065 I rebooted episode #18 because spring has sprung and it's time to get to work!! Spring cleaning is an amazing tool - to let go of what no longer serves you - AND to create space for what you want to cultivate. Learn how you can take this concept and apply it to your entire life, not just to your closet.
In this episode you will learn:
More info <<HERE>>
Thank you for listening!
065 I rebooted episode #18 because spring has sprung and it's time to get to work!! Spring cleaning is an amazing tool - to let go of what no longer serves you - AND to create space for what you want to cultivate. Learn how you can take this concept and apply it to your entire life, not just to your closet.
In this episode you will learn:
More info <<HERE>>
Thank you for listening!
Hello, and welcome to the healthy, happy and mostly sane entrepreneur. I'm your host, stress management consultant, and coach and mostly sane entrepreneur Ellen Leonard. Each week I share my obsession with hearing out how to prioritize your own health and sanity while running a business. Because I don't think you have to sacrifice your own health and well being to be successful. So please stay tuned for today's episode full of actionable tools. And don't forget to hit subscribe to be sure you don't miss out on future episodes. Spring has sprung and I am totally ready, it could not have come soon enough for me warmer weather, birds chirping getting to go back outside into the garden, which I love, love love spending more time with the chickens, they've missed me so much during the winter. Although Don't worry, I didn't neglect them completely. Just we spend a lot more time together when it's warmer. But one of the things I love about spring is that energy that makes me so full of hope and possibility and motivates me to clean. So I love spring cleaning from my house to my life, right? Like I'm not only going through my closet, I'm going above and beyond and really using that same energy, that same motivation to start to clean and sort through stuff and get rid of stuff to do the same in my life. What can I let go of? How can I have more energy? And how can I have more space for what I really value. And I did an episode last year about a year ago at this time about spring cleaning your life. And I wanted to share that with you again and rebooted a little bit because it's such a good episode. And I was thinking about it this past week and was like, You know what, I think it's time to listen to that again, because it's so relevant as we spring into spring this year. So if you've heard it before, I invite you to listen again. Because I know when I listen to even my own podcast a couple of times, I get more and more out of it. Every time I hear something new every time I listen. And it's probably been a minute since you've listened to this episode because it was way back in early 2020. So that's get to it. Enjoy. Hey, I am so glad you're here today. I am so excited. For podcast number 18, we are going to dive into spring cleaning your life, not just your closet. So today we get to explore this idea that cleaning out more than just your closet this spring can be this insanely awesome way to feel more in control, less overwhelmed and see some immediate benefits in your life. Spring is not only a time to let go of what is no longer serving you, I mean, really anytime is a good time to let go of stuff that you don't want in your life anymore. Whether that's thoughts, emotions, stuff in your closet that doesn't fit anymore. Always a great time to let that go. But in spring, we're all much more motivated for it right? It just feels so good. But when you let go of that stuff, when you spring clean more than just your closet, you get to feel more in control, more focused. Also. Also, you get to have more space for the things that you want to grow and cultivate. And I know that is a totally cheesy spring reference with things growing, and nature and gardens and flowers. But it's so true. Because when we get rid of stuff, we have space for new and exciting things. So I'm so excited to dive in. In this episode, you will learn how spring cleaning your life, not just your closet can help you feel less overwhelmed and more in control. You're going to learn four new ways to think about spring cleaning and how to do them right now today of course I have action steps to help you integrate this into your life immediately. Whatever part resonates with you, I've got you covered. And also you're going to learn how to let spring cleaning be an opportunity for something else to grow and take the place of the stuff that you're going to let go of. So as always, this podcast is designed to help you take action and it's packed with info so you know they're going to be shownotes at the end so if you are on a walk, if you are driving, just know that I have got you covered with lots of details in the show notes. so that you don't have to take notes right now so let's get started spring is just an amazing time right it's time for growth of new beginnings and it's also a time to clean and if you're anything like me i love love love switching out my closet from winter to the spring and summer wardrobe i'm just so excited to be doing that mostly because i get to organize and make things all pretty but i think i love organizing so much because it allows me to feel more in control have you ever noticed that that when you organize a room or clean out a drawer that you feel both accomplished like oh look what i did and more in control you even feel a little lighter even if