Mess attracts Mess & Tidy attracts Tidy

What if the reason your home keeps getting messy isn't because you're lazy... but because mess attracts more mess?

In this episode, Christine explores how your environment shapes your habits, your mindset, and even the way you see yourself. Discover why overwhelm is often just a series of unmade decisions, how owning less creates more freedom, and why giving everything a home makes staying organised feel effortless.

You'll learn practical tips to simplify your space, fall back in love with your home, and create beautifully styled surfaces that support the life you're trying to build.

If you're ready to declutter your home, clear your mind, and step into an upgraded version of yourself, this episode is for you.

Because when your environment changes, everything changes. 💜

Christine at Home 💜
Your Home & Lifestyle Coach

Ready to feel more organised, calm, and in control of your home and life? Start here:
✨ Learn More 

💗 Come say hello on Instagram: @christine_at_home

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Hello and welcome to this week's episode of Christine at Home the podcast. Now I want to start today's episode with a sentence that completely changed the way that I look at my home. Mess attracts mess, tidy attracts tidy. Think about it. You walk into your kitchen and there's one mug that's just sitting on the worktop. What do you do? You put it away. It's one mug, right? Now imagine there is already six mugs sitting there: some pots, a charger, yesterday's shopping recipe, a hair bobble, a random screwdriver just sitting there, all in a pile. Now what's one more mug? Nothing. You've just added to the pile, and that is exactly why clutter multiplies into piles. Today we're talking about why your environment matters, why overwhelm is really just a series of unmade decisions, and how creating a beautiful home can completely transform the way that you move through your life. Now you might be sitting there just thinking, Well, I'm just not a tidy person, right? And you've tied that up with your identity. Maybe you spend hours cleaning only for everything to look a complete mess again the next day, or by the afternoon, yeah. You'd get frustrated, you're thinking, What is the point? I just spend my whole life cleaning up, tidying up. But you've got to realise something, right? The problem isn't that you can't tidy up, the problem is that you own too much stuff, yeah. You're just handling too much inventory in your home, and it is almost impossible when you've got tons of stuff. Every surface becomes a landing pad because there just isn't enough space for everything that you have to just move around your home, and that's when everything just looks messy and you stop noticing the mess because it's just stuff everywhere, and everywhere you look, it's like, oh, I don't know where that goes. So it it almost stunts you into doing it, makes you do nothing because you look around everywhere and you don't know where to start. If that sounds familiar, then keep on listening in and listen to this podcast every single week, and I'll give you little golden nuggets to help you along the road of going from mess to success. Now I want to flip this mess on its head, okay, and tell you why tidy also attracts tidy. Have you ever decluttered just one room and suddenly you just see that charger lying there? If there's just one charger on the floor, it is so easy to just pick that up and put that away because everything's sitting perfect. Or maybe it's just like one jumper that is sat there. You can put that away, it's no problem. Or a pair of shoes that are just sitting in the middle, it sticks out like a sore thumb if if everything else is put away properly. So when a space is tidy, those things really do jump out to you, they're so obvious, and it makes it really easy and achievable to just pick it up. It takes five seconds to put it away. Tidy really does feel achievable, right? And that's why once you get on top of things, once you've got things cleared out and styled properly, you don't want to mess it up, and that's where you want to get to a point. You want to get to that point so you can stay on top of things. Because when you get organized and tidied up, you naturally want to protect it. But when a room is already chaotic, one more thing just adds to the pile and you're already overwhelmed. One more shopping bag just sits in the mess, one more pile of paperwork, I'll just sit that random pencil or sharpener or something, just sit that there. Another jacket gets added to the pile. Before you know it, the pile has become an entire room, and you just think, Oh, I'm too far gone now, right? And that's what I want to get you back from. So there's something that I tell my coaching clients all the time that overwhelm is just a series of unmade decisions. Should I keep this? Should I donate this? Where does this go? Will I ever use this? Oh, that belongs to someone else, they're annoying me now because they've sat their stuff there, but you don't really know where to put it either. Every object that's just sitting out of place is usually just like wasting brain space for you because you you need to think about where it all goes when you don't know where it goes, right? So your brain knows it. Your brain is actually seeing everything that is sitting around you in your subconscious, right? It notices everything, and that is like draining your battery, right? You've got a charge amount, you're like a phone, you've charged up during the night to a certain number. We don't all wake up with 100% charge. Some of us have you know wakening up issues, we've got kids, we've got partners, but whatever battery that you've started the day with, the quickest way