Ep. 202: Breaking the Decluttering Quitting Pattern: Why You Freeze and Why You Haven’t Waited Too Long

If you've ever told yourself, “I always quit,” “I should be further along,” or “I just need to try harder,” this episode is for you.

Before you touch a single item of clutter, we're tackling the real reason women get stuck…and it has nothing to do with laziness or lack of discipline.

In this powerful two-part conversation, we unpack:

• Why past attempts didn’t fail because of you—they failed because of the setup
  
  
• How your nervous system responds to clutter (and why freezing is not a flaw)
  
  
• The exact thoughts to practice when motivation drops or overwhelm hits
  
  
• What it looks like to create change that sticks without pressure or perfection
  
  

This isn’t about doing more.
It’s about thinking differently…so you can finally stay in the game, not sprint toward another burnout.

If you’ve ever felt stuck before you even started, this is your reset.

Resources mentioned in this episode: 

January Clutter Sprint

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Transcript

Well, hey friend, I am so excited that you are here today and we're gonna be talking about clutter. But before we talk about clutter, I wanna talk about timing. Because timing is where many women quietly give up before they ever begin. A lot of women believe that if they were really capable of dealing with their clutter and getting rid of it, they would have done it by now. They don't always say it out loud, but it shows up as thoughts like, if this was going to work, I would have taken care of it already. Or it's been too long. Or,

I've had too many false starts or I always quit. And that belief, it honestly, it feels logical, but it's built on a false assumption. The assumption is that past attempts failed because you were the problem, but that's not accurate. What actually happened is this. You kept trying to start inside the same old conditions that made quitting inevitable. Every other time you tried to deal with your clutter, you were

expected to already feel motivated, already feel clear on what you were going to keep and what you were going to get rid of, or to already have the energy that you needed. And this was all before the clutter ever changed at all. You were expected to bring everything with you at the starting line. And that is not how sustainable change works, especially for women whose lives have been full or demanding or heavy or busy. So let's reframe this right now.

Instead of thinking when it comes to your clutter, instead of thinking I've waited too long or it's too far out of control, I want you to practice this thought instead. This time I'm changing the conditions. I am not trying harder. And this one sentence, it matters because it shifts responsibility off of your personality and onto the setup. This attempt, it's not too late. It's properly supported this time. And that makes it different.

from every other attempt that you have had before this. Another thing I want you to notice is this. You're not starting from scratch. You're starting from experience. You already know to some extent what doesn't work. You already know what happens when you try to do too much at once. You already know what happens when you try to push through exhaustion. You know what happens when you tell yourself that you'll just get it all done before you stop.

Know that all of those times, those were not failures. You can choose to allow those attempts to be information. And that information is really what is at the root of all of it. Because when it comes to what I'm helping women do in this January sprint, it's built around that information. We're not repeating a strategy that has already proven unsustainable. We're changing the sequence and the scope entirely.

So instead of it looking this way, motivation, you show up motivated. We start from the point of motivation. I'm ready, I'm gonna do it. Motivation that leads to action, that leads to overwhelm, that then leads to quitting. We're changing all of that. We are not starting with motivation because you are starting with me in the January clutter sprint. You are starting from a different place. You are starting from support. That leads to regulation.

which leads to small action, which leads to staying in the decluttering game. It is totally different. The outcome is entirely different because we have an entirely different starting point. And because it's different, because that starting point is different, that is essentially a guarantee that the outcome is gonna be different. And this is where I want to introduce another thought that's gonna replace the old one.

When your brain thinks about decluttering and it thinks about all of this stuff and it says, always quit, I never stick with it, I always stop, I want you to replace it with practicing this thought. Now, let me say something about practicing a thought. Practicing a thought means you don't have to believe it. When we start practicing a thought, think about when you started to learn anything that required practice. You were not very good at it in the beginning. In fact, you probably sucked in the beginning.

