Living Clutter Free Forever - decluttering tips,home organizing, minimalist living

Decluttering Your Mindset: How to mentally prepare for a clutter-free New Year #135

• Caroline Thor - Professional Organizer - KonMari® Consultant

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Have you ever felt like mental clutter is holding you back from achieving your dream of a clutter-free home? Do you find yourself overwhelmed by perfectionism, guilt, or just not knowing where to start?

You’re not alone—and I’ve been there too.

In this episode, I dive into the real reason so many of us struggle to declutter and organize: our mindset. Because let’s be honest—tidying your space starts with decluttering your thoughts.

Here’s the truth: if you’re still telling yourself, “I’m just not a tidy person,” or “I’ll never get on top of this,” you’re setting yourself up to fail before you even begin. But what if you could shift your mindset and finally break through the clutter—both mental and physical?

💡 Discover simple yet powerful mindset shifts that will:

  • Help you embrace small wins and build sustainable habits.
  • Reframe perfectionism so it doesn’t stop you in your tracks.
  • Turn tidying and organizing into something you get to do, not something you have to do.

Imagine starting the new year with clarity, focus, and a home that reflects your best self. It’s not just about tidying—it’s about creating a clutter-free life.

👉 Ready to learn the mindset shifts that changed everything for me—and could do the same for you?

Hit play and join me for this game-changing conversation. Trust me, you don’t want to miss it.

Your clutter-free home (and mind!) is closer than you think. 🎧

✨ Listen now and take the first step toward your most organized year yet.

PLUS! Join me on January 11th for the Decluttering Your Mindset: How to mentally prepare for a clutter-free New Year workshop. SAVE YOUR SPACE HERE!

I would LOVE to hear from you. Text Message me here.

Get your home tidy in just 15 minutes a day! Grab my FREE 15 Minute Declutter Kickstart Guide HERE!

Thanks for listening! For more organizational motivation, support and free resources:
Join my online membership Clutter Free Collective
Join my podcast Facebook group Living Clutter Free Forever Podcast: KonMari® Inspired Organizing | Facebook
Visit my website www.caroline-thor.com
Come and say 'hi' on Instagram @caro.thor
Follow me on Facebook @carolineorganizer

Speaker 1:

Hi there, I'm Caroline Thor, professional organiser, konmari consultant, teacher and mum of three. I started off my life as a mum feeling overwhelmed, disorganised and desperately trying to carve out some time for me amongst the nappies, chaos and clutter. One day, one small book called the Life-Changing Magic of Tidying changed everything and I began to learn strategies for making everyday life easier. Today I have the systems in place that means life can throw almost anything at me, and I want to share them with you. If you're an overwhelmed mum struggling to keep it together, then this is the podcast for you. Grab a coffee and settle in for a quick chat with someone who gets your reality. Hello and welcome to the last episode of the Living Clutter-Free Forever podcast for 2024. I can't think of a better way to end the year than with you, so thank you so much for joining me.

Speaker 1:

It is seven o'clock in the morning here in Germany as I am recording this, on the 29th of December, and I have got our little puppy, nugget, lying in the room with me to try and keep him quiet while everyone else sleeps and enjoys their Christmas holiday still, so I'm hoping he's quiet. If you hear some weird licking noises going on in the background. That's what it is. It's not me, and, yeah, I hope we can get through this episode without any interruption. You may be wondering why on earth I'm recording at seven o'clock in the morning. Once the kids are on holiday, it's the best time for me to have peace and quiet for getting things done and not having interruptions for the recording. So, yeah, that's why I'm up at this ridiculous hour already recording a podcast episode, but I love doing it and I'm excited to be here with you. So let's get started, and I would love to do a bit of thinking about decluttering mindset. Today.

Speaker 1:

I very often will talk about decluttering physical things, but I think that one of the biggest barriers that lots of people have to getting their homes decluttered and organized is actually their mindset. So how are we going to mentally prepare for a clutter-free new year? What I mean by this is when you have a mind full of mental clutter, and by that I mean things like you're thinking about the things you have to do, the things you're worrying about, the things you need to organize for every day, getting people from A to B or planning meals, etc. All that mental clutter. It's really hard to focus on anything else and we can have in our mind. Yes, I would love to get this house decluttered and organized. That is my goal for the year. But if we have too much mental clutter, it actually holds us back and it becomes as important as the physical clutter in a way to get rid of, to organize these mental clutter thoughts, because once they are organized it frees up some brain capacity to be able to actually get on with the physical decluttering and organizing.