to deplete that is by having extra stuff sitting about, taking up a percentage of your battery. So, yeah, your brain knows it when things are chaotic, and that's why you feel even more exhausted. Every time you walk past a pile, your brain gets another little reminder that stuff is sitting out, another open tab in your brain, as I always say, another unfinished task, and lots of question marks when when you don't know where things go. So, no wonder you feel exhausted just by moving through your house and trying to deal with stuff and move some stuff, but it feels like a bit of a failure because you can't move all the stuff. So that is why decluttering isn't really about the stuff, it's about it's about creating the mental space. And moving on to the identity piece with your home. I truly believe that your environment shapes your identity, your environment in every way is in how you dress, how you show up, where you go, who you hang out with, and most importantly, your home, okay, because that's your little habitat, that's where you live, yeah. So your identity really is wrapped up in this. So I want you to think about this. When you get dressed in an outfit that you absolutely love, you stand taller, you feel yourself, you feel confident, you behave differently because you feel good, you feel comfortable in your skin or in your outfit, right? And the same thing happens with your home. When you surround yourself by a home that feels nice and calm, you feel calmer. When it feels elevated, you feel like you are just a top-class woman, right? You start to wrap up your identity, and I am the type of person that has a home like this. So you get to create that home, so you get to create how you show up in the world. So here's a question for you: how does someone who has their life together move through their home, right? Imagine that, and that is you. That's gonna be the next level, the next version of yourself. Do they just leave their cups everywhere, or is their bed unmade? Do they have piles of clothes sitting on their chair? Are they frantic? Are they in a rush? Do they spend 20 minutes looking for their car keys before leaving? Probably not. Okay, they've created systems, they've got their hair, their makeup sorted, their outfit sorted, they know where things go, they've reduced all the decision making, and they don't have this decision fatigue, right? Their environment supports them instead of draining them, and that's what you can step into. One of the biggest mindset shifts that I've had over the years of adulting is that less stuff equals less life admin. Now I have moved house and moved house again during my adult life. I've had big houses, I've had small houses, I've I've had to downsize due to the events in my life. If you followed me, if you're an OG from the start, you would have seen my five-bed townhouse when I first started my home account on Instagram, and you would have seen the journey that I have gone through. I had to move into my one-bedroom Airbnb, I've been in a two-bed, I'm now in a four-bed. I've gone up and down and up and down. It's been pretty crazy. So I have learned the hard way about filling, you know, a five-bedroom townhouse, including a massive basement that is, you know, the same size as some people's flats. Like from going to that down to a one-bedroom with a with a baby, actually. It was a crazy time in my life. Um, feel free to ask me more about that and DMs. But yeah, I've had to learn the hard way about you know, having less stuff and moving from that place into you know mine and my daughter's little safe haven when we went into a little two-bedroom with no storage in the house either, and just learning to make that a home and make it functional. And you know, kids come with so much stuff, don't they? So I know what it's like to have to reduce stuff down and how to make that not like torture, not a traumatic bad thing, but to make it like easier and better. It it is okay and it's safe to do it. And sometimes I see people say, Oh, I've got kids, I've got all these clothes and stuff. Sometimes when you're forced to have less space, you're forced to manage less stuff, and it is the best thing that I've ever had to learn because now going into a bigger house again, I've not filled it with nonsense, I've still kept that sort of mindset of not having to have loads and loads and loads of stuff, like growing out the you know, arms and arms and legs. I've just sort of developed it where it's manageable and it's it's got systems in place, and that's what I think the secret is to helping women get less overwhelmed, is just having less stuff to manage. And if that hasn't convinced you just yet, I just want to remind you that everything that you have in your home needs to be cleaned, it has to be stored, moved about, maintained, organized, lost and found again, and eventually uh decluttered, right? It's all inventory in your home. So if you've reduced that down in your home, you automatically reduce the amount of energy required to manage it, and that's freedom. It really is. That's where you will find freedom and happiness and joy and be able to move better through your home. There's a statistic that says many people regularly use only a small portion of what they own. So usually, you know, the stat out there will say, Oh, you only use 20% of what's actually in your home. But I don't, I absolutely don't. Everything really that I've got available, apart from some stuff that I don't need to get to, that is put away in a back cupboard or stored properly, or a garage, or a loft, like I tend to use everything else that is available inside and that is in drawers and that is to hand, and that's what I want you to get to as well. So instead of filling your home