When You Want to Declutter But You Can't Get The Clutter Out!

Here lately, there’s been a common theme in the emails and the comments, and the questions that I’ve been getting that’s really surrounded around the same theme, which is- “I know I need to but I can’t get the clutter out”.

“I know that getting rid of the clutter is going to make a huge difference, I know that I want to have more time to spend with my family, I know that I want this stuff gone…but I can’t.” This whole concept of “I know all these things, but I can’t seem to make it happen. I’m too afraid. There’s something blocking me from being able to take that action.”

This isn’t a new theme- it’s something that I’ve received over the years. But here lately, it’s really been screaming at me and calling to me because so many people are struggling with this right now.

So, if this is you and you feel like “I know what to do, but I can’t”, then this is for you.

Why You Can’t Get The Clutter Out?

This feeling of “this is my situation and I can’t”, is something that I’m very familiar with. I completely understand and I think that’s why I internalize it so much when I do get these kinds of messages. I understand what that feels like.

I’ve experienced it in different periods of my life, not necessarily about clutter, but in different areas. I’ll talk about those in a minute, but first, I want to shed light on what’s really at the core of all of this.

Limiting beliefs

Anytime that you say “I know, but I can’t”, that’s a sure sign that you’re dealing with a limiting belief.

People say, “Knowledge is power” but actually, knowledge is potential power. It’s what you do with that knowledge that makes you powerful. If you know but you’re not taking the actions, then you’re not living in the full power of what you could be accomplishing. 9 times out of 10 that’s going to be based on a limiting belief.

So, anytime you find yourself saying or thinking that you should immediately be like, “oh, that’s a limiting belief. How am I going to fix this?” And that’s what we’re going to talk about today. How do you move past that? How do you overcome these limiting beliefs?

The hard work

I mean, it’s hard. It’s hard work for anybody. And it doesn’t happen on its own- it has to be intentional, meaning you have to put in the work. I’m going to share some of the tools that I use because if you saw where I was 10 or 20 years ago, you would be shocked by the life that I’m living now. I’m shocked sometimes. It feels like two different lifetimes almost- it’s very separated mentally for me. But the tools I’m sharing today helped me make these changes.

And to be clear I’m STILL making changes. This isn’t a one-and-done and it’s definitely not something that’s an overnight fix. It’s something that you have to intentionally show up for every day. Show up and show up again. Sometimes multiple times a day.

Now, if you’re somebody who’s like, “I don’t really believe in this whole limiting belief thing, I don’t believe in mind over matter or that I can do mental work or, emotional work to be able to work through different problems.” Well, that in itself is a limiting belief, first of all, but second of all, if you’re coming with that mindset you’re not going to be able to get over any blocks today.

So you might as well just come back when you’re open to actually move through some of your mental blocks because I’m going to be telling you straight-up that you absolutely can do the things that you’re saying you can’t do and have the things that you think that you can’t have. And that repeating that “you can’t” is really only affirming and re-establishing those limiting beliefs.

It’s making the beliefs stronger. And it’s making them more present in your reality.

Limiting beliefs about clutter, specifically

When it comes to clutter, let’s face it, if I was to come into your house (because clutter is something that I don’t have an issue with anymore), I would be able to get the clutter out. I would be able to create a holistic clutter-free haven inside of that space. The fact that I could physically make those changes kind of proves that you could physically make those changes too.

The only difference is that I know that I can and you believe that you can’t.

Where you need to be focusing your time right now isn’t on the clutter. It’s not on a new checklist. You need to be learning about your mind and beliefs and rewriting your truth. That may mean pulling back for a few days or a few weeks even and possibly feeling like you’re doing nothing. For people who are used to go, go, go, and from getting all of their rewards and self-satisfaction from taking constant actions and being busy, it can almost feel like torture, to say “You need to just stop for a while. And you need to come back to center and re-evaluate what you’re believing and what you’re thinking.”

It may mean that you’re not even looking at your clutter for a couple of days. I know that may sound weird to people- “you’re telling me that in order to get all of this clutter out, then maybe I should take a few days and just not even think or look at the clutter?”

Yeah. If you know what to do, and you’re not doing it because you feel like you can’t do it then what you need to do is pull back and ask yourself some questions about your beliefs, routines, and repeated thoughts. Asking a lot of questions is a big part of all of this. Put yourself on the spot.

So next time you say, “You know what, I have kids. And they come in and they dump stuff, I just can’t keep that clean. Rewind! And then ask yourself, “Why do I believe that? Other people have kids and they’re able to somehow make it work. So maybe there is something that I could do. Why do I believe that I can’t?”

