I want you to have a great life. I don’t want any of us to fritter away time feeling stuck, depressed, frustrated, pining or pessimistic. I want us all to DARE to have the lives we really want.
I believe the quickest and most overlooked way to get unstuck is to make changes in our physical surroundings. You know that, right? You know your surrounding’s affect you BIG TIME?
Sure, you do. But do you really know how to identify those mistakes and then do something about them? Here are the 9 big mistakes I think we all make . . . myself included. Check out this list and see if you identify with any of them.
1. Deferring your happiness until later. How many times have you said (or thought) something like . . . “When I retire I will take out my watercolors.” or “I don’t have time or the money to travel right now!” or “I’ll start exercising on Monday.” Putting your dreams on hold is NEVER a good idea. But I’d bet 99.9% of people do it over and over and over. Read more about this.
2. Not living intentionally. By this I mean, just letting life “happen” to you rather than charting the course you really want. I call this default living. Letting things be chosen for you. Taking the path of least resistance. Letting “the winds” decide what your life looks like. Read more about this.
3. Becoming blind to their mess. There is a Febreze® commercial that talks about becoming “nose blind” to the odors in your home. The premise is that we get used to the odors and can no longer smell them. I completely agree. We do this not only with our noses but with our eyes and our hearts. We let clutter pile up, dead plants sit on our counter-tops, toxic people stay in our lives and we keep wearing the same worn out sweatpants over and over. Read more about this.
4. Not moving things around. Energy has GOT to move. If things don’t move they either get covered in algae or die. Same thing happens in our life. We must move things in our lives to keep things moving. Move our bodies, our furniture, our minds. Things that don’t move atrophy and eventually die. Read more about this.
5. Holding on to dead people’s stuff. Family heirlooms and hand-me-downs are great. That is if you like the stuff. But are you holding on to things because of some unspoken rule that you have to? Is your space full of things you wouldn’t have bought but they've wound in your space and you don’t like them? That sh*t is bringing you down. Trust Me! Read more about this.
6. Underestimating how your surroundings affect you and depleting your energy. How do you feel after 8 days of solid rain? A little blah, I bet. What about the friends’ homes you love to spend time in and the others you avoid. How do you feel when you go into your cluttered garage or that disorganized closet? If you've never experience this kind of reaction to your environment, well, you’re just not paying attention. You're just going to have to trust me on this one. Outside affects inside. Pay attention and I promise you'll see it. Read more about this.
7. Thinking that something you can’t see doesn't affect you. Junk drawers, crap in your closets, boxes under the bed and attics that are crammed full drain your energy. Maybe not as much as it would if you had to step over it every day but it’s depleting you. Trust me. It’s like keeping the lights on in an “unused” space . . . that energy is still used and still shows up on your electricity bill. Read more about this
8. Not learning how to set goals or intentions. This one surprises me, but I’ve observed that most (yes, I said MOST) people don’t know how to set goals and make lasting change. I shouldn’t be that surprised because book shelves and infomercials are all aimed at helping people change. But setting real, achievable, not-always-urgent-but-ever-so-important goals must be learned. Do you really know how to do this?
9. NOT setting goals or intentions. So, you're one of the rare and lucky few who know how to do this. But do you do it? Chances are you probably don’t. Why? My bet is you get comfortable right where you are. All humans do this. I call this the “velvet rut.” Nice and cozy but a rut all the same. Ask yourself, am I in a rut? Then make a plan to get out of it. Read more about this.
If you want things to change . . . you have to change something. It's that simple. But change is hard, at least for most of us. We love our ruts, we come blind to our environment, we find ourselves waiting and hoping and wishing for things to be different.
But things can be different, starting to day. Move something, clean something, purge something. And things will begin to shift, I 100% guaranteed!!!