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Making changes and achieving goals requires commitment and determination.

When we make the decision to change something, when we set a goal, we usually feel excited and determined to do whatever we have to do to make the change happen, to achieve the goal.

However, doing the work isn’t so much fun in many cases.

Decluttering our home, for example, can be hard work.

We have to be willing to invest time, effort and energy, we might feel uncomfortable and anxious about how to get the job done.

Often, our excitement about the desired change shrinks and our motivation to do the first step decreases rapidly.

So how can we keep ourselves going when we feel like giving up and quitting the work even before it has started?

We can strengthen our determination and commitment by taking responsibility for our future self and learning from our past self.

How our future self and our past self can support our present self

The idea of a future, past and present self (Source: Brooke Castillo) is a construct, it’s all made up.

However, the imagination of our three selves can help us get started and keep going whenever life gets hard and we feel like hiding or running away.

Our present self is creating our future.

Our future self will be the result of our current thoughts, feelings and actions. It completely depends on the decisions our present self makes today.

Thinking about our future self and loving it as much as we love our present self can change how we are showing up and following through on our plans today, in the present.

We can gain energy, inspiration and motivation from asking questions like these:

• • How will our future self feel about ourselves if we now remain committed and do the work (e.g. get the clutter out)?
  • How grateful will it be to our present self for pushing away any self-doubt and thoughts of giving up?
  • How proud will our future self be about the achievements of our present self?

Our past self has created our present.

Our current self – the person we are today – is the result of the thoughts, feelings and actions that our past self created.

Our past ambitions and our goals and our willingness to realise them, no matter how hard the work was, have brought us to the point where we are now.

We can deliberately appreciate what our past self has done for our present self.

We can decide to learn from our past self and copy the methods and tools it used successfully to move forward.

We can gain advice and insights by asking questions like these:

• • How did our past self get started with difficult projects (e.g., projects similar to our decluttering job)?
  • How did our past self overcome self-doubt and procrastination in similar situations?
  • What useful tips and tricks has our past self to offer to make our present self’s life and work easier?

Conversations with our past self and with our future self can be very helpful. And they can be real fun!

LITTLE FUN EXERCISE

Give it a try!

Start playing around with your three selves:

Imagine your three selves are sitting at a table.

• • First you ask your present self to choose and describe the problem it wants to solve.

This could be, for example: A project you postponed again and again. A bad habit you want to get rid of. A challenging goal you want to achieve. An upcoming conversation you are afraid of. …

• • Now ask your future and your past selves for support.

Ask them the questions listed above. And anything else that comes up to your mind. Write down their answers and recommendations.

• • Then tell your present self to get started with what has to be done.

• • Monitor its progress. Evaluate and make changes to your activities/actions if necessary.

Don’t forget to celebrate your success.

And invite your three selves to the party. 😃😃😃

“Saying goodbye is difficult and most of us don’t do it enough.” (Brooke Castillo)

However, saying goodbye is part of life and it is necessary:

If we wish to evolve and grow, if we want to make changes in our life to move forwards and make things better, we have to create space for the new:

We have to let go of what no longer serves us, what no longer fits into the life we want to have.

We need to say goodbye to the past

if we want to open the door to the present and welcome the future.

We need to say goodbye to relationships that are complete – relationships with things in our life, but also relationships with people, relationships with beliefs and thought pattern, and with habits.

Whatever it is, if we are holding on to something that’s no longer important to us, just because we had a relationship with it in the past, it will wear us down, slow us down, and it will suck up our energy.

Dragging stuff along that no longer serves us is a waste of energy – and we have a limited amount of energy.

Why do we struggle to say goodbye?

There are many reasons why saying goodbye is so hard.

A very big one is that saying goodbye means making decisions and initiating change. And that’s something our mind doesn’t want us to do.

Our mind wants us to keep things as they are because it wants to keep us safe. It wants to avoid the unknown and the potential risk involved in letting new stuff into our life. That’s why it’s easier to hold on to everything and not to decide to let it go.

Also, we tend to associate loss or pain with saying goodbye. We try to avoid saying goodbye because we don’t want to experience any loss or pain.

Another reason for not making decisions and not saying goodbye is that we are afraid that we will regret letting go of that thing or that relationship or that belief.

So how do we know when to say goodbye?

If we have invested time, effort or money into something we are often hesitant to let it go ‘for free’.

We think we should only sort out what is damaged, broken, no longer working.

That’s why we keep so much stuff in our life that’s still usable but no longer useful.

However, there doesn’t have to be something wrong with something for us to say goodbye to it.

