In the last 6 months, I’ve been focusing this blog on decluttering your home. In the process, I’ve been decluttering my own home, facing up to the stress that clutter causes. As we near the end of this process of decluttering your physical baggage, it’s time start the process of decluttering your life.
So why would you want to declutter your life?
When your whole life is cluttered, you end up being stretched too thin, unable to focus on one task because you’re thinking about all the other things you feel that you should be doing. The outcome is that you’re overwhelmed, stressed and stuck. Decluttering your life means that:
- you focus on what and who is important
- you focus your energy on one thing at a time
- your stress levels reduce
- you feel happier
- you’re able to say no
How can you start to declutter your life?
1 – Start small
Small changes over a long period of time lead to bigger changes. Use the decluttering process to look at where you are now in terms of your life. If you’d like to work through the Wheel of Life with me, give me a shout. It’ll take about 30 minutes and it’s free.
2 – Identify what’s important to you
Once you see how your life purpose, your passions and your values are connected, you can make clearer decisions. Your goals are aligned to what you actually want to do, and as you start to enjoy life again, then your level of optimism and happiness increases. If you’re not sure what your purpose (what you want to do in life), passions (what you love, what makes you happy) or values (what is important to you) are, then take some time to reflect on them.
See also:
3 – Identify time drains
When you do an inventory of where your time is spent, you can see which areas you need to work on and what your priorities should be. For some, social media will be a drain, for others it will be their email or even certain family members! What other drains can you identify?
Decluttering your calendar or schedule to make it more manageable will be difficult at first, but when you focus on what are actual priorities rather than other people’s demands, you’ll start to feel a little more able to say no.
Where Life Coaching comes in
If you’re starting from a point of overwhelm, stress or simply being stuck, then Life coaching may help you clarify:
- where you are now
- where you want to be
- how you can get there
- what support you can count on
- what obstacles you’ll face and how to prepare for them
- what boundaries you need to put in place in terms of your time and your behaviour towards yourself and others. (And their behaviour towards you.)
When you start creating goals and plans of action, then the in-built accountability will help you keep on track.
Personally, I still work with my own Life Coach, and find the process of clarifying boundaries, setting weekly and monthly goals has helped me keep striving to be better, to do more and to stretch myself in ways I wouldn’t have dreamed of last year.
Take care for now
Karen x
PS If you think you couldn’t afford to work with me, then I do take on 2 pro bono clients a month, and I also have a “pay it forward” option. I give you an hour of my time, and you give an hour of your time to help someone else who would benefit from your special set of skills.