It’s hard to hit a target if you don’t know what it is. Creating the life you want starts with defining what that life looks like.
Create Space for the Life You Want
One of the biggest areas of focus with my organizing clients is how to create space for the lives they want. Sometimes this involves decluttering a room and letting things go that no longer serve them, or categorizing things and putting them in containers. But organizing is more than just getting rid of stuff or making things easy to find. Organizing is about keeping what’s important to us, getting rid of what isn’t, and about making space for what we really want. That could be arranging a living room so you can have people over, creating a meal plan, or otherwise looking at your space and time to figure out what you’d like to have there.
Creating space for those things usually requires letting others go, or rearranging time and priorities. That could be as simple as less TV or time on Facebook and more time in the backyard, or it could mean making some major changes like switching careers, moving, or seriously shifting who you hang out with and how you spend your time and money.
The spaceWise Happiness Project
In order to help people organize more than just their space and time, I created the spaceWise Happiness Project, a monthly support and empowerment group for women experimenting with how to be happier – in our homes (using organizing and Feng Shui), our bodies (food, sleep, quiet), and in our lives (relationships, $, adventure, passions). We use Gretchen Rubin’s book The Happiness Project as a jumping-off point to explore different themes, try doing anything you’ve been wanting to differently in those areas with the idea that you’d only be happier if…. You can learn more and reserve your spot here.
Define The Life You Want
Here are some steps to help you get started in creating the life you want.
Stop and think about your perfect day. What does it look like? Feel like? How much sleep did you get? What types of things do you do that day? Have lunch with a friend? Spend time doing meaningful work? Create something, whether making art, writing in a journal, or trying a new recipe?
Having the life you want starts with defining what that life looks and feels like, and what it includes.
- Write down five things you want more of in your life.
- What would it take for you to have that? Just brainstorm for a few minutes. Make a list or free write whatever comes to mind.
- Name three things you want less of.
- How could you decrease or eliminate what you’ve listed in number 3?
- Write one to three sentences defining the life you want. This doesn’t have to be fancy or eloquent. It’s a simple life mission statement.
Create a Resolutions Chart with Specific Action Steps
There’s power in setting an intention and creating a plan to make manifest your goal. One of the best resources I’ve ever found is from Gretchen Rubin’s The Happiness Project, in which she talks about using a resolutions chart to track those things that she’s focusing on changing or accomplishing. I’ve used my own version of this for the last nine years on. It’s more likely you’ll accomplish what you resolve to when you write it down and check back in.
Whether you’re creating a resolutions chart that includes what you want more of or you’re writing a life mission statement that reminds you what your purpose is, setting the intention and then taking the steps to create the life you want means more than making a resolution. You commit to what you want and then takes the steps to make that happen.
Want Some Company on the Path?
Join a group of women who are also committed to looking at their own lives and considering what they would like to be different and what they really want. Learn more about the spaceWise Happiness Project or register now. If you have any questions, please contact me by email or give me a call at 512-591-8129.
