Having too much clutter in our lives stifles us, suffocates us and makes us resistant to change. Clearing your clutter physically will also clear your mind and open up a new world of possibilities.
Suffocating Under Clutter
When you’re surrounded by things you don’t use how does this make you feel? Ineffectual? Helpless? Confused? It causes all of those negative emotions and more. This is because clutter is an indication of you lacking a clear understanding of your purpose in life.
Who Are You?
Keeping your painting materials when you no longer paint, keeping your bicycle when you no longer ride it, keeping your course materials from long ago University days indicates that you don’t know who you are today. You’re not the painting, bicycling student you used to be. You’ve changed, but you’d never know it by looking around you.
The Unused Will Confuse
Those reminders of past activities are holding you back. Those unused possessions are confusing you and preventing you from fully accepting and enjoying the person you are today. They reflect a reluctance to let go of the past and fully embrace the future. This ambiguity of purpose will prevent you from putting one hundred per cent commitment into your new identity and activities. This in turn could prevent you from achieving full success or happiness.
The book that above all others made me realise how much clutter was holding me back from positive change was Don Aslett’s ‘Clutters Last Stand’ (full disclosure affiliate link). Don’s passionate philosphy leaps from the pages and makes you eager for change.
Change Your Story
By getting rid of all the possessions that personified the old you, you’re giving yourself permission to change and to be whoever you want to be. Think of your life as a story and give yourself permission to change the story whenever you want to. Make sure your possessions reflect your new story, or the new chapter in your story.
Dump the Distractions
Sell the bicycle, the painting accessories and any other possessions that no longer fit in with your story. Then you will be free in mind and body to move onto the next phase of your life. If you want to be a trumpet player then buy a trumpet, buy books about how to play a trumpet, have lessons and mix with other people who are musicians. If you want to be a political activist then surround yourself with books and pamphlets and go to rallies.
Know Who You Are
Don’t hold yourself back from being the person you really want to be. Don’t confuse yourself with clutter and ambiguity. Decide who you want to be and how your story is going to unfold. Then make a clean sweep. Rid yourself of any possessions that don’t fit in with your new narrative.
Trust me, this will make you so eager, so vibrant and so passionate to fully embrace who you want to become, that nothing will stop from writing the new chapters in your life.