It’s an ongoing process

This is just a small thing, but I was lying in bed the other day thinking about waking up early the next morning which is a challenge for me. I really value my sleep and need nine hours. But I’m also kind of a night owl. I like to hang out and play games and watch movies with Matt and do stuff at nighttime. So, I was lying in bed right after reading an email that somebody had sent about how they just couldn’t, get the clutter out. They already knew what to do, they really wanted these changes, but they just couldn’t.

And I was sitting there in bed and I was thinking, “Ugh, I’m going to set an alarm for 7:30 but that’s not likely to happen because I’m not a morning person and I can’t wake up”. I’m thinking these things, right?! These thoughts are going on. “I can’t wake up in the morning. I’m trying to record like six videos. Yeah, that’s probably not going to happen”- and I’m already doubting what I’m capable of doing or what I’m going to do before I even set the alarm.

And it just hit me- wow, as much work as I do every single day in trying to optimize my mindset and keep those limiting beliefs at bay, they pop up in all different kinds of areas. For the record, after having that realization I did get up the next morning. But it didn’t happen until I actually realized that I’ve been operating every single morning based on the same limiting belief.

So we all deal with this still on some level. But, hopefully, always moving forward.

It shows up in ALL areas

I went through (in my younger years), cycles of horribly toxic relationships. Not all of them, but definitely some of the big players were not healthy relationships. They were obsessive, they were toxic, and my mindset at that time was, “I can’t leave this person, I can’t be without this person. I wish that we had this happy relationship but it’s not like I’m just gonna not be with them.”

So it was very much an “I can’t and this is what I deserve” type of situation. That’s what I felt life was just going to be like.

I’ve lived in life situations that I put MYSELF into that I’m lucky to be alive today because that’s how unhealthy my lifestyle used to be. And I can tell you that a lot of it, if not all of it, was rooted in my beliefs about myself.

My core beliefs are from things that I picked up, from growing up, from watching people around me, from things people said to me, from behaviors that I, myself, took on repeat that proved to myself that this is how it was going to always be. Because obviously, I was making those same choices over and over again. So, this was my reality.

And you may say, “Well, yeah, that’s not the same thing. Your relationships aren’t the same thing. How you used to live your lifestyle isn’t the same thing as me being able to get out of my clutter.”

And it isn’t. But it is.

All of these situations are rooted in the same fundamental mental state- beliefs. They’re all rooted in limiting beliefs- what you believe about yourself, what you believe that you’re capable of, what you believe that you deserve- all of these things come from the same place. That’s why you’ll find many people suffer in multiple areas simultaneously. They suffer from clutter, toxic relationships, addiction, or lack of finances. It’s all coming from that same core belief about themselves.

Now, maybe you don’t have that bad of a system to where it’s like branching out into different areas of your life. Maybe you do, maybe it’s on a milder level, maybe you haven’t really evaluated it and you don’t really know where you stand yet. But that’s why we’re here. Regardless of what area of your life you’re feeling blocked in, regardless of how incapable you think that you are, or how you feel right now, you can change your beliefs.

Our Minds Are Incredibly Adaptable.

I think that it’s mind-blowing how adaptable our brains are to overcoming things and adapting to new situations. Even positive situations have to be adapted.

Have you ever seen or experienced that? Maybe someone was in a horrible relationship and now they’re in a great relationship and they don’t know what to do about it! Like, they don’t feel right. Or that they came from a really bad home environment and now, all of a sudden, things are great! They have a wonderful job and home…but they don’t feel comfortable in it. They don’t know how to handle it. That’s because even positive changes require adjustments.

But our brains are so capable of adapting.

I say that so that when you’re trying to grow and expand in an area- like creating the holistic clutter-free home spaces- you’ll know to expect an adaptation period. Understanding this can help you actually go through the motions of achieving it. That it’s going to be a process of possibly feeling uncomfortable. It’s going to be a process of your brain adapting to this new way of living.

But it will happen. Your brain is more adaptable than you even realize.

Tools To Help Your Mind Work Through These Limiting Beliefs When You Think You “Can’t” Get The Clutter Out

In a previous post and video, I shared “why you have so much clutter“- (it has actually been one of my most popular pieces of content), I shared about the fears that lead us to hold onto things and ‘doing it afraid’. And people asking me, “HOW do you do it afraid?”

Well, here’s what I do. And here’s what I highly recommend to at least give a try- an open-minded absorptive try. Not just listening, going through the motions, rolling your eyes, and “trying” it but not really trying it. I recommend giving these things (if you’re not already) a true try in order to help break through some of the cycles of thought that you’ve been living with.