with things that you might use one day, you want to put those might use one day is either get rid of them or get them in a hard-to-reach, stored properly place. So why not increase that percentage of the things that you actually love and use? Simplify your life, yeah. The goal isn't to have an empty house though, right? You've been warned. This is my full disclosure. It is great to get rid of stuff, but you also don't want to live in like a lifeless, boring house, or maybe you do, and this is not the podcast for you. You can go down the whole minimalism route. There's loads of creators that will chat about that. That is not for me. I'm here for the women who want to have like a sanctuary in their home, a home that they love, and this is the part where when you get rid of stuff and you've cleared surfaces, you're not using them as dumping grounds, you can start to elevate them and start to make them look really, really beautiful. And that is the exciting part. So you're not filling it with nonsense, you are styling it properly because you're not using it as a dumping ground. You get to start to elevate your life at that point, you're dressing right, you've got the good habits, you're moving through your home where it looks beautiful because what that will do for your self-esteem, honestly, it is just it's golden, it's the best thing ever. So, yeah, the goal isn't to have an empty house, it's to have a house that has got things intentionally. Everything should have a home so you know where to go and get things, you know where to put things away easier. Because when everything has a home, right, cleaning becomes resetting instead of searching for things, tidying becomes five minutes instead of five hours, it really does. And surfaces stay beautifully clear instead of becoming storage because things have somewhere to go home, right? And my favourite part, like I said, is that once all of that is done, once you've let go of all the unnecessary things that are not improving your life and just complicating it, once you've cleared all of these spaces, you get to style it, and this is when you get to really play about with your personality and start to bring pieces of you into the home. You can bring in things like lamps, candles, diffusers, family photos, coffee table books, like elegant storage boxes for things like I have these little books now that I've added to the front uh radiator cover, and that has like random bits in it that used to just sit at the front door, like it was just annoying. But you know, things like keys that we have for other properties or whatnot, or Allen keys, business cards, you know, just like bits and bobs. Um, you know, you can still know where they belong, but they're just put away in a more elegant, you know, better way. It's not clutter, it's styling. That's when you get to style little areas and start to bring little pieces of your own personality into your home because after all, it is your home. You want to enjoy it, you want to be surrounded by the things that you love. Creating a home that tells a story is so important. Like one one thing that I've spoken about in the podcast before is having framed photos that were that are capturing like amazing memories. It doesn't always have to be the best photo, but if it gives you like this memory of that perfect day that you've had, or um you know, just just like you remember that amazing moment, get that framed about your house, get surrounded by things that you love, and I want you to think about all your senses as well. Yeah, have things that smell good in your house, and I want you to really fall in love with your home and your environment. And on that note, if you've not got enough photos of things of good days and good memories, you need to start designing a life that you love. You want to start getting out there and creating memories and moments that are special and enjoyable, like you are here, you do not want to waste a second that we have on this earth. So if you have not got enough memories of good things happening, it is time to grab the bill by its horn and start creating these memories. Yeah, make them happen, or life's just gonna walk you on by. So, my final thoughts for today is that your home shouldn't just be organized, right, and really sterile, it should feel like you, right? Start to develop that style where other people who know you will go, Oh, you know, oh Christine would love that, or that's so like Christine, or you know, like who what what would the people in your life say, Oh, that's so you? Do you know what I mean? And if you don't have that yet, start to really double down on what the things that you like and start to go in this journey of self-discovery and see what colour palettes do I like, what do I suit? What should you know, all these things? And Pinterest is great for this. Start really spending time getting to know yourself and your style. And if you get stuck, yeah, there's tools that are available to you, like about styling things in your home. There's nothing stopping you taking a photo of an area in your home, uploading it into Chat GBT, and just ask, like, how how would you style this space? But you always want to give Chat GBT a bit of a role, it just helps it. So you want to say something like, you know, as a world-class interior designer, um, please create me an image of how this space could be really elevated, or you know, something like that, or what about like you know, makes it feel luxurious, or and it'll create you something you might go, oh wow, you might you know keep brainstorming, or you might go out to the shop, take yourself out on a little date, and start accumulating things. You know, you could ask it something like, How can I make this look calm and