And so when it comes to you actually believing, what I'm gonna share with you here in a minute, when it actually comes to you believing that thought, you do not have to have any buy-in whatsoever. But this is where the practicing comes in. Because as you practice that thought, as you keep reminding yourself of that thought over and over and over again, in time, it starts to be something that you actually have buy-in to. You actually start to believe it. It actually starts to believe.

you actually start to believe that maybe this could actually be true. So know that when we talk about, when I talk about practicing a thought, it is okay if you don't believe it at all in the beginning. That's actually the normal starting point. But we all have to start at that normal starting point. And then we keep practicing and practicing. We keep saying it and saying it and saying it. And eventually it becomes something that we can believe to be true.

because it is, because you will always find evidence for whatever it is that you believe to be true. And so this new thought that I'm gonna give you here in a minute, if this becomes the thing that you believe to be true, you're gonna find the evidence to support that. And when we have evidence, that's when we can believe that something is actually true. And so when we believe that something is true, then it becomes our truth.

This is entirely different, but it starts with practicing this thought. And here it is. I don't need to finish in order to succeed. I just need to stay in the game. I don't need to finish to succeed. Meaning success doesn't look like finishing. I just need to stay in the game. So what this means is as long as you stay in the game, as long as you don't quit, as long as you don't give up,

then that is success. Success does not look like finishing anymore. We're done with that. The only thing that success is, is continuing to stay in the game. And that doesn't mean stay in the game every day either. It just means that you don't quit, that you don't give up, that you don't get back into the old ways of thinking, which are the negative ones that ends you up in the same place, which is that quitting spiral. So I don't need to finish to succeed. I just need to stay in the game.

Staying, therefore, is the skill. Staying is the win. Staying is what has been missing this whole time, not the effort. You have been putting forth some effort. Staying is what has been missing. So now let's talk about this idea of being behind or that you might have waited too long to deal with this because if we believe it's already too late or if we already think about, if we think thoughts like,

I can't believe I let it get this far gone or I can't believe I let it get to this point. Because when that is what happens, it creates an enormous amount of pressure. And when we are under enormous amounts of pressure in anything, it never helps us move forward. So we need to get rid of that pressure. Being behind, if that's what you are believing or that it's too late,

That implies that there's some sort of universal timeline that you were supposed to follow with your clutter and that you didn't. But here's the truth, there is no universal timeline. There is only the pace that your life has allowed. The truth is that many women carry clutter or have clutter in their homes because they were busy surviving seasons that demanded everything of them.

It's women who are busy raising children and working and caregiving and navigating health issues and logistical complexities and holding families together and carrying emotional, invisible labor. Clutter accumulates in lives that are full, not in lives that are empty. And so when you tell yourself things like, I should have taken care of this by now, or I should have had more, I should be further along by now, what you're really saying is,

I should have had superhuman powers. You're saying I should have had more capacity than I actually did and that's not a fair expectation. It's not reality based. And so here is a more accurate and powerful replacement thought. I am gonna be moving at a pace that lets me come back and start again when life means that that's what I have to do. I'm gonna be moving at a pace that allows me to come back and start again when I have to take a pause.

And this means that some days you are gonna make what feels like really good progress on your clutter. And that is going to feel amazing. And the reality is that there will be other days that life is going to be loud and demanding. And so the clutter will sit untouched. And you can allow that to also feel amazing because allowing movement and pauses is part of the process. There is going to be both movement and pauses.

And so on the days when your life or your need to be human needs to be louder than the progress you're making on the clutter, you're gonna remind yourself of this exact reality that I've just described for you with this thought. Part one is permission to focus on my life outside of clutter. Permission to focus on my life outside of clutter. Or maybe you need permission to be human today.

Whichever one of those statements is true for you on any given day, you're gonna follow it up with, I'll revisit this tomorrow. I'll revisit this tomorrow. Whether it was the fact that your life needed to be loud and demanding, or whether it was the fact that you needed a human day, either way, you're gonna follow that up with, I will revisit this tomorrow. And so what I want you to do is I want you to tuck away this replacement thought, this replacement mantra for those days when you need it.

for those days when it's the, I'm not gonna do anything with the clutter today, moment. Know that this January sprint, this clutter sprint that I am taking women through, it isn't about catching up. It's about entering your decluttering work differently. And that's why we're doing this work here in these audio messages right now before you even touch the clutter. It's because there's this thing called the quitting pattern.