Meditation

The first one is meditation. Now, you’ve probably heard about meditation all over the place from health magazines to Oprah. Even therapists, doctors, and fitness experts are likely to talk about taking some kind of meditation. And there are so many different forms as well as apps that you can use to facilitate the process. Really, you can even just practice sitting peacefully and quietly and watching your thoughts roll by like a movie.

Try viewing your thoughts as something that’s outside of yourself. Or try blowing the clouds of thoughts away altogether and just practice getting back to the most basic center of yourself. There are tons of different types of meditation and I recommend that do a little research.

It’s really great at pulling you out of the narrative because we ALL live in these stories.

These ecosystems of ‘story’ that we tell ourselves. We believe these stories, we experience them, and then we talk to people around us who also believe and experience the same stories and that helps to reinforce them as “reality”.

This whole ecosystem of thoughts is constantly happening and you can’t work through the thoughts unless you can stop for a second and not BE in the thoughts- not BE in the clouds. Look at the clouds from a perspective of distance without being in the clouds if that makes sense. And it helps you to get clarity and to make decisions about the thoughts that you’re thinking and the beliefs that you’re believing.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

CBT is something that’s kind of new for me but it’s really become popular and I’ve found it immensely helpful. To me, it’s kind of like mixing therapy with meditation with mindfulness. It’s bringing all of these together and often rooting it into the body with a physical component.

So, you may go through a thinking exercise about your struggle area (or talk through it depending on whether it’s with a live person). Then you might do some light journaling on specific areas of what you learned (or talked about) and close it out with some physical component like deep breathing to internalize and bring your body into the process.

It’s a holistic, therapeutic process that’s had a lot of positive research to back it up!

For clutter, you might start by learning a lesson on a key psychological piece that makes letting go difficult (you can see tons of them right here). Then, write down your personal experiences on the topic. Examples could be: “when do you feel the fears regarding your stuff? When do you get the most tension? What types of belongings do you tend to get the most tension with”? And writing that down so that you’re getting it out of your brain. You’re able to look at it on paper more objectively and think it through. Then do something to internalize it into your body such as deep breathing exercises.

So look it up. I’m definitely not a CBT expert. I, personally, use the Bloom app for this and love it. This is what I’ve gathered from my limited practice over the past year that I’ve really enjoyed and gotten a lot of benefit out of.

Mindfulness

In general, practicing mindfulness in any way is going to be key. That could look like sitting at a clear dining table with a cup of tea or coffee and just being mindful of what’s happening right now. It’s great for pulling yourself into the present. We tend to live very much outside of the present. Our brain is typically in the future- on what we need to do- or in the past- often feeling guilty and condemning ourselves to less enjoyment now. But very rarely, right here in the present moment.

Helps you to alter the future

Really practicing awareness and mindfulness is great for bringing you into an area that will allow you to make better decisions about the future. Being present allows you to firmly separate yesterday from today and tomorrow. And I recommend this to all of my students who join my course. The very first video that I direct them to, is one that talks about being future-focused.

We’re not worried about the past. We’re not feeling shameful and bad about why we got all the clutter and how it’s hard to get rid of and the decisions that we’ve made that have gotten our home to the point that it is now. None of that matters anymore. It doesn’t matter. And when you really focus on the present and release the past, you realize that you can make entirely new decisions tomorrow (like I did with my alarm clock).

Interrupts the story loops

Not just living on this loop of repeating the same things over and over again, repeating the same thoughts, stories, decisions, wakeup times, and routines. Literally down to the day, disregarding what you did yesterday. Maybe yesterday you went to the kitchen and you looked at all of the different corners and drawers that were filled with stuff and you felt overwhelmed and you felt like I can’t do this. You felt like this is just something I’m going to have to learn to live with. That was yesterday.

Consciousness awareness

Another thing is just paying attention to your consciousness. That means paying attention to the thoughts that you’re having at any given moment, paying attention to the things that you’re seeing, the things that you’re absorbing, the things that are taking your attention. Anything that might be distracting and just understanding that everything that we experience exists inside of our consciousness.

If you think about it, people often visually see things differently. If you’ve ever seen the eye experience with blind spots, or how some people see a purple dress and other people see a gold dress. Everything that exists is not 100% factual or 100% reality. I don’t even know if there is a 100% reality.

Take a moment to really think about what is flowing in and out of your consciousness (which is basically another part of meditation).

You can choose to be more intentional about your thoughts and your distractions, including your space. Accept what you need to accept and change what you need to change.

If you really think about it, everything you experience exists inside of your consciousness, and you’re the director of all of these things. You can choose to change things around; you can choose to think different thoughts, to move things in your environment that is in your visual field every single day.

