5 Harsh Truths about Decluttering What NO ONE talks about, but you need to know!

If this year is the year you've decided to declutter or downsize your home, then this video is for you because today I'm going to be sharing some harsh truths about decluttering that no one talks about, but I think you need to know so that you don't have to learn them the hard way like I did. Hi there friend, and welcome to my channel. My name is Marissa and this is Ages in Life. And the reason that I'm so passionate about this topic is because I remember what it was like when I first started my decluttering journey almost 10 years ago. And even though I was eventually able to get rid of 95% of our stuff and accidentally go from hoarder to minimalist in the process, I'll be the first one to admit that decluttering my entire home was one of the hardest things that I've ever done because not only was I decluttering for myself, but it also meant that I had to face a mountain of stuff that I've been piling up for decades after the loss of my family and my childhood home. And now that I'm in my forties, I'm seeing a lot of people my age and older who are going through the same thing that I went through all those years ago. So let's start with one harsh truth that I wish someone had told me back when I first started decluttering, which is that decluttering alone is not enough to give you the clutter free home and life you deserve. Imagine that you break your leg. So your leg is broken and you go to the doctor, but instead of resetting the bone and putting you in a cast, the doctor just hands you a band aid and tells you to suck it up and stop crying. Well, the same thing goes for decluttering. I see this over and over again, both on social media and in real life. People will do a huge decluttering marathon, encourage a ton of clutter from their home, and then they'll go back out to target or Walmart or the dollar store and fill their home right back up again with a bunch of crap. So then decluttering just becomes a band aid that's treating the symptom of the clutter instead of addressing the actual root cause of the clutter. And I'm telling you this with all of the compassion and understanding in the world, because I was also guilty of doing the same thing. I would declutter and then head to Goodwill to drop my clutter off at the side door of the donation center and then drive around to the front entrance and go inside to do some treasure hunting as I called it. And I wish that I had someone who could have given me some tough love back then and told me that if I really wanted to have a clutter free home, decluttering is only 25% of the battle. And the other 75% that I wasn't addressing was undermining my progress in a big way. I want to share something that I've learned over the almost 10 years that I've been decluttering my own stuff and helping thousands of people all around the world to do the same, which is that there are four things you need to master if you want a home that always stays clean and clutter free. Are you ready? Here they are. Number one is inflow. Number two is outflow. Number three is systems. And number four is your mindset. These four pillars are like the legs of a table and just like a table, if one or more of them is missing or broken, the table won't be able to stay balanced and neither will your home or life. Next up, harsh truth. Number two is that everything is hard, but you get to choose your hard. So what does that mean? Sure decluttering is hard, but living with clutter and mess is also hard. In fact, studies have found that it's so bad for us that a chronically cluttered home can put our bodies in a constant state of survival mode. And if your home is cluttered because of a shopping addiction or you're over using retail therapy to cope with stress, changing your spending habits is hard, but it's also going to be hard to live with the crushing debt that often goes hand in hand with buying too much stuff deep down inside. I think that most of us know that the best things in life rarely come easily, which is why we need to choose our hard wisely because in the long run, our tendency to choose a quick dopamine hit of instant gratification over the delayed gratification of healthier choices can really drag us down. Even after a decade of practice and experience, this is still something that I need to be mindful about and pay attention to, which is one of the reasons I decided to start an impulse spending journal as part of my low by year challenge. And spoiler alert, we're only halfway through January and I've already saved more than $500 just by not giving in to impulse spending. So be sure that you're subscribed with all notifications turned on if you haven't already, because I decided that I'm going to be sharing updates about this with exact numbers at the end of each month. Lesson number three on this list is about the use it or lose it rule. And I actually talked about this rule in my video on the 10 minimalist rules that changed my life, which I will be sure to link up here to the right hand side and down in the description box below for you in case you're interested in checking that out. And I wanted to mention this one because lately I've been seeing a lot of people, mostly women, jumping on this trend of sharing how sad they are to find collections of things that have been donated to the thrift store, such as what they think is someone's entire vintage lamp collection, a small lot of deer figurines, and one that really made my blood boil when I was reading the text, which said a donation of someone's entire bell collection, every place they traveled, every anniversary, each little milestone that meant something to somebody dropped off here like it was