you haven't gotten rid of anything even if you just organized so how does spring cleaning allows us to feel more in control and less overwhelmed so yeah i mean it makes you feel more organized like let's just take the basic classic example of cleaning out your closet right it makes you feel more organized it awesome but it also gives you this sense of control cleaning and organizing especially when you focus on quick wins is an amazing way to feel more in control and i keep talking about feeling more in control because one of the biggest things that contributes to our stress is when we perceive that we have a lack of control or no control so one of the things i love about cleaning out my closet or organizing in general or spring cleaning as an overall concept is that it allows me to take control of something right i can clean out a sock drawer i can clean out my closet when i feel i have very little control over what's going on around me so things that you can't control like weather or worldwide pandemics or people buying your stuff or not buying your stuff there's all sorts of things that you can't control children teenagers family members that you live with so much that we can't control that when i take back control just in these small ways it really helps to ground me and to manage my stress in a very quick and easy way so what do i mean by quick wins how do you focus on these quick wins so for example i might not take on my entire closet today i feel like that would require a lot of effort and possibly some crying if i were to try to try stuff on and maybe a couple glasses of wine nope that's not going to get me a quick win that's going to feel overwhelming instead i might decide that i'm just going to focus on shoes shoes seems manageable at least for me it might not be for you but for me shoes are manageable i don't have that many shoes so i could potentially go through all of my shoes get them organized spring clean them out figure out you know what's missing what i got get them all pretty and organized i could do that in 30 minutes or less i could get a quick win out of that and feel immediately more in control one of the things that's great about cleaning out something or organizing something like the closet is that you can see the results that quick win has not only manifested in how short a time it took and how you were able to really focus in on this thing that's really quite easy and simple but you also get to see these immediate results so taking on smaller more manageable categories of stuff when you're literally spring cleaning going back to the traditional thing we're gonna get into some non traditional definitions of spring cleaning but when you're just trying to really get your house back in order taking on these smaller more manageable categories of stuff to spring clean can help you get more control faster so it can really help you manage stress very quickly in real time and it can also help you to go through stuff that seems like it's impossible to go through so if you're thinking about tackling something larger like your whole house or your garage or your basement something hardcore taking it in the small manageable quick wins steps can really help you to find more control and get things done in a manageable and realistic way that doesn't make you feel completely overwhelmed in spring cleaning something like your closet also does something else that's really cool it reduces what's called decision fatigue and i talked about decision fatigue Again, episode nine. But it's basically this idea that when you have too many choices, or when things are chaotic, and you have to really focus on making that decision, that it can make you fatigued, it wastes your time and energy on things that you might not even care about. So if you're spending a lot of time and energy trying to decide what to wear every day, that can lead to decision fatigue, where you have less energy to make decisions later in the day for things like your business, or your job, or your finances, things that really require a lot more focus and energy. So it can reduce that significantly. So if you're thinking about some of the other benefits of spring cleaning, reducing decision, fatigue is definitely up there. So when you're going to pick a pair of pants, if you have 20 pairs of pants to choose from versus five, that's a very different scenario inside your brain for deciding things and how it's spending its energy and your focus. But spring cleaning is a concept that you can really apply to anything in your life. So yeah, I use the closet example a lot, because it's really easy to think about it most of us have done it before. But it cannot it can apply to like the rest of the stuff in your house, it can apply to hobbies, right? What hobbies are serving you what ones would you like to add in, give the opportunity to have space for by letting go of other things can also apply to habits, activities, people in your whole life, it can apply to emotions, thoughts, really anything. And I'm going to give you some examples to get you started on spring cleaning your overall life, not just your closet. But I would encourage you that as we go through this, to work on spring cleaning in your life, and whatever you think is holding you back. So I'm going to give you some really concrete examples. But they might not necessarily be what you're needing right now. So take a moment right now. And think about what's really holding you back from what you want in your life. What is that thing, and whatever that is, think about