and it doesn't usually activate after day three or day four. In reality, the quitting pattern, it activates before you even start. And it shows up as hesitation or delaying or overthinking or waiting for the right moment or waiting for more time or telling yourself that you'll begin when you feel more ready or that you'll begin when you fill in the blank. What we're doing right now in our work here is

We are interrupting that pattern before it even has a chance to start. And we're not doing that with motivation. And we're not doing that with pressure. We are stepping up to the plate when it comes to this clutter sprint. We are doing it with both understanding, a lot of that we're doing now, but we're doing that with understanding and structure. And so here's another thought that I want you to practice.

especially if overwhelm starts to rise either before or after you get into this clutter sprint. And the thought is this, I don't need to see the whole path. I only need the next step. I don't need to see the whole path. I only need the next step. And this is how real momentum is built. It's not by pretending you're motivated or trying to pretend that you've got clarity.

It's by reducing the threat. All I need is the next step. Now the threat of the whole project, that's taken off the table because all I need is the next step. Know that the day you choose to begin with support is the right day to begin. And as you step into this clutter sprint, that is what you are stepping into. You are stepping into starting to deal with your clutter with support.

It's not about some weird day on the calendar like January 1st. It's not about choosing to begin 10 years ago because I'm too late. And it's not about choosing to begin when life gets easier. It's about choosing to begin now, inside a container that does not ask you to carry this alone. Your only job today, it is not to act, it's to notice. It's to notice the difference in how this already feels.

Notice the absence of urgency. Notice that you are not being asked to prove anything. That's how you know already that something has shifted. So I want to close today by giving you four statements to return to today and throughout the sprint. And I want you to say them out loud. Number one, this time I'm changing the conditions. I'm not simply trying harder. Number two,

I don't need to finish to succeed. I just need to stay in the game. Number three, I am allowed to move at a pace that lets me come back and start again. Number four, I am not doing this the same way. And this all is a recipe for hope. And that hope is rooted in reality. And that is power without pressure. And that is how that quitting pattern

that has always been activated before you even started. That is how that quitting pattern starts to break. It starts to break and it is now broken before it has had the opportunity to take over. So with that, we're ready to move forward.

Okay, so we are ready to move forward. But before we talk about clutter in this new way, I wanna talk about what happens in your body when you even think about dealing with clutter. For many women, this quitting pattern that I've talked about, it doesn't come from laziness or lack of discipline, even though that might be what you've been assuming or what you've been telling yourself.

In reality, that quitting pattern, comes from a nervous system that is doing exactly what it was designed to do. So here's what I mean. When your brain perceives a threat, it only has one job, and that is to protect you. And so your brain, it's not analyzing whether the threat is logical, and it's not measuring whether the threat is emotional or physical.

And your brain doesn't care if the threat is an oncoming car or a decade old pile of clutter. It's going to respond the same way. It's going to respond with fight or flight or freeze. And when it comes to clutter, most women don't fight it and they don't run from it either. They simply freeze. And that freeze feels like things like this, suddenly feeling exhausted or losing motivation out of nowhere.

or not knowing where to start, or feeling emotionally flooded or trapped, or wanting to shut the door and just walk away. Know that all of those scenarios, they don't signal a character issue. It's physiology. Your nervous system, it looks at the clutter and it sees things like too many decisions, or too much uncertainty, or too much emotional weight, too much history, and it says, that's not safe.

That's too much. Shut it down, walk away. And so when you've told yourself things like, I don't know what's wrong with me, or why can't I just get this done, or I always get stuck, or I should be able to handle this, you've been blaming yourself for what is a biological response. And that blame then only reinforces that freeze. Because now the clutter, it's not just about clutter, it's proof. It's become pressure and...

it's become an identity threat. And so we're gonna change all of that now. Instead of interpreting that the freeze is failure, I want you to start interpreting it as information. When you feel in that frozen mode, when it comes to your clutter, it can mean I need safety before I can take action. And it's a very different point at that point. It's a very different scenario.

So here's the problem with how clutter has been approached in the past. Most methods assume that you should push through discomfort. You should force momentum. You should override resistance or you should just get started. And that does work, but only for short bursts. It does not work for the sustainable change. It does not work in a sustainable way, which most clutter projects are going to be a more long-term project.

