Spring Cleaning your Life

The focus of spring cleaning week is shifting today for Wellness Wednesday! This is a big topic, so let’s focus on asking some hard questions and finding some improvements as we look at spring cleaning your life!

Before you panic, no you do not have to go through and toss or clean your entire life! That would be insanely difficult and would probably get rid of some good things that are serving you well! We want to focus on areas of your life that are not working for you, or just don’t feel right. 

Together, we are going to walk through a process to help us identify areas of our life that need some spring cleaning, and then learn some steps for how we can spring clean it. Don’t worry if you are finding this post in another season! This process works all year long!

Before we begin

This process is not something you can do in 15 minutes of reading through this blog post. To really dig deep into spring cleaning problem areas of your life, it will take some time to identify and determine the root cause of the problems. 

Fixing it may take some trial and error too. So give yourself grace as you work through this process. Have a journal or notebook that you can use to capture your thoughts as they arise and help flush out common themes or areas for improvement. 

Remember, our goal is to make improvements in the areas of your life that you identify as not working well for you. This process isn’t a magic fix (I wish!), but it works with the idea that making regular small improvements in areas of your life will improve your overall life in a measurable way. 

Identify 

The first step of this process is to identify the areas of our life that are not serving us well. As you read this, there is probably one big thing that comes to mind right away! That is good, but often there are more lingering in the back of our minds!

Let this question marinate for a week or so at the forefront of your mind. As you go through and experience all areas of your life, what areas are common sources of frustration, stress, anxiety, annoyance, or worry? 

As these issues come up, write them down in your journal or notebook to keep track of your problem areas. At the end of the week, look back through these problems and see what sort of patterns or connections you see in them. Are they all about work? All about family? All relating to boundaries in many areas of life? 

Shed light on the problem

Once you have identified how these problems are showing up in your day-to-day life, now is the time to start searching for the root cause. 

Often the day-to-day actions of these types of problems are just the symptoms of a larger root cause. If you just address the daily actions with some sort of a “Band-aid” type fix, you will still have issues because you have not addressed the root cause. 

A simplified example of this would be that work is always calling, texting, emailing, on nights and weekends when you are supposed to be off work. You hate it (rightfully so!). Setting a rule that you will not answer work calls after 7 pm and on weekends might help the problem. 

But the root cause of this issue, is really that you have never set boundaries with your work and are subtly telling them it is ok to reach out to you outside of work hours by using phrases like “call me if you have any questions”, “don’t struggle through the problem alone, I am here to help anytime”, or including your personal cell phone number on emails for after-hours communication. 

Not answering the phone on the evenings and weekends may allow you to have some much-needed downtime, but you are still going to have emails and phone calls stacking up because your boundaries are not firm. 

Finding the root cause of a problem can be difficult for the person who is in the middle of it! This is a great opportunity to talk to a trusted friend, family member, or therapist who can help identify root causes without being distracted by the emotions and frustration of the problem!

Pack your patience! This process may take some time to work out. Often realizing the effects of your patterns and habits can take some time to “click” in your mind. Allow a few weeks or several conversations with the trusted person to work through identifying the root cause. 

Often, I find that it is easiest to identify the root cause the day after a conversation because my mind is already thinking about this problem and chewing on a solution. Things just have a way of popping out at me at this point, so pay close attention!

Apply spring cleaning

Depending on the problem area of your life, and the root cause you identify, your spring cleaning method may vary. Having a trusted and wise person to help you walk through finding a solution will be helpful. Their unbiased outside view can often see problems and solutions easier than you can when your view is clouded with emotions and feelings. 

You can use more than one method, try some out and see how they fit. There are no rules here, do what feels right to you! 

Spring cleaning methods

Purge– Remove everything in the area you are focused on and be ruthless in what you get rid of. Only keep things you love and that serve you well in the life you are living.

Forgotten locations– Look for those places you often forget or ignore to give any attention to and pay them special attention. 

Scrub– Get some good cleaning products and scrub away the dirt and residue to reveal the natural and clean surface underneath. 

Dark corners– Shed some light on the dark corners and unpack what is lurking back there. Get rid of things that don’t serve you well, and put any forgotten values in a safe and more prominent location. 

Adjust expectations– Spring cleaning will not make your house brand new again. Evaluate your standards and expectations and see if any need adjusting. 

Allow the spring light to shine– Springtime sunlight will often illuminate areas that need attention. Keep your mind and options open to what the light illuminates in your life. 

What you will learn, discover, or find while you are spring cleaning is a mystery. But approach this with the goal of making lasting improvements in the problem areas of your life. You want them to be less stressful and easier for you to manage on a day-to-day basis. 

It may take multiple methods or some that are not listed here, to solve the root of your problem. Don’t give up! Improving the problem area of your life is worth it! I promise! 

Rinse and repeat

This is not a one-time fix for the problem areas of your life. As you make improvements in one area, another problem area will probably rear its ugly head. Life is a continuous process to find improvements, and this is one way to ensure you are regularly making life improvements. 

Rinse and repeat works in two ways. First, try different solutions to solve the problem. Often your first solution will not work, or will only make a temporary change. Don’t give up, and experiment with another solution. Keep talking to your trusted person as you go through this, it is often easier to find solutions and ideas when you can verbally process with another person. 

Second, you probably have more than one problem area in your life. I know I do! Start this process with the one causing you the most discomfort or side effects. Once you make progress on it, then restart the process on the second problem. 

The more you go through this process and apply spring cleaning to your root causes, the easier this process seems. You will start connecting dots and seeing common themes across all areas of your life. 

Often a solution that solves a problem in one area of your life can also help with a similar problem in other areas of your life. An example could be, fixing a lack of boundaries with work can often use the same techniques as setting boundaries with family. 

Don’t be overwhelmed 

There is a lot of information here, and it is natural to feel like you want to fix all of your problems right now! The problem areas of your life didn’t happen overnight, so you can’t expect to fix them all immediately. Take the process as slow as you need to, there is no judgment or expectations here!

Everyone needs a little spring cleaning in their life, check out these other posts on how to spring clean your finances and how to spring clean your kitchen and meal habits.

If you have any questions or thoughts about spring cleaning your life, I would love to hear them in the comments below or over on Instagram!

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