Speaker 1:

And this used to be me in a big way. I would always have ideas of things that I wanted to do, whether it was to do with the house, whether it was to do with a health goal. And I remember one year I was absolutely adamant. It was the year I was going to get healthy. This was when the kids were little. I had already applied the KonMari method in our home, so the home wasn't the issue, but I'd got all this stuff going around in my head of things that I had to achieve. I had a different business at the time and I was just always thinking about stuff and I knew I wanted to get healthy and my idea was that I would start doing some jogging every day. But every day I would say to myself oh, I just still need to do this, because it was in my head that this had to be done, whatever it was, and I will start jogging when that's done. And then the next day would come and something else will pop into my head that I thought oh yeah, that's important too, I need to do that. I'll start jogging when that's done. And the jogging never happened because I was always pushing it back because of the mental clutter, things popping up that were holding me back. And it wasn't until I learned how to free my mind of the mental clutter, how to actually organize it, that I was able to free up the mental capacity, to understand that I did have time to achieve my health goal, and that is when the jogging started. I'm not jogging anymore. I have to say it is something I've got on my list of things to do this year and let's see how I get on with that this year. I'm really good at procrastinating on things when it comes to my health, unfortunately.

Speaker 1:

So what does mental clutter look like? It's overthinking, it's stress, it's decision fatigue, it's guilt, it's unrealistic expectations, and I am very sure that you are possibly already feeling overwhelmed, especially as we've just had this busy season of Christmas and the holiday season. But very often the mental clutter often mirrors the physical clutter in our homes. Both can pile up unnoticed and before we know it it's got out of control and it's becoming a barrier to us actually doing what we would like to do. So I believe completely that our mindset shapes our ability to declutter.

Speaker 1:

If we have mental blocks such as well my house is always untidy. There's nothing I can do about it or perfectionism I would never be able to get my house looking like my friend Sophie's, because she's just so amazing at it. Mine will never look good enough. That is a real barrier to you even getting started. Or perhaps you've got a fear of letting go of things. Well, what if I let go of that and we need it? Or what if I let go of that and we can't afford to replace it? What if I let go of that and we need it? Or what if I let go of that and we can't afford to replace it? What if I let go of that and I realize it was a massive mistake? So mental blocks, perfectionism, fear of letting go these are all mindset issues that are actually going to stand in the way of us getting round to decluttering and organising our homes, and I was somebody who, as I was going through the KonMari method and starting to apply it in our home, I was telling myself I had the mindset that I'm not the sort of person that can keep a house tidy.

Speaker 1:

So I had tidied our home on many, many occasions, like doing a room, doing the living room, doing the kitchen, doing my bedroom. I tidied it up. It looked amazing. I was really happy with myself, and three, four days later it was starting to look like it did before. And so I had this mindset I am just not someone who can keep a house tidy. It's not in my makeup to do that. It's just not in my personality to keep a home tidy.

Speaker 1:

And what I hadn't realised was that it was very much my mindset that was holding me back on this. I was believing I wasn't a tidy person, and when you believe you're not something, then it actually stops you from becoming that and I really had to change my mindset. I can be a tidy person. I just haven't got there yet. What do I need to do to become a tidy person?

Speaker 1:

And I really looked at how I was dealing with our home on a daily basis and I realized that one of the things I wasn't doing was putting things away once I'd used them. I wasn't doing was putting things away once I'd used them and as I went through the KonMari method and decluttered and that was huge because I'd never done the decluttering bit before. I'd always been tidying. If you don't declutter before you tidy, you've just got so much stuff. It's really hard to keep it tidy because the storage space is just full and it's very hard to then have somewhere to put things back to.

Speaker 1:

Once I'd started on the KonMari method and I was starting to have less stuff in the home, it made me realize that my mindset of I can't be a tidy person was because I had never learned the habit of putting things away after I'd used them. So, changing that, working on that, building that habit of if I've used something, I put it away, or if life gets in the way as a mom of three small kids, at the time things happen Like you get distracted in the middle of doing something and you don't go back to it. That happens to me all the time still happens today. Then, building in 10 to 15 minutes of tidying up at the end of each day meant that we always had a clean slate and suddenly I became somebody who was a tidy person, and I had never thought it was possible.

Speaker 1:

So it's really important to look at your space and look at what your belief about your cluttered space is. What's holding you back from taking action? Because I promise you, there will be something holding you back. It might be the belief, as it was for me, that there is no point doing it because it's not going to make any difference. It's never made any difference before. I've never managed to maintain it and I put all that work in and it was a complete waste of time. If that's your belief, it's going to hold you back from taking action. I hope that's making sense and I think it's really, really important. So we need to reframe things. We need to really have mindset shifts if we're going to prepare for a clutter-free new year. So I'm going to give you now three key mindset shifts to help you prepare for a clutter-free new year.

