Monday, November 28, 2022
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| You and Santa both check your list twice. |
As I was revising and finalizing the content for my Simplify Your Holidays webinar on December 1, I caught an episode of The 6-Figure Coach podcast with Neill Williams featuring Leah Roling, a life and business coach talking about my favorite subject: clutter. Leah said that when she coaches her clients about their Temporal Clutter (that is: overscheduled calendars, constant busy-ness, productivity burnout), she gets them to do a To-Do List audit. My ears perked up. She was definitely speaking my "essentialist" language. Of course, clutter always starts in the mind, but it manifests in all the ways--including our cluttered calendars. Take her savvy advice and see where you might be hoarding busy-ness and overwhelm that ain't nobody got time for!
The To-Do List Audit
- Make a list of everything you have to-do. Leave nothing out. Listmakers, where you at? Let’s go! You know you want to write some stuff down just to cross some stuff off!
- Review each item on your list and ask yourself these questions:
- Am I the only one responsible for doing this thing (and only me)?
- But seriously: are you the only one? It’s worth asking twice.
- Does it have to be done this week?
- If yes to the questions–put it on your calendar and obey your calendar! This eliminates the decision fatigue you get from 1)not feeling like it (and you won't feel like it all the time, even when it's important) and 2) not getting it done at all while you mentally spiral and scroll social media/online shop/eat candy. Remember, clutter is just unmade decisions, so by eliminating decisions of when and if you're going to do the thing you already said you have to do and you're the only one who can do, you're removing these would-be blocks to actually doing it.
- If someone else could do it or is jointly responsible for it or it doesn't have to be done this week…it doesn't mean that the activity is not worthwhile, but it may mean that it's not the best use of YOUR time right now because either you could be doing a different activity that will be more energizing to you that only you can do (exercise, visiting a friend) or that is more focused toward your goals and values (here's me, writing this blog post and trying to create great content for my clients!). You can still add these to your calendar, but try putting them in a different color or denoting their lower priority in some way so as not to derail the priority projects.
While you get your to-do list in shape and lighten your load by delegating, remember these words of Martha Beck, "Never put off anything that you can cancel entirely."
If you are experiencing any kind of clutter in your life, from your calendar to your relationships or your closet, I would be so honored to help you sort it out as your clutter coach. The one you've been waiting for is already here, but she's under something heavy! Visit the contact page of my site to book a session or send me a message to set up a discovery call.
Tuesday, November 22, 2022
It can be difficult to access gratitude when we receive criticism if we are disposed to thinking of it as evidence to support the most painful stories we have about ourselves, which in whatever form they take in our minds, usually amount to: I'm not enough
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| Thank you for noticing my worth and helping me finish strong! |
The fact is, your worth and your value is absolute and nothing that you do and nothing that anyone else thinks about you can diminish your enoughness. (You didn't create you, so stop trying to take all the credit.) Nothing you think about you or anyone else changes it either, so why not think a wonderful thing about the person offering you criticism and most importantly about you?
What if the person who criticized you is offering feedback...
- To help you finish strong?
- To push you to grow?
- Because they are in pain that has nothing to do with you?
Even if the person says words in anger, you still get to choose whatever you want to think. When you think of their words as a gift, you are able to cultivate more love for yourself and for the person offering it in the first place, a gift to them. Think how much less painful such an encounter would be if you are simply willing to be wrong about both your own story and the other person.
It's a gift that will cost nothing of either of you and the only space it will occupy is in your newly-expanded heart.
If you found this simple exercise of believing a new thing gave you fresh perspective, consider working with me and let's be curious together about how much your life can transform one thought at a time. Visit the contact page of my site to book a session or send me a message to set up a discovery call. Much love.
Monday, November 7, 2022
When my kids were little, we used to love reading together on an ipad app called The Monster at the End of This Book starring the lovable Grover from Sesame Street, who is terrified to turn each page of the book knowing it is one page closer to the monster he has been told is at the end. The suspense builds as we turn page by page until the final page when Grover sees….[SCREAMS!] himself. Phew. That wasn’t so bad, was it?
Our clutter is much the same way. It’s lurking in places we perceive to be dark and terrifying, but if we simply gather our courage to open the door and look, it’s just our lovable selves showing us where some attention is needed. That’s all clutter is–unmade decisions, or accumulated unconscious ones–asking for our attention in this moment.
But how do we make a decision now that we’ve been agonizing over for days,weeks, months, or years? Fun fact: decisions don’t actually take a long time. They are made in an instant. We like to torture ourselves by thinking they should take forever, make them larger and weightier than they are–turn them into monsters, while we spin in our ruminating thoughts. We tell ourselves "I'm going to think about it," which sounds sage and mature, but what we really mean is "I'm going to suffer about it."
How do we escape the spin? We DECIDE that we will make a decision–and we do. Decisions are experiments that move us forward and help us refine ourselves as we learn and grow. This is exactly what happens in the scientific method, which incorporates fancy terms like hypothesis and analysis to elevate what it is, which is: guess and check. Try again.
Consider that, whatever your decision (your guess), it doesn’t define who you are forever. It's a vote for who you want to be right now--an experiment of identity. You may vote for being a person who eats chips for dinner one night this week, but if you find that experiment doesn't work in your favor, you can vote to be a person who eats differently every other day in the week. As in any election, the majority tally will determine the kind of person you actually are and elections come around with great regularity.
Take umbrage in the reality that no matter what you choose, you will still have a human experience that is 50% amazing and wonderful and 50% that might be uncomfortable and challenging. No decision is an off-ramp from the human experience of some good and some bad, so let yourself choose with confidence knowing that everything will go exactly as it is supposed to and you can keep experimenting until you do.
Picked a toothbrush you didn’t like at the store? Just pick a different one next time. Took a job you don’t love? You can do something else. Took a wrong turn? You can turn the car around and still get where you’re going. Made some mistakes? We all do; that’s how we learn. You don’t have to make it mean anything negative about yourself.
Here are two ideas for scheduling decisions about clutter–in your inbox, your closet, your kitchen counters, your junk drawer, your purse or backpack, your to-do list, your to-try list–RIGHT NOW!
- Set a timer and just GO! Organization expert Shira Gill’s 15 Minute Wins are a great way to tackle a small job and set yourself up for victory in a non-overwhelming amount of time. 15 minutes too much? Try 10 minutes or even 2! Showing up and honoring your commitment to yourself is what matters. If you can’t commit to working out, just put your gym clothes out every night and put them on at a designated time each day. Give yourself a win and keep going!
- Calendar It- Decide how long a task will take, put it on your calendar like an appointment, and obey your calendar. This blog post is an example of me doing just that!
You can do this. I believe in you!
Want more help making decisions or creating an action plan to get out of your head and get moving? 20 Minute coaching sessions for November are just $5! Book now to reserve your time.
P.S. You read the whole post and nothing jumped out to bite your leg...I hope. Phew! There really was no monster.
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