk about the art of creating an inspired space, how you can tap into creating spaces that make you feel different things like inspired, motivated, recharged, or calm, you know, whatever it is that you're needing. And we're going to talk about how to let go with ease so you can really curate a fabulous, supportive home habitat. I would also be going live, by the way, every day over on Instagram, Monday through Thursday. So we had our first one yesterday. It's up on IGTV now. It was really good. It was about simplicity and how to find simplicity for your home and for yourself. And then I'll be hopping on there again today at one o'clock pacific time. We're going to keep it same times across the board, um, as well as Wednesday and Thursday. And then Friday, again, we're going to have the big workshop, which is really the big training. So these are a warmup to that training. So they're going to help to lay the groundwork, get the mindset, right. And we're just going to talk about some of the ways that people get stuck and how to keep that from happening. And again, the link to join us on Friday is down in the description. I'll catch you next week.