I have talked before about knowing your why and defining it clearly. It’s so hard to know how to actually define the why! I mean, my why for decluttering is because there’s stuff everywhere – how more obvious does it need to be?! But that’s not enough to motivate me!

Sometimes, it’s easier to take on other people’s why, when you can’t clearly define your own. Like, maybe the why becomes something like, ‘other people’s homes aren’t cluttered in their pictures, so I should need to declutter mine to make it look like theirs!’ Even though the other side of the room not pictured, may be loaded with stuff! By borrowing another person’s why, the motivation you draw from that why isn’t strong enough to really follow through with achieving anything!

To figure out your why, you need to define your why, then continue expanding it until your why is so obvious you can’t help but strategize the process to achieving success. That may seem confusing, so let me ‘expand’.

Way back when, I used to do improv acting classes – which were a blast, by the way, in case you’re looking for something to do that gets you out of your comfort zone… but I digress… One of the skits in class was called ‘Expand and Advance’. At any point, anyone in the class could yell out ‘expand’, and you would have to re-explain or add to what you just said. So, if I said, “Man, it’s really hot out here!” and someone yelled, “Expand!” I might change what I said to, “I am sweating through my shirt today in the hot afternoon sun.” We got pretty annoying and silly with our classmates, and sometimes it seemed the ‘expand’ would hit the same line on repeat. BUT, it meant that you could really clarify your thoughts and get right to the point of what you are trying to say! It was a game that took out the fake vagueness we so often put on our words. When asked how you are, how often do you say good even when the world is falling apart!? If someone said ‘expand’ in that moment, I wonder how different our human interactions would become! In the game, you could only move on after someone said ‘advance’.

Believe it or not, it’s the system I use when I am trying to set my goals or create a plan for why I want to achieve something.

It can be a very enlightening game to play with yourself to really get to the heart of your true why!

So, let’s say that I have a goal: I want less clutter in the house! It’s a good goal, but it’s really hard to strategize for achieving that goal. Less clutter may mean one less item in the house. Technically, it would be a less cluttered house, but it’s not really what I mean, right? Now, if I ‘expand’ on that goal, I would need to say it differently or define it further. Maybe it becomes: I want to see less stuff when I walk into this room.” If I expand again, it might become: I want this bench by the door to be clear of stuff so that I feel more at peace when I walk into the room! Wow, that really changed! I can almost feel the strategy taking shape. It sounds like a good plan would be to clear off the bench every day. But it may not include what would personally drive you to continue to motivate yourself to complete the task every single day. So, let’s expand again, shall we? Further expansion might make the goal even more defined: When I see clutter on this bench when I get home, it makes me feel stressed. I am already stressed when I get home, so this adds to my desire to not be at home. BUT I love my house and just want to kick my feet up at the end of the day. If I take some time every night to clear it off, then I can make sure that I don’t feel that stress when I get home, and I can actually enjoy walking into the less cluttered room!

Now we are getting somewhere!!

What a different vision from that initial goal of having less clutter in the house! It’s a similar process to setting a SMART goal if you are used to that terminology, but I find that it’s more personal even than that. It may seem cheesy, and you may think you have reached a good thorough definition of why you want something, but it’s worth it to always keep expanding until you are almost repeating the same thing! Keep going until you can’t think of any other way to say it or to expand on it. As much as you may be hesitant to share some deep feelings with others, having someone else there to say expand will force you to rethink it further than you will allow yourself to go. You may be satisfied with your definition and stop, but if you were pushed to go further and expand more, you will get an even better definition to work with! Even with my example above, I could have taken it another step further and added a sense of smell. Maybe I want to be able to smell a fresh scent as I walk through the door as well as see the bench clear of stuff. Use a whole 10-20 minutes on each little goal to further expand your definition of it. Make it crystal clear in your mind why you want something the way you want it. That’s when you will be able to move mountains! That’s when you will have such a clear vision of what you want that you will ACTUALLY work hard to get there.

Having a goal of wanting less clutter is great – but what does it actually mean to you?? Expand on your thoughts! Play the game with yourself, or better yet, find a friend to do it with! Try to expand your idea AT LEAST 5 times to make it as clear as you can get it! Then, and only then, can you get to the heart of what you really want!

So go ‘expand’ your definition and clarify what you really want!

Thanks for coming home!