Declutter Your Life: Strategies for Clearing Mental Clutter

Dr. Christine Li [00:00:00]:
Welcome back to the Make Time for Success podcast. This is episode number 175. We are in the middle of our "Declutter Your Life" series on the podcast, and today's episode is all about strategies for dealing with your mental clutter. And if you're like me, you know that mental clutter can be ever present and really persistent. So I'm gonna share with you some of my strategies for managing mental clutter. And it's not so much about organizing your thoughts like we would, perhaps, organize physical clutter, as much as it's about reorienting your thoughts and self belief so that you're always imagining and heading towards your inevitable success. The tips I share in this episode will help you to feel both more confident and more focused as you live in this ever distracting world of ours. So grab your favorite drink, get comfortable, and let's share this episode together now.

Dr. Christine Li [00:01:11]:
Hi. I'm doctor Christine Li, and I'm a psychologist and a procrastination coach. I've helped thousands of people move past procrastination and overwhelm so they could begin working to their potential. In this podcast, you're going to learn powerful strategies for

Dr. Christine Li [00:01:28]:
getting your mind, body, and energy to work together so that you can focus on what's really important and accomplish the goals you want to achieve. When you start living within your full power, you're going

Dr. Christine Li [00:01:42]:
to see how being productive can be easy and how you can create success on demand. Welcome to the Make Time for Success podcast.

Dr. Christine Li [00:01:55]:
Hello there. Thanks for being with me here on the Make Time for Success podcast. Last week in episode number 174, I spoke about the issue of physical clutter and I provided a whole list of ideas of how you can change your mindset about the idea of tackling your clutter and some ways to actually put your hands on the clutter so it can be eradicated from your life. Today's topic is along the lines of clutter, but today, we're gonna talk about strategies for clearing your mental clutter. I think this is just as important, probably more important than the physical clutter issue. So what is mental clutter? In my opinion, a quick definition, it's just anything that stops the flow of your energy, of your thoughts, of your feelings, and or your actions. And so by that informal definition, you can see that just about anything can fall under the category of mental clutter, because we can be distracted by an internal thought. We can be distracted by the squirrel outside of our window, and we can feel like our efforts to get things done have ground to a halt because there's so much mental clutter taking up the space in our beautiful brains.

Dr. Christine Li [00:03:22]:
So when we have problems with mental clutter, when we haven't developed a practice for making sure our brains and minds are clear, we can stop ourselves from doing the simplest things, including brushing our teeth, paying bills, going to sleep on time. So you make sure that you get 7 or 8 hours a night of sleep regularly. Getting up off the couch, changing the channel on the device that you're using. I don't know if channels are still still a thing, but you get the message that our brilliant minds can be totally stopped because we're just overwhelmed by this feeling that we have no forward moving energy. So my purpose today in talking about mental clutter is to give you some tools, some really useful tools, and ways of thinking about your mind and your energy so that you never have to feel stuck again. So before I go on, I should say that not only does mental clutter stop you from things like maybe getting up out of your chair or brushing your teeth, It also causes secondary harm. And by secondary harm, I mean, it's not the primary thing. Like the primary thing would be you don't brush your teeth.

Dr. Christine Li [00:04:42]:
The secondary effect or result would be that you feel totally embarrassed or that you have dental decay or that you feel embarrassed about how you look, so then you stop leaving your apartment or your home. Those are secondary effects of mental clutter. And so generally, secondary effects take the form of feelings, feelings like feeling ashamed, feeling embarrassed, feeling guilty, feeling like you're not enough, feeling like you're not worthy, feeling very self critical, being very self critical. And sometimes, oftentimes feeling in a state of disbelief that you cannot understand why it can feel so difficult to get up off your couch, prepare yourself for bed, brush your teeth, and get yourself to bed on time. And if this is you, I want you to take a moment and just forgive yourself. Forgive yourself for being in a situation that feels too difficult to manage and forgive yourself for the habits that have been your past experience. The great news is, you no longer have to continue these maladaptive patterns. You can decide.