If we don’t need, use, love it any longer, it occupies undeserved space in our home, mind or heart and uses up our energy.

Space and energy that we need for new things, people, thoughts, etc. to come in.

How do we make goodbye decisions?

We have to be(come) aware of what we have now, and we have to make decisions about what we want to keep and have in future.

First we take an inventory of what we currently have.

We make lists of our stuff: the things in our cupboards and drawers, the relationships with people, our beliefs and habits.

Then we ask ourselves questions and we answer them honestly.

We can ask (Suggestions from Brooke Castillo, The Life Coach School):

• • ‘Would I buy it again today?’
  • ‘Would I start a relationship with this person again today?’
  • ‘Would I choose this way of thinking again today?’

If the answer is no, it’s time to decide to say goodbye.

It’s important that we make these decisions clearly and definitely, we have to commit to the goodbye and not look back.

Then we can move forward and open up to something new.

If we aren’t getting the result we want it’s because of a thought.

Our thoughts create our feelings, our feelings drive our actions, our actions accumulate into results. – The trouble starts when we forget about this powerful cycle of results-creation.

If something is not as we want it to be,

if we have a result in our life that we don’t like (for example: ‘Our desk is covered with piles of papers’),

• • we often believe that something is wrong with us.

For example: ‘I am hopeless at organising my stuff.

• • Or we blame certain circumstances in our life.

For example: ‘I don’t have enough space to file my paperwork properly.’

Feeling incapable, out of control and stuck is the consequence, and making any changes to the unsatisfying situation seems impossible.

It just seems like that that’s the way things are and that there is nothing we can do about it.

However, we can do something about it! Always!

We can change the results we currently have by changing the thoughts we currently think.

How can we declutter limiting thoughts?

The first step is becoming aware of the limiting thought. We need to recognise that what we believe to be a fact is actually a thought.

The fact in the example-situation above is that the desk is covered with piles of papers. The statement, ‘I am hopeless at organising my stuff’ is not a fact, it’s just a thought about the fact.

This differentiation is very important!

Thoughts are optional, we can change them, we can believe whatever we want about the circumstances – the facts – in our life.

As soon as we are aware of what we are thinking, we can start to question our thoughts.

Questioning our thoughts

One of the many ways to test our thoughts – especially our limiting beliefs – is to ask ourselves powerful questions, for example (Source: April Price) :

• • ‘If I didn’t believe this, then what would I do?’

We play around with the idea that what we believe to be true might actually not be true.

Example: ‘I am hopeless at organising my stuff. – If I didn’t believe that, then what would I do?’

• • ‘What if I’m wrong about that?’

The more willing we are to consider that we might be wrong about our beliefs, the less self-limiting power they have over us.

Example: ‘I don’t have enough space to organise my paperwork properly. – What if I’m wrong about that?’

• • ‘What if this is just a story my mind made up?’

Stories are not reality, they are made up. They are interpretations of the things and events of our life. We can decide to interpret things differently.

Example: ‘I am hopeless at organising my stuff. – What if this is just a story my mind made up? What’s a different story I could tell myself?’

LITTLE EXERCISE

Step 1 – Think about an area in your life – a special circumstance – where currently the results are not what you wish them to be.

It could be, for example, your fitness levels, your job satisfaction, a stressful relationship, the cluttered garage or wardrobe.

Step 2 – Now take some minutes to write down the thoughts you have about that circumstance. Anything that comes to your mind.

Don’t judge or overthink it, just write down what you are thinking.

Step 3 – And then have a closer look at the thoughts.

Pick one thought and ask yourself:

• • How do I feel when I think this way?
  • Is this a limiting thought? Does it keep me from feeling and acting the way I want to feel and act?
  • If I didn’t believe this, then what would I do?
  • What if I’m wrong about that?
  • What if this is just a story my mind made up?
  • Is it time to declutter this thought?
  • What could I decide to think instead?

Step 4 – Now practice the new thought.

Whenever the old thought comes up – and it will for a while because your brain is so used to thinking it – you decide deliberately to let it go. And you ‘turn around’ and focus your attention on the new thought. 

The more often you do this, the faster the old thought will lose its power. Based on the new thought, your feelings and actions will change – and your results.

Give it a try!

It works! Always!

How are you going to create a clutterfree life?

• • Are you learning how to declutter your home? – Or are you becoming a declutterer?
  • Are you learning how to declutter your thoughts and feelings? – Or are you becoming the master of your mind?
  • Are you going to make better buying decisions? – Or are you becoming a conscious shopper?
  • Are you starting to be more organised? – Or are you becoming the organiser of your home/life?

