Hi guys! Welcome to Episode 288 of the Wildly Successful Lifestyle podcast. I hope this episode finds you living your version of a Wildly Successful Lifestyle. And if you’re not, are you working towards it? One thing I always do is if I’m not currently happy with where I am in a certain area of life, I am actively working to improve it. Or at the very least, I am trying to decide what I want in that area so I know how to work towards it.
In this episode we talk about why we talk about cleaning up our environment because our environment has A LOT to do with how we see ourselves and vise versa. Having a good mindset, feeling calm and relaxed and not overwhelmed is vital to our overall outlook and it is hard to do when our environment is a wreck.
I’ve heard this statement “How we do one thing is how we do most things.” several times in the past year and when I first heard it I wanted to disagree but the more Ive thought about it, it’s true.
For example, how the outside of your home looks, is probably pretty indicative of how the inside looks. If someone doesn’t cut their grass or make the outside of their home look beautiful, they are not doing it on the inside either. Just like if someone goes out looking like they just rolled out of bed, clothes are wrinkled, or dirty, their hair looks dirty , I find myself often imagining subconsciously how their bedroom must look or the state of their home must be a wreck.
But does our environment only include our home? No of course not, Realistically our environment can include every single place we go, the people we surround ourselves with, the things we allow into our mind. But for this episode I simply want to talk about our home. The bare minimum of our environment, the part of our life that undoubtedly display how we are doing in life, the way we care for our home will tell you a lot about how you view yourself.
How often do you leave your house with dishes left in the sink? Your bed is unmade, there’s clutter all over the island, maybe your front porch plants gave up a while ago, there are so many things that bother us but we just can’t seem to find time to change it. And listen there is no judgment here, I’m going to be pretty vulnerable with you guys about this. I used to be pretty messy. And looking back at my life, I understand why. I was a wreck on the inside, and it was showing up on the outside. When I was about 25 going through a divorce from my first husband, we had two dogs which I got to keep thank goodness but I was also working and look those dogs would sometimes go to the bathroom in my house and I would try to clean it up, I remember one time sitting on my living room floor, it was carpet, and just crying uncontrollably because of the state of my house, my life, my ability to care for my dogs, it was not good. So if this is you, or some version of that is you, there’s hope. You don’t have to settle for that. I look back at that girl crying on the floor and send her so much love and you know why? Because she didn’t accept that as her lot in life, she slowly but surely started getting it together. She got help through coaching, she read books and went to seminars and surrounded herself with people that raised her standards. She was doing the best she could at the time, while knowing she deserved better and actively worked towards it. No one was going to knock on my door and offer to help clean or care for the dogs, or get my mindset right, I had to do that and I did and I still work on it every single day. And if that sounds tiresome to you, imagine the weight of staying in the misery of being a wreck, that’s a whole heck of a lot more tiresome, I can say that from experience. Her house mirrored her life…and at the time, it was a wreck.
Fast forward to this last weekend.
We were having dinner at a beautiful restaurant, all dressed up, with 2 other couples right around the corner from our house and after dinner one of the guys said “we are coming to your house for after dinner drinks” and with no hesitation at all we said, sure come on. I tell you this because when I was that young girl that was a wreck, if someone wanted to do that, just stop by, I would have to make an excuse for why that wasn’t possible. You know why? Because my house was most certainly not in a situation where guests could just stop by. In fact I remember when I was about 26, a friend was saying someone had dropped by her house for coffee unexpectedly and I asked her well, how did your house look? To which she said, my house is always neat. Someone could stop by anytime. I just never really had experienced that, living in a home that was organized all the time and everything was in it’s place. I honestly didn’t know people lived that way. My house growing up was clean, it just wasn’t neat and uncluttered. So for me It never occurred to me how wonderful it feels to live in a home that is not cluttered and is always what I call “guest ready”. So I realized right then, ok that’s another area where I need to improve.
Our home now is pretty much always “guest ready”.
Now it doesn’t hurt that Im married to a pilot that was in the military for years, because he has helped me be sooooooo much neater simply because he is so neat. I was just not that neat, growing up, that wasn’t a big deal in our house. So that wasn’t a habit I had grown up with. But having a home that is always guest ready feels so good. All we had to do when we walked in when everyone was coming over, was turn on the lights, light a few candles and put our journals out of site, because we do keep them on our island. For the most part when we leave, the house is in a beautiful state. And here’s the thing, we don’t do it because we might have guests, we do it because of how it makes us feel. We see ourselves as deserving a home like that, we see ourselves as worthy of that.
I love coming home to a home that has fresh flowers or greenery, smells nice and everything is in order and so does my husband. It makes everything better when we are in an environment that makes us feel the way we want to feel. It makes our relationship better, it makes me want to make a meal at home instead of going out. It makes me want to dress better, to work out, to do all the good things for myself because I feel so good in my environment, it elevates my mood every time I walk into my beautiful clean uncluttered home and makes me want to up level every part of my life because that’s how I view myself. How you do one thing is how you do most things remember? So if you organize your home and have it looking amazing will that elevate your life as well? Yeah, it will actually. Because you’re setting the standards for yourself that tell you you are worthy of so much more. You tell yourself you aren’t settling for mediocrity anymore. You deserve better and it will show up in the way you dress, the way you eat, the way you see yourself in general. That’s a new standard of your Wildly Successful life that you will only want to keep upleveling because you feel so good.
And there’s no judgment here if your house isn’t guest ready, Ive already confessed I used to be pretty messy. This was an area I had to really step up my game and once I did, it became a must because I just love the way it feels to come home knowing everything looks the way I want it to.
And I talk about it in this way because I’m telling you it’s a learned behavior. You may be like me and never experienced living somewhere that is completely organized and uncluttered. That’s ok, if I did it, so can you, trust me. Sometimes you just have to know it’s possible, and it is.
I gotta tell you it’s amazing. I would never go back, I don’t think I could. It doesn’t matter where you live, how big or small your home is, how much money you make, you can experience living in an organized, clean, uncluttered home that has fresh greenery and smells wonderful. That is something that is IN YOUR CONTROL and does not have to cost a lot of money. You just have to decide to elevate your standard.
This is a behavior you can learn.
My challenge to you this week is to up level your standards for your home. Create a bare minimum list of three things, that’s doable right?. At the bare minimum even on a day where you’re not feeling it, what is your new standard? For me, bare minimum, Bed is made, kitchen is clean, exterior front entry looks fresh and welcoming. That’s the bare minimum for me, and to be transparent, my planters right now on my porch need a little freshening up, which I will do today because that’s a new standard Ive decided for myself. Look out front porch…. Doing this will elevate more than your home, I promise you. I love you guys I’ll talk to you in a few days.