Speaker 1:

The first one is to reframe perfectionism. Let go of the need for everything to be perfect or done all at once. Now. This is something that I am working on all the time with people in my membership, and lots of people have made huge shifts this year, which is just amazing, because if you think I have to do this perfectly, or if I'm going to do my closet, it all has to be done on one day. At the same time. If you can let go of that, it means that you're actually going to get started, because otherwise, what are we doing? We're waiting for the perfect moment, the perfect time, the ability to do it perfectly. These moments hardly ever come in everyday life for most people. Let's face it. Most of us don't have the time to do everything all in one go. So small, consistent actions are going to lead to big changes. Reframe your need for perfectionism to. I can make small, consistent actions that are going to lead to big changes. They don't need to be perfect. I just need to do something, because if you don't start, nothing is going to change. So reframe that perfectionism.

Speaker 1:

The second mindset shift I would highly recommend is letting go of the guilt. It's okay if things aren't where you want them to be right now. So let go of any shame around the clutter and this is something else we're always working on in Clutter-Free Collective. Let go of any shame, any guilt that you have about how your home is now and give yourself the grace that you can make these changes, that you haven't done anything wrong, that how your home is now isn't a reflection of your future. It isn't even a reflection of you today. Because if you can make that mindset shift, you today, because if you can make that mindset shift, it's going to become a really powerful part of your decluttering journey. Give yourself grace and let go of any of the shame that you have around your clutter.

Speaker 1:

And finally, the third mindset shift that I would love to suggest for you shift from I have to declutter and organize my home to I get to declutter and organize my home. Get to declutter and organize my home. It's the tiniest change of wording from have to get, but it makes all the difference. Embrace the idea that organizing your home is an opportunity, it's not a burden. When you say I have to declutter and organize my home, it makes it sound like a burden. When you say I have to declutter and organize my home, it makes it sound like, oh God, I have to do this, it's such a pain, I haven't got the time. Whereas if you get to say I get to declutter and organize my home, it becomes something that makes you feel energized rather than drained when taking action, so that when you're doing it you're like, yeah, I get to do this today. Aren't I lucky I found the time to do this today. I get to make this positive change in my home.

Speaker 1:

If you can make that shift from I have to to I get to, I promise you it will be life changing for you. So those are my three key mindset shifts that I would love for you to take on board to prepare for a clutter-free new year. Start with just one of them and work on that and then move on to the next one. Take the one that you think will be easiest to start with, and if you can get to having all three mindset shifts, you are going to be on fire this year in your decluttering and organizing journey. So I suggest taking a few moments to journal if that's something you do or reflect on the areas of your life where mental clutter is holding you back.

Speaker 1:

Take some time to visualize the home and lifestyle you want for the new year, and I suggest building in a simple morning or, if you have no time in the morning, an evening ritual to get into a decluttered mindset, like a five-minute gratitude practice or a brain dump to clear out unnecessary thoughts, and I would love to encourage you to start small and let go of the idea that you need to overhaul everything overnight, because when we do that, we're putting ourselves under so much pressure. It needs to be done now, it has to be done this week. I have to get it finished before the new year starts. Let go of all that and start moving towards taking small steps, and it will make all the difference for you.

Speaker 1:

Now, if you are finding this sounding really, really overwhelming which I can well imagine it does because I've been there then I would love to invite you to join me for a planning session together online in Zoom, where I will guide you through making these shifts, making a plan for your year so that you can go into 2025 feeling really positive about your ability to declutter and organize. It's going to be happening on Saturday, the 11th of January, at 5 pm Central European Time, which is 11 am Eastern Standard Time if you're in the States. So I would love to see you there, because I know we can make such a difference just by shifting some mindsets. So come and join me for this very special Decluttering your Mindset how to Mentally Prepare for a Clutter-Free New Year session and I will put the link to join up in the show notes. So have a look in the show notes for this episode. There'll be a link to click there and then you can just sign up there and we will get to see each other on the 11th of January.

Speaker 1:

I can't wait. We'll be in 2025 by then. We'll have managed a week and a bit, so let's see how we're getting on by then. Well, nugget is asleep here on the carpet, so he's managed to behave himself and we've managed to get an episode done without too much background noise. So I wish you a wonderful, wonderful start to 2025 and I can't wait to see you on the 11th of January. Until next time, if you've enjoyed this episode, please send the link to a friend you know would appreciate it, subscribe and leave a review. I look forward to bringing you more organizing tips next time, but if you can't wait until then, you can go to my website or find me on instagram, at carothor, or on facebook at caroline organizer. Thanks for listening and I look forward to guiding you on your journey to find your clutter free ever after.