Who are you becoming? What’s your future identity?

When we decide to make changes in our life, when we start to move towards achieving our goals, we are not only starting to do something differently.

Before we can start to act differently, we need to learn to think and feel differently.

We are becoming someone different, we are creating a new identity.

A new identity that is different to our past identity. Thus, we can’t look to the past for evidence on what to do differently and how to do it differently.

Our ‘future self’ can help us create our future identity

We can use our imagination to ‘slip’ into our future identity, so that by taking this special new point of view we can develop a better understanding of the person we are going to be in the future.  

When we start to identify ourselves as who we are becoming, it’s getting easier to find empowering thoughts and words to lean on when the work of change gets hard.

Thus, let’s not focus so much on what we are going to do differently, let’s instead focus on defining our new identity – how we are going to be different.

We can ask ourselves:

• • ‘Who am I becoming?’
  • ‘How does that person – the new me – make decisions?’
  • ‘What does that person think?’
  • ‘How does that person feel?’
  • ‘How does that person act?’

LITTLE EXERCISE

Give your mind a powerful idea of who you are becoming.

Focusing on your future identity will help you think, feel and act like the person you want to become.

Step 1: Define your new identity

These are just a few examples of new-identity ideas:

• • ‘I am becoming a life-declutterer.’
  • ‘I am becoming a mindful person,’
  • ‘I am learning to be a conscious shopper.’
  • ‘I am determined to become the organiser of my mind, my home and my life.’

Step 2: Describe how you will think, feel and act differently.

Example:

Thoughts: ‘As a life-declutterer I make sure that there is no clutter in my mind and no clutter in my home. I only ‘own’ thoughts and belongings that serve me. My mind and my home are clutterfree and organised.

Feelings: I feel determined and confident.

Actions: I practice mind-decluttering every day, and I create useful habits and routines that help me to keep my mind and home clear and clean.’

Now it’s your turn! Who do you want to be?

Fill in the blanks:

 ‘I am becoming a _______________.’

‘These are the thoughts I am going to think about myself and my life:

_______________________________________________

_______________________________________________’

‘This is how I will feel and act in future: 

_______________________________________________

_______________________________________________’

Everything in our lives is a result of the thoughts we think.

This statement is the foundation of ‘The Model’, a coaching approach developed by Brooke Castillo (The Life Coach School).

I personally use ‘The Model’ on a daily basis to work on decluttering my mind and letting go of useless or harmful thoughts and feelings. 

Every problem is a thought problem

This is how ‘The Model’ works:

As soon as we have a thought about a circumstance – a fact that’s outside of our control -, the thought creates a feeling, which causes us to act and behave in a certain way, which then leads to a certain result:

Circumstance/facts -> Thought -> Feeling -> Action/inaction -> Result.

We are free to choose our thoughts. Unfortunately, we often choose problem-focused thoughts rather than solutions-focused thoughts.

It’s always the thought that things shouldn’t be the way they are and that something has gone wrong that is causing the problem.

However, thinking the circumstances should be different will never change the circumstances.

The thought that things should be different creates a problem for us, because it negatively affects our feelings and diminishes our ability to show up and act in a way that we want to show up and act.

We can’t create positive results and solutions if our thoughts focus on problems, on all the things that should be different.

The good news is that if we ‘create’ our problems by choosing certain thoughts, we can also solve our problems – by choosing different thoughts.

Let’s have a look at a little simplified example.

Scenario A) – Problem-focused thoughts

• • Circumstance: ‘It’s Tuesday morning, 6.44 a.m. The bus is going to leave in 6 minutes. My red jacket is not in my wardrobe.’
  • Thought: ‘I can never find what I am looking for. I am a mess.’
  • Feeling: ‘I feel stressed, angry at myself.’
  • Action/Inaction: ‘I put on my green jacket. In the afternoon, I go shopping and buy a new red jacket. I also buy a black and a blue jacket because they are on sale.’
  • Result: ‘I squeeze three more jackets into my wardrobe. It’s a mess. I still don’t know where the missing red jacket is.’

The thought (‘I am a mess’) about the circumstance (‘The red jacket is not in my wardrobe’) causes feelings of stress, which drive me to do some frustration-shopping, which results in the problem of having a cramped and messy wardrobe. 