expensive without buying loads of stuff, right? You can ask it whatever you want, and again, get onto Pinterest, start developing some boards of your looks and your home and your lifestyle, like all of it, okay. So, some lessons and takeaways from today's episode is I want you to remember that mess attracts mess and tidy attracts tidy. That is the main theme of today's episode. When you minimize the inventory in your home, create clear surfaces and give everything a place, you create an environment that naturally supports the person that you are becoming, right? And that ultimately is what my coaching is all about. Yes, it is home and lifestyle coaching, but I'm more interested in improving the person behind it, and that's why we're doing the home setups and improving your lifestyle, so as you get to become that, you know, evolved, amazing person that you're just destined to be, uh, but you're just stuck, you're just stuck just now underneath you know, the the doings, the the hard work of what your life is just now, but you really, really can come through that, and I believe that is true for every woman, and that is what I am on a mission to do. When your environment changes, everything really does change, okay? You feel lighter, clearer, and you can make better decisions in all areas of life. When you get your home decluttered and styled, you start to show up differently in your life, and all these little things start adding up and adding up, and you're just becoming this evolved person. It's just gonna be life-changing, and I feel like I say that all the time, but it's because I think this work really is life-changing. The upgrade that you will get will will honestly naturally appear bit by bit, it'll start to emerge slowly but surely, but you've got to just pick away at it, chisel away at this, you know, evolved version of yourself each and every day, and that's how you're gonna get ahead. Just one day, one action, one percent better each and every day, and you're gonna get there right. So, if you are sitting listening to this and you're thinking, I do know exactly where to start, but I know I will not stay accountable, right? I'll maybe after this today move a couple of things at home, but like there's nobody watching me. Well, I would love to help. Now I've got a coaching package that is a course, it is a self-paced course that you get to work through in your own time, and I suggest that you listen to one lesson each and every week, and it'll take you eight weeks to do it really thoroughly, to use all of the things included like in the course, like the course notes, watching the video, doing the action steps to really change your life. So that's a really great place to start. But if you're ready for more support and you're like listening to this, feeling motivated, thinking, Yep, I am ready to dive in, then Christine's streamlined success programme is the one for you. This is the 90-day transformation designed to simplify your home and your life, and that's where we we really look at you one one-on-one. We do a big planning session, see exactly what you're gonna get by the end of these 90 days, and then we have weekly check-ins. So, as I hold you accountable and make sure that you are getting the results that we set at the start, and in 90 days, oh my goodness, what a transformation we can get you. So, if that sounds like something exciting, please do get in touch. I have another coaching option which might be more suited for you and where you're at today. So, if you're focused on having a really big breakthrough, then my life reset, a new you, a new life is a one-to-one coaching session, and it's designed, it's like a one-off one-off session, okay? It's designed to give you clarity, direction, and an action plan that you can start immediately. Yeah, so that one is just like absolutely running through a wall and getting stuff changed. So that is like a one-off session. So I have three different options here available for you. I'd love to help you create a home and a lifestyle that truly supports you. So please do check out all the links in my bio on my Instagram or check out my website. All of the details will be in the show notes today. So before you go, if you're not quite ready to take action on any coaching with me just yet, that's okay. I've given you a challenge with this podcast regardless. Your challenge is to choose one area in your home to first declutter, secondly, create that space, yeah, then style it, make it beautiful, and I would absolutely love to see it. So come on over to my Instagram, is it Christine at home, and send me a DM. Tell me first, what area have you chosen to go with, yeah, to make it beautiful. And secondly, I want you to send me your before and after photos so as I can cheer you on and be like, yes, you did it. Hold yourself accountable. Let me know how you get on and do this. Don't just let this be a waste of your time. We are not wasting time over here at Christine at home. We are making every moment count, so I appreciate you spending this time with me today. I hope you're also busy getting on with stuff as well. Maybe not busy, busy, but like out a walk, putting washing away. I hope you're doing something at the same time. We're double jobbing over here, and I genuinely can't wait to celebrate your success after this podcast episode of creating a beautiful area in your home. So, if you've enjoyed this episode today, I will be so grateful if you would rate and review the podcast. It helps more people discover these conversations and start creating homes that support the lives that y'all want to live. And remember, a beautiful life starts with a beautiful environment. And I'll see you right here next week for next week's episode. Okay, guys, bye.