And this is especially true for women whose lives have been full and have been demanding and who have been emotionally overloaded. So here's the reframe that's gonna start. When your body freezes, instead of thinking I'm stuck, practice thinking this. And we already talked about practicing thoughts. Again, you don't have to believe it's true.

You just need to say it, you just need to repeat it. And in time, you will start to not only believe, but to see how it is true. So instead of thinking I'm stuck or I need to quit, you're going to replace that with my system, my nervous system, I need to feel regulated before I can move forward. I need to do something to offset all of these emotions that have me on high alert, danger, danger mode. I need to bring those down.

and then I'll be able to move forward. And that one shift alone, it changes everything because now the goal is no longer to force yourself into action. The goal is to lower that threat level until action now becomes possible. Think about it as one of those drawbridges that's up in the air, right? When your nervous system is like this drawbridge up in the air,

We need to bring it down just like the drawbridge needs to come down before cars can drive over it, before forward movement is possible. And this is where most women have never been taught what to do. Most women think that when they face that resistance, when their nervous system again gets so revved up that it makes forward progress possible, they think that their only options are to just keep pushing harder or to quit. Those are your options. But there actually is a third option and that is to

pause on purpose. A regulated pause is not the same as quitting. It's actually preparation. And there's a huge difference between walking away because you're overwhelmed and stepping back because you're choosing stability. Here's a simple rule that I want you to borrow during our time together in the Clutter Sprint. If your body feels weak or heavy, the work is not to do more.

The work is to make your body feel better, to make it feel safer. And safety can look like smaller steps or clearer limits or permission to stop before you actually collapse or support instead of isolation or structure instead of pressure. And that's why this clutter sprint is designed the way that it is. We're not flooding your nervous system. We're not asking you to power through. We're not pretending that clutter is just stuff.

We're working with your biology, not against it. And so I want to give you a few practical replacement thoughts to use when that freeze shows up. Because it's going to. And when it does, you don't want to spiral back into that place of self judgment. So practice these instead. When your body says, can't keep going, you're going to say, I don't need to do all of it. I only need to make this moment safe to step into.

I only need to take this one step. When your brain says, I don't know where to start, you're gonna say, confusion means that the step is too big. I need to make the step smaller. When you feel the urge to walk away, you're gonna say, pausing with intention keeps me in the game. And when shame creeps in, because it often does, you're gonna say,

I learned this response for a reason and now I'm teaching it something new. And that last one, it really is important because this work is not just about decluttering whatever needs decluttering in your home. It's about retraining your system to stay present instead of shutting down. That's why we're doing this thought revision and.

looking at things differently before the sprint even starts. It's not because, we're not doing this work because you need more insight, but because when the clutter itself is in front of you, your thinking brain, it's gonna kinda go offline and you need these thoughts, the ones that we're practicing now, available, you need them at the ready before that actually happens. And so here's what you need to do today. You need to know that it's,

nothing physical that you need to do. You don't need to start decluttering today. And there's not even prep work. The only thing you need to do today is this. Notice when your body tightens around the idea of clutter. Notice when you avoid, when you want to avoid, when you feel that urge to avoid the clutter. Notice when your energy drops suddenly and instead of correcting it, just call it for what it is. Just say, this is my freeze response.

It's not about fixing it now. It's not about forcing yourself to just do it and you're honestly not judging yourself either. All you're doing is being aware of what's actually happening because we just talked about it. Awareness alone reduces threat and reduced threat is what makes forward movement possible. And so I'm gonna leave you with three statements for right now. And again, I want you to say these out loud. Number one.

My freeze response is not a flaw. It's just information. My freeze response is not a flaw. It's just information. Number two, I am allowed to regulate before I act. I'm allowed to regulate before I act. Number three, safety creates momentum, not pressure. This is how we stop quitting and it's

It's not by demanding more from ourselves. It's by finally giving ourselves the conditions that makes staying in the game actually possible. And so next we're gonna talk about how to step out of that freeze mode without swinging the other way into overwhelm. Because what we've done now, what we've talked about, like this is a good resting point.

Know that if you've been tracking with me thus far, you're already doing this differently. Even if you haven't touched a single thing. Thinking about things differently, approaching the starting line differently, it is the biggest piece. It is what matters. And that is the work that we have done.