Dr. Christine Li [00:06:00]:
I am so lucky, I came across this particular episode of the Make Time For Success podcast. Because in this episode, I realized that I can change my way of thinking about these small behaviors to the point that I can absolutely do a 180 degree turnaround and I could decide. The shame doesn't help me. The embarrassment is just something that I'm feeling. It's a temporary thing that's going through my heart. What I can do is take a new step, get up, brush my teeth. Or if you don't have problems with brushing your teeth, congratulations. But apply this kind of thinking and logic to the area in which you yourself are having difficulty.

Dr. Christine Li [00:06:43]:
Think about the areas that you feel stuck in. Think about the things that you feel are impossible for you to do. And I will bet my bottom dollar that after a bit of thinking, you're gonna find, you know what? There are so many different ways of moving forward that I haven't taken advantage of yet, that I have not tried yet. And I'm gonna do that because I got a little bit of inspiration from Christine today. So when we have mental clutter and when we stop doing basic functioning and basic tasks, and then we feel embarrassed, then you know what happens? We're in a bigger problem because we're in a state of chronic procrastination. And it's no wonder that people have so much difficulty and feel like they would rather do anything, but talk about how behind they are or request some real support or help from other people. Because it feels like the worst thing in the world when you're caught up in all that drama, in that self drama, and in that cycle of procrastination, which can be so tough to break out of because you feel like the whole world might be watching or the whole world might be acting differently than you are acting. And it feels like too much for you to manage from an ego level.

Dr. Christine Li [00:08:08]:
My own opinion and my experience as a psychologist and professional and coach is that the faster you clear all of this mental clutter or even some of this mental clutter, the faster you become. It's not just that you get to do things faster. You literally become a faster running machine. I want you to think of yourself as being like a car engine or a very fancy computer, a very good computer. If you're running on the wrong type of gas or you're using another type of systems software in your very expensive computer, nothing is going to work. Nothing is going to seem like it's going to work. You might even crash the very expensive car or computer, even if you've paid top dollar for that car or computer, nothing will really work if you're feeding it the wrong information. So when you are telling yourself you're not good enough, that's the equivalent of putting the wrong type of gas in the right type of an engine.

Dr. Christine Li [00:09:23]:
I want you to start thinking and really knowing and remembering that in between your two ears is a $1,000,000,000,000 machine. Your body is a $1,000,000,000,000 machine as well. So you don't wanna feed that $1,000,000,000,000 machine, the wrong thoughts, limiting thoughts, negative thoughts, pessimistic thoughts, self doubt. All of that stuff is so toxic for this $1,000,000,000,000 machine that you possess, that you own, that you know is actually worth more than any expensive car or computer. And so you wanna stop generating mental clutter. I can give you some examples. Don't tell yourself, I don't have enough time. Don't tell yourself, I have a 100 other things I could be doing.

Dr. Christine Li [00:10:15]:
Don't tell yourself, I'm lazy. Don't tell yourself, I don't have enough energy. Don't tell yourself, I'm too afraid to start. You might be feeling lazy, unenergized, and afraid to start. But the way to actually start when you want to start, in those moments when you really do wanna get going, The way to do that is to feed the machine, feed the $1,000,000,000,000 machine words of affirmation that are in alignment with what you wanna do. So those words sound like, I'm getting started now. I feel excited about the results that I'm about to achieve. I can see that the next step I'm about to take is simple, clear, and effective.

Dr. Christine Li [00:11:02]:
Things like that. Positive words. Real words, they're not personally attacking or you're not telling yourself, oh, you're just worth nothing, so forget it. You're not starting off your projects with that kind of language or that kind of tone. You're starting with, I'm ready to go. I'm a $1,000,000,000,000 machine. I'm revved up. I am prepared.

Dr. Christine Li [00:11:27]:
I have practiced for this moment and I desire the positive result. Now, this is something that many of you who are listening will need to start as a brand new practice because you've been caught in self criticism and self doubt for so long. I have empathy for you. I have been there. I have crossed that bridge to the point where I believe in myself so much these days that sometimes it seems ridiculous. But I want you to get to that point as well, to the point where you think, well, what else can I do? What else can I imagine? Where else can I get myself to? Because it's really a much more fun game when you get to play it like that. Instead of thinking, you know what, I'm on the start square of the game board, and I don't feel like I can even make 3 moves over to the right. It's just kind of stressful to feel like you're stuck all the time.