Scenario B) – Solution-focused thoughts

• • Circumstance: ‘It’s Tuesday morning, 6.44 a.m. The bus is going to leave in 6 minutes. My red jacket is not in my wardrobe.’
  • Thought: ‘My wardrobe needs a clear-up. This could be a fun-activity if I did it together with my sister. I can ask her to join me for a ‘decluttering-party’.’
  • Feeling: ‘I feel excited, active.’
  • Action/Inaction: ‘I put my green jacket on. In the afternoon, I call my sister to arrange a decluttering-party. We spend the next Saturday with sorting and trying out my clothes.’
  • Result: ‘My wardrobe gets cleared-up. I find my red jacket. I spend some fun time with my sister.’

Switching from problem- to solution-thinking needs some practice, of course, it doesn’t happen over night.

However, as soon as we start to pay more attention to what’s happening in our mind, we become more and more aware of what we are thinking and how our thoughts influence our feelings, our actions and our results.

LITTLE EXERCISE

Next time when things are not as you wish or expect them to be and you realise that you think you have a problem, you could ask yourself:

• • ‘Why do I think that this is a problem?’
  • ‘How could it not be a problem?’
  • ‘What would I be thinking if I always searched for solutions?’

PS

Mind-decluttering is so important if we want to change our life to the better.

Yes, it’s not always easy. It’s similar to decluttering our home: We get so used to what we have that we struggle to make let-go decisions.   

So we need to learn to declutter and organise our thoughts and feelings. The new space and clarity in our mind enables us to take action and create positive change in all areas of our life (including our home). 

The good news is that you don’t have to manage it all on your own. 

I can help you get it sorted out – the problem-focused thoughts in your mind and the clutter in your home. With my support it’s going to be easier and faster.

Which of our thoughts are clutter?

A powerful question to uncover clutter-thoughts is:

‘Does this thought serve me?

Does it help me to feel and act in a way that allows me to achieve the results that I desire?’

If we begin to do the mind-decluttering work on a regular basis (learn about ‘thought downloads’ in Part 4 of this series), we soon discover some of the thoughts that don’t serve us (any longer).

Thoughts that we brought along from the past

These could be thoughts that we believed to be true in the past but that no longer fit the person we have become or want to become.

They don’t support us in a positive way, they hold us back and keep us from making changes.

Examples of thoughts that might keep us from achieving our home decluttering and organising goals:

• • ‘I like looking at nice things. That’s why I need lots of stuff to decorate our home nicely. However, it’s such a burden – these ongoing re-arrangement and re-decoration projects!’
  • ‘I want a cleaner/clearer home. But I always loved abundance. Clear surfaces and walls will feel terrible, won’t they?’
  • ‘All women in my family are a bit messy. I am like my mother and she says my grandmother was the same.’
  • My mother told me that I should never give away something that I might be able to use again some day. But how am I supposed to store all this unused stuff in my new little apartment?’

As any thought is optional, we are under no obligation to keep them, not matter how long we have had them.

We can sort out any thoughts that we no longer want to have, we can throw them in the ‘mind-clutter bin’.

Why do we hang on to some thoughts?

As we know from our home-decluttering projects, sometimes it is hard to let go of something, although it has become useless and we don’t need or like it any longer.

We keep physical things, for example, because we got used to them, or because we believe that they still have value, or that we might need them again some day.

It’s the same with our thoughts.

Sometimes we hang on to thoughts that are no longer serving us for similar reasons:

• • If we had a certain thought for a long time, it might feel as if it somehow belongs into our life. (‘Some people are good at organising their stuff. I never was one of them.’)
  • Or we feel that we have to keep a thought because an important person ‘gave’ it to us. (‘My mother always said that even as a little child I was messy.’)
  • We also might fear that we are no longer ‘complete’ if we let go of a certain thought because it feels closely linked to our identity. (‘I have always been this way. It’s part of who I am.’)

How to let go of clutter-thoughts?

Getting aware of a negative thought doesn’t mean that it’s easy to get rid of it.

Our mind got so used to thinking it that it’s often very hesitant to give it up.

We have to take the lead and direct our mind.

We deliberately decide to let go of a certain thought and to replace it with a new and more useful thought.

And then we make sure that our mind understands and accepts the new thought. 

We can tell our mind, for example:

• • ‘I used to believe that I was not good at organising my stuff. Now I am getting used to believing that I can and will learn how to organise my home. I am becoming a good organiser.’
  • ‘How I might have been as a child has nothing to do with how I choose to be today as an adult. I am getting really good at tidying my place.’
  • ‘I am totally free to choose my thoughts, feelings, and actions. I am the only person to decide who and how I am.’

LITTLE EXERCISE

• • Which is one of the thoughts from the past that no longer serves you?
  • How can you persuade your mind to let it go?
  • Which different thought will you start thinking instead?