5 Core Steps To Overcoming Limiting Beliefs In Your Home

I shared the core staples that I use every single day for getting myself to the next level or just making myself feel good but when it comes to limiting beliefs specifically, there are five core steps (or thought processes) that go along with overcoming limiting beliefs. Now, to dive into this part even better, I highly recommend that you check out this article, ‘A Must-Read For Overcoming Limiting Beliefs Around Clutter‘.

1. Identify

The first one is to identify. Identify that you have the belief. Identify which limiting beliefs are existing for you.

2. Find the source

The second one is to define the source. Where did this originate? Sometimes you might be able to pinpoint a time in childhood where somebody said something that really ignited this whole idea or maybe a movie that you watch that really influenced or sparked an interest in a certain thing and that led you to believe a certain way. We’re just finding the source of where that belief may have originated.

It could have been how you saw somebody else live, how you saw your parents present themselves or things that people told you at school about yourself, how you looked, or just different things. So getting down to the source.

3. Acknowledge the reasons

The third step is to find the reason behind the source because our brains are very much ‘why’ and pattern-oriented. We want to know the reasons behind things in order to get on board with them. It’s not a blame game; it’s not pointing fingers and saying, “You’re the reason” or “that’s why I have all these problems!”

And when you’re able to use step three of finding the reasons behind that source you can come at it with more empathy and compassion for whatever it is that led you to that belief in the first place. It may not have been that someone caused it; it may have just been how you perceived, absorbed, or translated it. It’s not necessarily that somebody shot this thing at you and now you have it.

Likely, somebody said something living in their own world with their own perception and beliefs, and maybe they said something to you.

And you’re living in your own world with your own perceptions and your own beliefs, and you absorb that information a certain way and internalized it. And now it’s a belief that you’ve been living with.

Again, this is a way just for you to find compassion and empathy around the source and be okay with letting it go- forgive, forget, move on- and it gives you a little bit more lightness moving forward with the next step.

4. Find the truth

So how do you find ‘truth’? How do you find the ‘truth’ to tell you that you can live a clutter-free life? That you absolutely can let go of the boxes that you feel like you can’t let go of?

Build confidence with tiny steps

Well, one way to find the ‘truth’ is to take a tiny step. Let go of just one section of things, one category of things that you’ve been having a little trouble letting go of. Even if all you can do is one or two items, and just start with that.

Then, give it a day or two. Did the world explode? Are you desperately needing and fiending for that thing that you let go of? No. Okay. Well, if not, then that’s already given you just a little bit of truth that you can do it. That is possible. That’s why baby steps are so powerful.

So that’s one thing that you can do is take small actions, give them a second to set and cement, and then go back with more self-confidence the next time that “Oh, you know what, I can do a little bit more. And a little bit more.”

A lot of times people remove the clutter in layers- and that’s totally fine! Nobody’s brain is exactly the same. Some people may need to do it in layers and build that proof and self-confidence in order to get to the next layer and then the next layer. Eventually, you’ll have so much confidence in your ability to create and maintain your own space, that it won’t be a question anymore. And that block won’t be there anymore.

Find your people

Truth can also come from other people. So something that I’ve done a lot of (and I love doing) is finding people who motivate and are experts in whatever their field is- whether it’s mindfulness or business, etc.- and just watching them do their thing. Watch them talk about how they COULD and DID.

When you think that you can’t and you don’t, find other people who can and did.

Get inspiration from them and learn from them over and over and over again until your brain starts to change and transform. Even structurally, when you learn new information and form new beliefs, your brain and neural pathways literally change.

5. Use words to cement the reality you want

So once you’ve given yourself enough truth, you’ve absorbed and you’ve got this proof and new confidence building, you’ve got this outside information that’s getting you set and helping you to think about things in different ways, then you just have to top it off with your words. Make sure that you’re not saying things that are bringing you back down; make sure that you’re saying things that are going to affirm where you want to be even if maybe you’re not quite there yet.

And it’s not just saying, “Oh, I believe it! I have a clutter-free home” while you’re surrounded by clutter because you’re not going to believe that. But saying things that are absolutely true but maybe you haven’t really internalized yet.

Like, “I’m capable of living a clutter-free life. I’m capable of getting rid of this box and I will do it, I’m not there yet but this is what I’m working toward.” Instead of saying, “I can’t”, say something that is true AND in the direction that you’re actually trying to go. Because again, our words cement our reality.

Now if you’ve been using time as a limiting belief or excuse, which is the case for many people out there. Then I recommend that you check out this video on how to find the time to declutter. And I’ll show you a process inside of that video of using bubbles of time that is absolutely possible for any person to use. And I’ll catch you next time.