Dr. Christine Li [00:12:21]:
I know. Again, I know from experience. But I also know that you can shift off of that starting block. You really can. The key is not that I have empathy for you, although I do. The key is for you to have empathy for yourself. Have empathy for that part of you that feels too scared, too embarrassed, too vulnerable, too unenergized to start. Have empathy for that part of you.

Dr. Christine Li [00:12:48]:
That is a very real and true part of you, but also develop the practice of adding real power, thought, belief, and practice behind the part of you that knows that this is all one big game that you're playing and that you are ready to actually go for the goals and dreams that you have in your heart. They exist. I know they do. Everyone has a big vision for themselves. They really do. My own story just goes in line with this particular episode, the episode on mental clutter, because my own history and the history of the people who tend to raise their hand to say that they're ready to work with me is that the world is filled with reasons for negativity, for thinking that I'm about to fail. And back in the day when I was in high school, college, graduate school, all of those years, I always felt like I was doing everything backward. I didn't know that at the time, but in hindsight, I was doing everything backward.

Dr. Christine Li [00:13:58]:
I would start by thinking I was worthless and not smart enough, and then I would continue to fear that I was worthless and not smart enough, and that anything I would ever invest my time and energy in, I believed was gonna be worthless and not good enough as well. And as you can imagine, when you start off feeling like you're worthless and not good enough, your results are gonna be less than stellar. And, indeed, I was late with everything. I was awkward in every interaction. I could not focus worth a dime, and I felt tired all the time too because that cycle of thinking made me so far behind on things. I would have to sacrifice my nighttime sleep to make sure I got caught up or try to catch up on all the things that I was behind on. So it was a very vicious procrastination cycle. It was a very vicious self doubting cycle that I was in.

Dr. Christine Li [00:14:58]:
But the good news is in that story of my past, at some point, I realized that I had control over my whole $1,000,000,000,000 machine and that I could slowly and with conscious decision making and practice, that I could learn to value both myself and my time and energy at a much higher level. That I could start by believing, you know what? I can make this one change in my closed closet so that I can actually get to my first event on time during the day. And when those micro steps started to get put in the right order, right, get up on time, get dressed on time, be satisfied with how I look leaving the house. Everything started to change. Time seemed to slow down for me in a good way. It felt like I wasn't running behind all the time all of a sudden. It felt like I could concentrate a little bit more all of a sudden. And it felt like I could access my natural brain and skills more easily and naturally as well because I wasn't fighting myself from the inside.

Dr. Christine Li [00:16:16]:
That is my whole purpose of doing this episode today, is to remind you that there are some blocks inside of you that you can eliminate, That you do not have to block your own genius, your own talents, your own skills, your own desires, your own flow in your life on a day to day basis. You can decide for yourself that you're hooked on playing this game with a full set of dice and an open board and an open mind that is ready to be the winner. Right? And the great news about this kind of game is that all of us get to win. When you start thinking, oh, well, Judy is always winning. She's always taking the spotlight. Life really isn't like that. We all get to be in the spotlight if we want to. We all get to rise to our best level of performance.

Dr. Christine Li [00:17:11]:
And I want you to see that. That's why I have this podcast. It's called make time for success. It means that we have to make room for the part of us that is ready to grow and develop and shine so that we can feel even more confident about ourselves and our gifts and how we are in the world. And so that we can go on to help other people who might need some help in this department as well. So that's my story. I have crossed that bridge to the point where, again, I don't doubt myself very much anymore. I have made it my mission to help those of you who feel like you could use some support in getting to that point of self confidence and efficacy.

Dr. Christine Li [00:17:57]:
And I just love to do this work because I feel it's kind of a no brainer when it comes to my why. This is my why for being employed and a professional and coming on to this podcast. It's to share with you this information and these strategies that truly work, that will truly make your life a whole lot easier. Before I wrap up this episode, I want to share with you a list of habits that I put together that you might be engaged in right now that might be accidentally also creating mental clutter. So listen to this list. The first item is following what other people are doing. When you are thinking that you need to be just like this person or that person or your professor or this doctor told you something, blah blah blah. Of course, listen to seeing medical advice, but I want you to learn to follow your own intuition, your own internal GPS because that is a shortcut to really not being cluttered inside your mind.