nothing. First of all, I just want to say that I do kind of understand where all of these creators are coming from because as a highly sensitive person, I know it can be sad and jarring when you see deeply sentimental items like this get donated either because they bring up memories of past griefs or just simply remind us of our own mortality and fears. But at the same time, how can you stand there and say that those things were dropped off like they were nothing when you have no idea who dropped them off or all of the things that they had to go through that led up to them making that decision as someone who had lost both of my parents, almost all of my grandparents and a bunch of other relatives and loved ones by the time I turned 23 and who ended up turning her home into a museum for all of those dead loved ones for 30 years. I just have to say that I find this mindset so toxic and misguided. Our homes and the stuff inside of them are meant to serve us and not the other way around. And just because grandma's little bell collection made her happy, that doesn't mean that you have to shoulder the burden of keeping it sitting around your home forever. So consider this your permission to get rid of the things in your home that you don't love or use. That leads us to the next harsh truth, which is that no one wants your stuff. Not only is hoarding disorder on the rise to the point where around one in 40 people have hoarding disorder, but every day we're seeing more and more articles come out about how older generations are downsizing and finding out the hard way that their kids don't want their stuff. One of the comments that I saw in a Forbes article resonated with me so much that I knew I had to share it with you. I just have to turn it sideways because my old eyes can't see the small text well enough. So, okay, there we go. My mother amassed an unbelievable amount of stuff over her lifetime and always preached to me the value of this or that. Well I've learned that nothing is worth anything if no one wants it. My siblings and I kept the select items we were personally interested in and for the rest of it I've held yard sales, put things on consignment, gone to pawn shops, posted on Craigslist and eBay, so on and so forth. But I've never made more than a few dollars. I couldn't even find buyers for her genuine gold and gemstone jewelry and had to liquidate it for pennies at one of those we buy gold places. I still have a storage unit full of stuff 20 years after her death because in her memory I can't bring myself to just give it away. It's making me tear up when I read that because I went through the same thing in my family from my dad's coin collection to my grandma's doll collection to my own collections of crystals and Barbie dolls and beanie babies. And I was raised hearing how valuable all of this stuff was and how it was going to pay for my college someday. And then when I started trying to get rid of it, it was shocking to me how little most of it was worth. And then in trying to wrap my head around this and get it figured out, I learned about something called the endowment effect, which is a psychological tendency for people to overestimate the value of their possessions. There's a popular saying that goes one man's trash is another man's treasure, but I can guarantee that at some point in your decluttering journey, you're going to want to get rid of something that no one else seems to want. Maybe it was something that you'd been saving to give to your kids or grandkids only to find out that they don't want it. Or maybe it was something that you thought you could sell for a lot of money only to find out that no one wants to buy it. Or even that you tried to donate it to the thrift shop or charity shop, but got turned away for whatever reason. At some point, you just need to focus on getting that thing out of your home once you've made the decision to do so. So instead of selling it, maybe you could donate it. Or if you can't donate it, maybe then, you know, it's time to trash it. Whatever it takes to get that thing out of your home so that you can focus on creating space for the things that matter most to you. And finally, the fifth harsh truth is that there is no special secret to decluttering. There is no shortage of decluttering methods that you can choose from, such as the four box method, where you sort items into four categories, including keep, donate, trash, or relocate. Or you can try the KonMari method and go through all of the items in your home category by category, keeping only the ones that truly spark joy. But in the end, it doesn't matter how good the system is because it just simply won't work unless you roll up your sleeves and get started. I just finished an audio book called the 12 week year that talks about goal setting and how to get more done in less time. And I found this quote from author Brian P. Moran that I wish that I'd known about sooner because I think it would have helped me declutter much faster. The quote reads, the barrier standing between you and what you are truly capable of is not a lack of information, ideas, or techniques. The secret sauce is execution. It's easy to overthink things and get stuck, but remember progress happens when you take the first step and decluttering isn't about uncovering some so-called hidden secret. It's about taking action. You don't need perfection or a lot of time because even 15 minutes here and there is enough. And if you're ready to get started, be sure and go check out one of these videos that YouTube thinks that you'll like on how to declutter and organize your way to a home that looks, feels and functions better in no time flat, or I'll see you next week. Until then, take care. Bye-bye.