One simple, but powerful lesson I’ve learned from my wife is the intrinsic joy of tracking your progress visually. But the difference between the two is huge-the excitement of a new goal might fuel you for a few days, but it’s the pleasure you derive from the pursuit that keeps you going until the end. Celebrate SuccessĮveryone loves the idea of accomplishing their goals, but much fewer learn to enjoy the journey. But string togethers those efforts over the course of an entire month-and then a whole year-and you’ll really feel a sense of progress. So on most days, the task only took a few minutes. ![]() Start smaller than you think you should, and build momentum.Īs my wife and I designed our year of decluttering with monthly challenges, we aimed for consistency over intensity of effort. As you grow in confidence, you’ll naturally want to try harder things, because the easy things will begin to seem boring.īut in the beginning, don’t get ahead of yourself. Instead of setting a wildly ambitious goal, try one that you’re 95% confident you can accomplish, and then go out and do it. All you have to do is make the task smaller and easier. Increasing your confidence in the short-term is a bit different, and it’s actually simpler. Your history of reaching goals and finishing jobs will inform your subconscious belief that you’ll be able to do it again. ![]() In the long run, your confidence increases as you accumulate victories across a variety of life’s obstacles. While your list might be different, here is a list that my wife and I created as part of our own decluttering journey each month. You want to apply as much focused effort on the smallest possible area- this will ensure that you experience plenty of progress, which as you’ll see below, is a key part of keeping motivation high. I recommend thinking through each area of your life systematically, and planning to focus on each area for an entire month. One of the best things you can do is to have a crystal clear plan for how you’ll reach your goal of a less cluttered life. You can’t assume thinking or reading about the problem will keep it top of mind and trickle down into action. If you’re serious about decluttering your life, don’t approach it casually. Since so many people desire to declutter their lives and begin to live more intentionally, I believe the most useful thing is to direct my own energy in helping people to solve the pressing motivation problem. What it boils down to is this: the more clear the path, the more confidence in the outcome, and the more enjoyable the journey… the more likely you are to succeed. While this blog post doesn’t have the space to go into the myriad of research being done on the topic, I wanted to highlight these reasons, because they are at the very heart of the discussion-and the literature is showing that figuring out how to move these levers is critical for making change. In all three instances, what we’re really talking about is motivation. ![]() Not worth it – They don’t feel the effort is worth the reward.Low Confidence – They have doubts about their ability to follow through or finish the job.Lack of Clarity – They are unclear about the details or path to achieve their goal.While it’s not completely established why people don’t follow through with their ow plans, there are typically three contributors at work: They recognize that their life is too full of the wrong things and that it’s distracting them from giving their best time and energy to the things they value most.īut many of these same people never get started on the journey of decluttering their life. Since starting to write about intentional living, I have heard from many people a desire to change. Note: This is a guest post by Mike Donghia of This Evergreen Home.
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