Dr. Christine Li [00:19:02]:
Right? When you're trying to be someone else, it can really feel like a struggle because we're not that other person. We're ourselves. Let's try to be fully ourselves. That's the goal. Next on the list of habits is feeling less than or more than others. It's kind of similar to point number 1. We just wanna be ourselves. If you're feeling insecure or superior to other people, it's likely that you are spending most of your time thinking about other people and that is creating mental clutter.

Dr. Christine Li [00:19:32]:
Another part of the list is being fearful. When we are fearing things, we get off our game playing piece or block on the the game board. When you're afraid of losing monopoly, you're not gonna see the great real estate deal that's around the corner on the board. So try to eliminate or minimize the fears that are rattling around in your brain because they very much are distracting and cluttering your brain. More thoughts here on this list, working too hard. This may seem paradoxical, but when we are working too hard, we're kind of banging our head against the wall, trying to get things done. It may be that you're blocking your clear thought because you're exhausted, because you're sleep deprived, because you're hyped up on too many cups of coffee. So try to calm your system down, and you might find that you get finished with your project much more quickly.

Dr. Christine Li [00:20:26]:
The next on the list is not knowing what your why is. I described how I found my why through my own recovery from procrastination and self doubt. And now I want you to turn to yourself and decide what is the reason for my working so hard? Why do I care? What do I wanna put out in the world? What do I want people to know about me and from me? That is your why. So think about what your why is. And when you work in alignment and in accordance with your why, I think you'll find that you have much less clutter to deal with mentally. Other areas of mental clutter are being distracted, being unrested, being engaged in activities that are unfulfilling to you or unrewarding, maybe not having the practice of feeling grateful for the wins that you have been able to make. When you forget to celebrate your wins, you tend to focus on all the things that are not going well or you haven't completed yet. And then there's this imbalance that can make you feel uncomfortable or irritable, and then that creates mental clutter because you've blocked your flow by saying, oh, things are not going as fast as I want them to go.

Dr. Christine Li [00:21:41]:
And then a few more things on this list of habits that cause mental clutter, and those are seeing yourself as a failure, never a good thing, Letting vulnerability stop you from trying things, also never a good thing. And finally, a big one, thinking that everything needs to be just so, totally fair, totally logical, or worst of all, perfect. When you get yourself into those rigid patterns of thinking, then it's kind of like your $1,000,000,000,000 machine says I give up. I can't do that. The world isn't perfect, and I can't fit what you want into reality. So I'm just gonna shut down your machine, your car engine. It just turns off. So instead of thinking everything needs to be superhuman, just decide you're going to be human.

Dr. Christine Li [00:22:30]:
You're gonna be your best version of yourself as best as you can today, tomorrow, and the next day. And then learn to be grateful. Learn to have confidence in yourself, and learn to flow with a gracious energy, a happy energy going forward, knowing that you're someone who's free from mental clutter. If you would like help with this topic of mental clutter, I have something for you. It is a free download that you can get very easily. It's called the 1 page personal plan. I developed this as a free gift many, many years ago, but these kinds of things tend to stand the test of time. It's a 1 page document that asks you a few questions to help you straighten out what is important to you, what is your why, and what are the things you need to avoid doing so that you can really focus on getting this one thing done.

Dr. Christine Li [00:23:27]:
Again, it's a 1 page personal plan and to get it for yourself, just go to maketimeforsuccesspodcast.com/plan. Again, it's maketimeforsuccesspodcast.com/plan. And I would be overjoyed if you requested this 1 page personal plan because it's a sign that you're ready to move forward in a new way. Next week, I'm going to be back in this clutter series, Declutter Your Life series. And next week, we're going to talk about schedule clutter. It should be a great episode. I'll meet you there.

Dr. Christine Li [00:24:07]:
Thank you for listening to this episode of the Make Time For Success podcast.

Dr. Christine Li [00:24:12]:
If you enjoyed what you heard,

Dr. Christine Li [00:24:14]:
you can to make sure you get notified of upcoming episodes. You can also visit our website, maketimeforsuccesspodcast.com, for past episodes, show notes, and all the resources we mentioned on the show. Feel free to connect with me over on Instagram too. You can find me there under the name procrastination coach. Send me a DM and let me know what your thoughts are about the episodes you've been listening to. And let me know any topics you might like me to talk about on the show. I'd love to hear all about how you're making time for success. Talk to you soon.