how the concepts we're about to talk about and spring cleaning, could really help you to clear out space and make room for possibility for the things that you really want. So the first thing we're going to talk about spring cleaning is to spring clean your negative self talk. I don't know about you, but there's some things that I say to myself inside my head, that I'd rather not say anymore, or at all or ever that I just like to let go. So what if I could spring clean those and get rid of some of them? Notice that I said some of them because I'm not quite sure I could get rid of all my negative self talk or negative thoughts that I think about myself, but I could probably get rid of some of them to make space for better thoughts for other thoughts. But in Episode Four, I talked about what are called thinking traps. So what's a thinking trap? It's basically and I go in more depth to the science behind it in Episode Four. But it's basically thinking something like, I suck. I'm the worst, I can't believe I did that. Things like that, that then become the primary thing that you're you're thinking about you become trapped in this thought. And it becomes all that you're thinking about. And it can spiral into becoming even more intense, even more emotional and becoming more of a drain on you. So when you think about how to fight these thinking traps, right, so say you've gotten into one or you're, you're experiencing negative self talk at all. There, there are three different ways to work on these thinking traps. And again, I went through this in episode number four. But my favorite one is to find evidence, not evidence that supports the reasons that you suck. Although I'm guessing that a lot of us could come up with a list of the reasons that we think we're horrible, right? That's not great. Let's not spend time on that. But evidence against. So for example, if I'm saying to myself, I totally suck. I'm the worst. To find evidence against it. I might say something like, this is not true, because and then I could insert the evidence against thinking that I suck of thinking I'm the worst. I'm not the worst. There are way worse people. Right? I'm not going to name them because you might know them. But or you might be one of them. No, I'm just kidding. But I'm not the worst. And I can list evidence that states that I'm not. And so this is a great way to come back to this idea of a quick win. So what horrible thing, what negative self talk? Have you been telling yourself that you'd like to replace with something better? And so do you come back to the very cheesy spring gardening metaphor, come on, I mean, it's just so easy is to imagine that you're cleaning out your garden, the garden of your mind, I know, bear with me, like, you know, the start of spring, and you're cleaning out your garden of all the dead stuff, all the leaves that have fallen, all the things that you don't want anymore. Because you're trying to make space for all of the new growth, you're trying to make space for all those flowers to come in for your vegetables to come up. You're trying to make that space for possibility. It's so cheesy, but it's so true. Think about applying this concept in your mind. What would you like to grow in your mind? Instead of these negative self talks, instead of these thoughts? What would you like to have in there instead? What would you like to grow and create space for notes. So that's some, that's some serious hardcore spring cleaning. And I got that I got there pretty fast. But you can get a quick one with that. Notice when you're experiencing that negative self talk, and think about how you'd like to change that, or replace it, or grow something else inside your head. So our next way to think about spring cleaning, is to spring clean the information in your life. And I talked a lot about this and episode number a podcast number eight, where we talked about how to ditch being overwhelmed by information. But this is one of my favorite ways to spring clean. And what do I mean by information? I mean, anything that you are inviting in to your life, from books to podcast, hey, to news, to social media, to any kind of information that you are going to read or listen to or watch. It could even be television shows or things that you're watching on Netflix. Let me give you an example of how I started to evaluate whether or not I wanted to keep these things in my life. Are they things that I want to let go of? Are they things I can make space for new possibilities with? So my example is, recently I've been finding Twitter to be completely overwhelming. I just it just wasn't adding anything into my life. It was more of a habit. So yesterday, I went on my phone and I deleted that app off my phone. Now did I delete my Twitter account? No, I'm not crazy. I kept that for later. But you know, I want it later. But I deleted it off of my phone. And it's already made a difference. It was time I was spending on Twitter, just scrolling and reading. I can spend that doing other things I can get rid of that I can spring clean that out of my life. And give myself more space and more opportunity for other things to be focused on other things I can be reading, I can be working in my garden, the literal garden, but also maybe the garden of my mind. But I can be doing all these other things, and let go of something that is no longer serving me. And here's what's cool about that. I can always add it back later. Right? As I let go of different sources of information, different things that I'm inviting into my life as part of