Why One Life Hack Can Change Everything For You

Take a moment and reflect. When you are lazy at home and not keeping things clean or in somewhat of an order, does it affect other areas of your life? If you are procrastinating on all of the small things in your day, does it happen at work too? If you are forgetting things all the time and are scattered with simple things in your life, doesn’t it create more of that in other areas?

Perhaps you can even walk into your bedroom right now or open a junk drawer. How much stuff do you have lying around creating a mess? How many things are you holding onto that you don’t need? Are you attached to these items even though they have no value or use to you? Often times reflecting on these things can say a lot about us.

Now think for a moment, are you putting off doing something like answering an e-mail, calling a friend back, returning a piece of clothing to the store, fixing something in the house, paying a bill, doing a favor for a friend etc? All of those little things that we say “Oh I’m gonna get around to it.”

My guess is that you will see a link between your current space and the amount of things you are putting off or are not doing -including things that you are passionate about. Time and time again it seems to be true that whenever we are not taking care of the basics, it spreads into our work, play, psyche and everything else in our lives.

A Simple Yet Powerful Solution

For me, I started with a choice. I was going to take my life into my own hands and start cleaning up my foundations one by one. I decided to start keeping my room, work area and overall space clean. Why? Because that was one area for me that I could see was off. My simple life hack was to do just that for now. It just so happened that it also coincided with me now being able to see more about my inner self with greater clarity.

I was making a conscious effort to keep the areas around me more clean and clear, and in turn it was giving me more clarity to see the lack of clarity I had within myself. Because I was building good physical habits, I was also more able, motivated and clear on helping to release various things within myself that were holding me back from being happy and doing what I loved.

This one simple action helped to kickstart a whole new direction for me and while I can’t say that it’s the only thing that created so many changes, it was certainly a big start.

One could ask, “what if you cleaned up your inner self first?” I believe it would work in exactly the same way. Your internal self can often show itself in your external world. But sometimes you can be so entrenched in your inner self that you need to develop some outside habits first in order to build a foundation to then focus on YOU. This of course can change everything for you.

How It Moves Into Other Areas Of Life

Now that I was taking care of the little things, it started to affect my work, my eating, my choices and my moods. I decided to leave school and focus on things that I was passionate about. I overhauled my diet and started eating very clean. Once I gave myself the power to do something simple, it helped build that power in everything else I was doing. I wasn’t going home and being constantly reminded of how much of a mess I was.

Like it did in my situation when you start to clear up the little things, it will inspire you to clear up the bigger things within yourself (sometimes vice versa.) Watch as it then pushes itself into all other areas of your life. Suddenly you’re more free and happy at work or when you are doing something you are passionate about, you have more motivation to do the things you’ve always wanted to do, or you take that next step in making even bigger changes in your life.

Here’s How To Take Action

Do the exercise I went over above by first looking around your house or immediate surroundings. See if it tells a story about how you’re feeling. You can also ask yourself if you are having any roadblocks about doing the things you want to do in your life, but are not doing. Once you identify a few things, you can take some action.

In a lot of cases, you can start with some simple stuff. Go out and do that thing you’ve been perpetually putting off. Start cleaning up and taking care of your immediate environment. Let go of old possessions you have that you don’t need but are just holding on to. See how you feel while you are doing all of these things. Noticing how you feel is a great indicator as to whether you are meeting more roadblocks or are liberating yourself.

Removing Roadblocks

If you feel you have roadblocks stopping you from doing something you’ve always wanted to, identify what they are. Ask yourself “what stops me from doing this?” then take an action or baby step to get moving.

For example, if you wanted to start learning how to grow your own food garden but don’t know how and your road block is that not knowing how means you could mess it up or waste your time. Your initial step would be grabbing a book about backyard gardening or calling a friend who grows their own food and learning about it. Have them over for a chat and get moving on it.

Write all of the answers to these exercises down. When you can see them, you can remember them and reflect on them as you go.

We all have the tools it takes to change things in our lives starting right now. Although it might feel tough to get the ball rolling at first, once you do, it’s difficult to stop it.

Joe Martino – I created CE, where this article first appeared, 5 years ago and have been heavily at it since. I love inspiring others to find joy and make changes in their lives. Hands down the only other thing I am this passionate about is baseball.