A Chaotic Home Blocks Change
As I write this, we are a few weeks into the new year. A time where typically people are seeking a fresh start of some kind. Some are determined that THIS will be the year they make changes. Many people strongly desire change or a pivot in the lifestyle they are currently living.
When setting a new goal for myself, I found that I would only focus on that specific goal. I failed at considering all the other factors of my life when strategizing how to reach that goal. And more times than not…that is the exact reason why I failed.
The Conscious Living Approach is taking into account ALL of the things in life. When we desire a change, an improvement, healing, it’s not always easy. We wait for the perfect scenario, the right timing, or the start of a new year. We put a lot of pressure and expectations on meeting that exact goal and we have tunnel vision. This approach is designed in a way to accomplish what you want while still in your day-to-day life. I’m sorry to say, but the perfect timing doesn’t always come. We have to learn how to work WITH the current instead of waiting for it to work FOR us.
My goal for you is to recognize how taking small baby steps at a time is the right approach for reaching the dream life you imagine for yourself, not just one specific goal. Throughout this platform, there are ways to accomplish that exact thing.
For the purpose of this topic, we are going to talk about a potential secret blocker keeping you from your success in making a change. And that is your environment, specifically, your home. Let me give you some examples first:
-If you want to eat healthier, but your kitchen doesn’t flow well, it will be hard to be consistent.
-If you want to manage your anxiety, but clothes are falling out of your closet, it will be hard when you start your day with overwhelm.
-If you want to manage your schedule better, but your counters are filled with clutter, it will be hard to have a clear mind when needing to map out your day.
-If you have a general goal of being more organized, but you have zero control of your home, it will be hard to realistically achieve that.
Ok ok, I am sorry if you feel the anxiety building in your chest as you read that. First, roll your shoulders back, unclench your jaw, take a full belly breath and take a long exhale out your mouth. We are going to walk through this, just promise me you are going to give yourself grace, kindness, and patience. This is a gentle nudge with a realistic solution. I built this platform to help you FEEL your best. We are going to take the steps to gradually get there. Little by little you will see the snowball effect all of this will have in reaching your dream life. It is time to stop blocking yourself from that.
Are you ready? Let’s start with some reflection of your space first:
(A reflection to bring awareness, no shame or guilt allowed in this space, got it?)
-When you think of your home, what is your initial reaction?
-Do you know where stuff is when you go to find it?
-Do you have a list of projects around the house you’d like to accomplish?
-Make a list of what areas need to be organized.
-How attached to your things are you? Would you be willing to get rid of things you truly use?
-Spend a few minutes writing out what the dream state of your house would be.
For instance, here is a glimpse into mine. When I walk into my house, I want to feel relieved. I want to have a space that I can come home and feel safe to unwind. I want to be comfy and at ease when at home. I want everything to have a place. I feel calmer when I go to a closet, a drawer, my basement, and things are organized and easy to find. Order in my home allows me to face just about anything with more ease. Being in charge of the environment of my family’s home gives me a sense of responsibility to provide my family the same feeling. I want my husband to come home and soak in family time. I want to give him his space to do what he needs to do to show up as his best. I want my littles to feel safe to play, grow, learn, and relax. I want them to sleep in a peaceful room and have multiple opportunities to meet their needs throughout the house.
I quickly learned that I will have chaos if we live in chaos. Last year I began a large purge to declutter our house and start working towards having our dream space. I began to minimize the chaos by completing tasks little by little. To achieve that, I needed to know I didn’t have to achieve it all at once. I needed to eliminate the pressure and make the approach realistic and manageable.
One day, I decided to get all of the things out of my brain and onto paper. I made a long list of everything that I felt needed to be done around the house. Next, I separated it into categories: organizing, enhancing, outdoors, and husband projects. Then I prioritized each list and placed each task on a “ticket”. I created a “family hub” spot. A wall with a bulletin board, calendar, and hooks for keys. On the bulletin board I used a thumb tack to hold each stack of “tickets” in all four categories. That way, when I had the space to accomplish a task (or if my husband had the space), we could easily grab a ticket and get to work. My one rule was, we couldn't add new projects for ourselves until the tickets were gone. If a new project idea came up, we would write it on a new list to have when we were ready for more tickets.
Your categories may look different but this can be a guiding post for creating your own ticket system. I will break down each category.
-Organizing: this allowed me to start small and work into the bigger projects. Food storage containers, pantry, junk drawer, coat closet, hall closet, playroom closet, basement. Bedroom closets, extra bins of clothes, toy rotation. Paper work, desk drawers, bills, stacks of mail. Fridge, freezer, under the bathroom sink, under the kitchen sink. Every holiday, I would go through the tote and decide what I truly used and what I could get rid of. Little by little, with the ticket system, I was able to chip away every single space of our house that needed to be decluttered and organized. I became pretty ruthless at getting rid of stuff (which can be its own post of detaching from “things”). I had to get really honest with myself about how I want our space to be and anything that didn’t match that, was eliminated.
-Enhancing: I needed our home to flow well and to FEEL nice. Once I started to declutter, I was able to spend time and energy on decorating and enhancing our space. Each room had a purpose and I was intentional with each space (which again will be a whole other post). I was able to start making tasks to redesign, hang things, and purchase specific storage items. For instance: our living room became a combination of a “big body” play area and our living space area (added to the list to elaborate on in future posts). I broke down the room to specific tasks and over the span of a couple months I was able to enhance the space little by little in a way that didn’t overwhelm me and was the most cost efficient.
-Outdoors: this needs its own category because our goal is to spend a lot more time outdoors. We are homeschooling our littles and I have done a lot of research on making an outdoor space available and open ended. We also have a dream of owning a larger amount of land and have a lot to learn before getting there. Some tasks came with making a mud kitchen for the littles, our garden and the chickens. This is a space I am very excited about enhancing even more after Winter.
-Husband Projects: self explanatory. But for my husband’s sake, I made it easier for him to focus on things I needed help with instead of just hearing the long list of my “ideas”. We have three children, five and under, and have a lot of moving parts beyond that. We are finding the systems that work for our communication and supporting each other. Wife Hack: instead of being annoyed about things not being done, I got extremely clear with communicating exactly what I need help with and which ones are the most important to me. We both win in this scenario.
Like everything I discuss, I am explaining what works for me and my family. My hope is to get the ball rolling for you. Give you ideas of what to try or spark a new idea for you and your specific needs.My hope is to give you the ability to break it down into smaller steps which will make your transition to living life more consciously doable. It is easier enough to speak about making changes, improving your life, healing from things that keep you stuck in old patterns. It’s a whole other thing to make strides in actually accomplishing it.
If this post made you realize your home may need more work than you might have realized, ease up on your other goals for a period of time. Once you have your home in a more desirable flow, you may recognize that your other goals seem easier to reach.