my spring cleaning, I can create more space for other things. And here's what an interesting way to think about this. So if you're looking about how you might start to think about this, again, I encourage you to go to episode number eight, where I there's a freebie that actually guides you through a step by step process to consider what information to keep. But one of my favorite ways to think about this is to consider that say your favorite social media thing. But say your favorite thing is Instagram. When you think about going on Instagram. Does your mind think of it in terms of I have to? Or does it think of it in terms of I get to. And if it's I get to if it's something you're excited about something that adds to your life, then 100% keep it just like you would your favorite summer dress that you were getting to see now that you're spring cleaning your closet. You keep that but if it's something you're like, I am not sure that fits me anymore. I'm not sure that's right. I kind of have to keep doing that. I'm not really into it. Then let that go. Is it still serving you. It's a great time. to reevaluate the information that you're letting into your life. Remember, when we spring clean and let go of something? It gives us more space to cultivate something else. So what would you rather focus on? What would you rather be doing with your time. So next, we're gonna talk about something a little more complex with your spring cleaning, we're talking about spring cleaning your electronics. And you can get hard core with that. So I don't know about you, but I spring clean my electronics, my computer, my phone, everything, every spring, because there is so much crap on my computer and phone that it's crazy. I try not to think about the rest of the year. And I do try to manage all of that as much as possible in real time. But of course, things fall through the cracks. And it's so crazy when you even think about the physical electronics, like the cords that you don't need anymore, or the camera that stopped working, all sorts of other stuff. So you can really dive deep both into the the physical aspects of the electronics in your life. Like what needs upgrading, and what do you need to just absolutely get rid of. And while as well as the more digital aspects of your electronic life. So cleaning up your desktop, going through emails, deleting apps, deleting photos, and it's crazy when you start to think about it. So if you're feeling overwhelmed, and now that I'm talking about it, you're like, Oh, my gosh, my inbox is a mess, or Oh, I hope she never sees my desktop. It's crazy. I hear you, it becomes a lot. For me, it's endless cat pictures in my phone, for my photos, just so many cat pictures. I mean, they're cute. But are they really that cute, I don't know, it feels like a lot of energy to go in and clean that out. But this stuff weighs on me, right? Like it starts to accumulate very slowly. And now in the spring, it's this great opportunity to let go. So I can have more space, because I think we could all agree that when our electronics are cleaned up and organized, we are going to feel better, we're going to feel more in control, we're going to feel less stressed when we go to open our computer, when we're searching for that app that we need. When we're searching for that file that we need or that email that we need, it's going to be a lot better if things are more organized. And this is a great time to start to spring clean and work through that stuff. So as I take time to go through this, it has two really amazing benefits. So number one, of course, I feel more in control very quickly. So again, coming back to this idea of quick wins, you can segment how you're going to approach this, taking a whole day to do all your electronics, trust me is exhausting. I've tried it that way, it's really too much. But I could say I'm going to go through all of my emails for the entire month of March, or I'm going to clean up all of my photos for the entire month of March, I can do that. That's manageable. That is a quick win that lets me feel more control and gets me started on a path of getting this really monumental giant task done. Maybe it's just cleaning up one file on your desktop. Maybe it's finally getting yourself off a bunch of email us. So I'd invite you if you're gonna do this, to consider something that would take less than 15 minutes. But would feel like a big win is something that's been kind of driving you crazy and bothering you a little bit. How could you just start on that today, just take 15 minutes and and start working on that right now. The second bonus, here's the second bonus of in addition to feeling more in control, organized, more stress. The other bonus starting to go through your electronics is just like cleaning your closet, you're gonna find stuff that you're missing, you're gonna be like, Oh my gosh, that's where those headphones were, oh, I have been looking for that file for like a month. That's where it was. You're gonna find stuff and so it's spring cleaning is also a great opportunity to discover things that you'd been looking for that you'd forgotten about to dive back into that. So with cleaning your electronics, I invite you to find a way to have a quick When to work on an aspect of it, whether it's the actual physical electronics, that are taking up space in your house, in your office, or whether it's the more digital aspect that would help you in your business in your work, to find more clarity to be able to focus more easily on whatever it is you're working on. And