Have I mentioned before that I\u2019m not a big cook? Even that is probably an overstatement, since if I can avoid cooking, I do. I\u2019m fortunate to have a husband who loves to cook; yet, part of me is ashamed of how little I cook. Part of me even wants to cook. I will do some baking from time to time \u2013 especially at Christmas time when I try to make several batches of cookies. Do you know what happens though when I go into a store with gobs of kitchen gadgets? I yearn to take them home \u2013 if I had that thing, then I might cook. If I had this thing, I could make more desserts.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m tempted to purchase things for a life I\u2019m not leading. Granted it\u2019s a life part of me wants to have, except that a few of those things that have come into our home are neglected. Owning those cool tools has not changed my behavior or actions. My life is fine without my cooking more.<\/p>\n
Do you have things in your home that do not support the life you\u2019re living? There are two sides of this: the things for the dreams you have and the things for what you\u2019re not doing (and really have no drive to do). Only you can decide which category those things fall into.<\/p>\n
Are you buying clothes for a life you\u2019re not leading? If you\u2019re a stay at home mom and your closet is filled with clothes meant for fancy outings which you never go on, then there\u2019s a discrepancy. Is this a dream you have for yourself \u2013 to have events requiring formal wear? Is it what you truly want? If you actually had a chance to lead that life, would you be happy?<\/p>\n
Do you have loads of supplies for a hobby that you wanted to start, yet somehow have never started even the first project? Sometimes this is more about having too many distractions or not enough space to feel able to begin. Or it can be about trying to lead a life that\u2019s not yours. <\/p>\n
If you had all the time and energy you desired, what would you want to do with it? How would you spend your time? Where does your passion lead you? The truth is that if the only thing stopping you from pursuing that hobby or activity \u2013 there are ways to solve those struggles. You just need to know what is interfering first. <\/p>\n
The truth is that we all probably have some of both types of things in our homes. There\u2019s nothing wrong with that. If you can recognize when you\u2019re buying for a life different from yours, you can cut down on the things coming into your home that will inevitably become clutter since you won\u2019t use them. While on the other hand, you\u2019re buying for what you really want to spend time on, you can hold off until you make the time and space for doing them.<\/p>\n
One side note: if you\u2019re overwhelmed already, you might actually be too critical of yourself to be objective. I\u2019ve seen too often the judgment of an \u201cI\u2019m never going to\u2026\u201d that doesn\u2019t seem to accurately reflect their interests, and is more suggestive of how their time and space feel out of control. In that case, I recommend holding off on a too aggressive response and waiting until the process has moved further along and we\u2019ve had a chance to create additional space and potentially time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sometimes we have a moment, a sort of epiphany, when we realize that we\u2019re buying things or have collected things that do not reflect the actual life we\u2019re leading. There are several components of this and can help lead us to leading the life we want.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[10,8,9,25,22,17],"class_list":["post-430","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personaldevelopment","tag-behavior","tag-discipline","tag-motivation","tag-postaweek2011","tag-productivity","tag-spaces"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7p82c-6W","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=430"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":431,"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430\/revisions\/431"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}