for the grand finale, we are going to dive into spring cleaning, how you're spending your time. And here's what's cool about this concept is it can apply to spring cleaning, literally anything. So even coming back to your closet, right? How are you spending your time? Are you spending a lot of time doing laundry, picking out outfits, organizing your closet, never having space for stuff? would really diving deep into your closet and getting everything out of there and clean it creating a smaller wardrobe? help you to spring clean how you're spending your time? What about activities or hobbies that you don't like anymore? What would it be like to spring clean those to let go of those? So I'd invite you to consider how are you spending your time? Are you spending it doing things that you value in love with people you value in love? For all of us, there's probably an activity or habit or some way that we're spending our time, that just doesn't work for us anymore. That doesn't serve us anymore. And I'm guessing that you just thought of one, I guessing that you just thought of something and you're like, Oh, I really need to stop doing whatever that was See if you can let go of it. Because remember, when we let go of things, it gives us space for new things. So if you think about it, spring cleaning is a concept that can apply to anything in your life. We just talked about a few things. But think about it, it can apply to any of the stuff in your life, hobbies, habits, people, activities, emotions, anything. And I've given you just some examples to get you started. But I'd encourage you again to come back to that idea I talked about at the beginning. What is holding you back? And how can you let go of whatever that is spring clean that out of your life, to make space for something else to grow, and take its place. So as you start to spring clean, and make more space for new things more space for what's possible, I'd invite you to consider the following. What would you like more of in your life? What would serve you? What would really enhance your life and help you to grow and thrive. So as with every episode, I'm going to end with some action steps. And then some additional tips for how to approach spring cleaning, so that you can really start to take action today. So the first action step is, what's the one thing you'd like to let go of today? What is no longer serving you? What would you really like to let go of? And number two, what do you want to make space for and grow this spring? Do you want a new habit, a new practice a new hobby, a friendship, what would serve and support you and help you to get what ever it is that you are wanting. And then here are some tips for spring cleaning overall. And we covered some of these throughout the podcast. But I thought I'd have them here at the end just to make it feel less overwhelming. So number one, whatever it is you choose to do whatever it is you want to dive into whatever spoke to you or ideas that you had of what you want to let go of and how you want to approach it, I'd encourage you to break it up into small steps. Maybe just thinking, what can I get done in 15 minutes, or maybe a specific section of something like the example I gave with, if you're going to clean out your whole closet just starting with your shoes, right? What would keep you focused on something small and manageable to keep you from feeling overwhelmed, right? Because one of the things you want to get out of this is to feel less overwhelmed to feel more in control to feel less stress. That's one of the benefits of this. So don't diminish that benefit by taking on too much. And my number two tip for spring cleaning is to know what success looks like and picture it. So when I'm thinking about my closet, and how I would spring clean it, how I would organize it, how I would approach it. I think about the end product and what I want it to look like how I will know that I have successfully accomplished it. Okay, what would that end product look like? And then I go back to tip number one where I break it up into a small step. Okay, so I'm going to organize my shoes. And tomorrow I'm going to organize all my pants and then I'm going to do tops, like I'm going to approach it in a way that allows me to get to the end product, so that when I am done, I can see the results because one of the most amazing parts of spring cleaning is that generally, you can see physical tangible results. If you're cleaning up your desktop, your desktop will look differently, it will look more organized, maybe it'll even be empty. If you're cleaning up your inbox, all those unread messages will go away. Everything will be clean and new, and have space for what's possible. So that's it. My sincere hope is that this podcast is something that does add value to your life and helps you consider today ways to spring clean your life overall. So that you can have more space for all of the amazing possibilities that you want more of in your life. And I know we covered a lot today. So if you want more details and resources, please head over to Ellen Leonard. Ellen Leonard comm backslash podcast for shownotes and more. That's www dot e Ll e N dash Elio and AR D comm backslash podcast for show notes links, lots of resources. And don't forget to hit subscribe so you don't miss out on future episodes full of actionable tips to help you do what you love without sacrificing your health or losing your mind. Thank you so much for listening, and I wish you a healthy, happy and mostly sane week. I'll see you next time.