3 Little Habits That Changed My Life.

Hello there friends and welcome back. If you're new here, hi, I'm Kallie Bransford and today I'm going to tell you about one very important thing that I've learned over the last few years that has honestly transformed how I live my life and that is that the biggest most impactful things in your life are very rarely the outcome of big actions or accomplishments. I've come to realize that instead it's the small simple things that you do every day that end up having the most profound impact on who you are. It's the little routines and habits that we commit to and stick with that end up shaping our days, years, and ultimately our lives. All right, I know, big stuff right out the gate. You're like, hold up, Kallie, you're coming at me with the deep talking and the psychology before I've even had a chance to catch my breath or have a sip of coffee. I know, I'm trying to come at you with a good old-fashioned hook, you know, grab the audience's attention, reel them in and make them want to know more. Honestly, how'd I do? Like, are you like a little bit intrigued? Maybe? At least a little bit, right? Yeah, okay, good. Then let's dive into this a little bit more. Okay, so we're going to start by just taking a little walk through the past, just a smidge. About five years ago, I was a very different person than I am today. I mean, that's kind of the goal of life. Isn't it really right to always be growing and evolving and bettering oneself? Sure, I'm still the same person, but there was a lot that was really different about me five years ago. I was in debt, like a lot of debt. I was also pretty disorganized. Cleanliness and organization did not seem to come naturally to me. Let's just say that. There was always a mess to clean and I needed at least a four-hour warning before guests arrived if I wanted my house to be in any type of like reasonable shape. And I hated it. I hated being in debt. I hated being messy and disorganized, but I feel like I didn't know any way around it. It felt like truly I didn't have the time or bandwidth to tackle these issues. Finding time to stay tidy and get productive and clean and budget was hard. But what I eventually learned was that it was never really a lack of time that kept me from doing these things. It was a lack of routine and habit. I hadn't developed daily routines or habits that supported the life I wanted to be living or the person that I wanted to be. And that's when I finally said enough was enough. And I made one small change that ultimately changed my life. And of course is number one of three for this video. Three little things that will change your life. Okay, so I'm sure at this point you are dying to know what the things on my list are. You're like, you've been stringing us along long enough. Just get to it. So I'm going to do it. Here we go. As we covered, I used to be pretty messy and disorganized. Now by the time I got to my late 20s, I'd gotten a little bit better. I was definitely trying to make an effort, but nothing ever really stuck. And one of the biggest messes in my house that always irked me was the kitchen. It really just felt like insurmountable. The house we had at the time was this like open concept deal and the kitchen and the dining room, the living space were all this big open room. And when I would come down in the morning to have my morning coffee on the couch, I hated looking over and seeing the untidy kitchen and the undone dishes in the sink from the night before. It was honestly like the worst start to the day. So I made myself a little agreement. Every night I would clean my no matter how tired or lazy or insert whatever other excuse I was, I would not go to bed with a kitchen sink that was dirty. I'm just going to pause her right there. Just in case you haven't guessed, then yes, cleaning my kitchen sink is number one on the list. Okay, unpause. Now it wasn't a huge thing. I wasn't asking myself to deep clean every day or pick up the entire kitchen just to clean that sink. And I really committed. Every night I would force myself to take whatever steps necessary to empty that sink and wipe it clean. And every morning when I came down the stairs and I saw this beautiful clean sink, it started my morning so much better. It was like coming down in the morning to a little pat on the back. Oh, sorry, just got to pause again really quick because at this point, I know you might be wondering like, okay, cleaning the kitchen sinks good, but like I thought this was the list. It was going to change my life. I'm getting there. Okay, hang on. That part's coming. Unpause. Not only did it feel good that I didn't have to look at last night's dinner in the sink, but it was also this feeling of accomplishment. I was proud of last night, Callie, for stepping up and making it happen. And the more that I leaned into that good feeling, that pat on the back, that feeling of accomplishment, the easier it got for me to take care of my kitchen sink every night. I would remember how good it felt in the morning and then finding the motivation to do it every night became bigger and bigger. Now the reason the kitchen sink was so powerful is because it's a ripple effect. The thing that I realized with my clean sink is it encouraged me to tackle other things. Often when I was cleaning my sink, I would also like clear out the kitchen counters and I would wipe them down. If I was going to clean the kitchen sink, I was more inclined to check for glasses or plates that were left on the coffee table or in the dining room so they didn't end up in my newly cleaned sink. I find with cleaning, often a body in motion stays in motion and a body at rest stays at rest. So usually before bed, I was slumped on the sofa relaxing with my husband and my motivation to tidy was zero percent, right? But since I forced myself to get up each night to clean that sink before bed, my body was now pushed into motion and often much easier to keep in motion. This very often would overflow into the living room. As I headed upstairs, I would pick up toys off the ground. I'd fold blankets to go on the sofa. I'd walk down the coffee table. I might even be more inclined to wipe down the bathroom counters when I was brushing my teeth. The point is, as little of a rule as don't go to bed with a dirty sink was, it created this huge ripple effect for me, creating all sorts of other little cleaning habits without me even trying to do so. As time passed, the clean kitchen sink rule started creating helpful habits for me throughout the day as well, not just at the end of my day. Part of cleaning my kitchen sink meant loading the dishwasher, right? So if my dishwasher wasn't emptied during the day, my cleaning sink task was exponentially longer at the end of the day. And so thus, I started getting better about emptying my dishwasher before lunch or with my morning coffee. And this turned into me usually cleaning the sink at lunch or with my morning coffee so the dishes wouldn't pile up all day long. I usually ended up with me wiping down the counters then too. This goes back to my initial point at the beginning of the video that so often it's the little things in our lives that make the most impact. Literally just the habit of committing to cleaning my sink every single night slowly over time helped me establish other little routines and habits that kept my home tidy naturally, routinely, and made me overall more mindful of keeping things picked up. By simply committing to the habit of cleaning my sink every night, I was able to change my identity of myself from someone who was a messy person to someone who was a tidy person. I'll never forget the passage in the book Atomic Habits by James Clear where he talks about how our identity of ourselves impacts what we do and what our habits are. If our identity of ourselves is that we are someone who is messy then this will directly impact our actions. Your identity is who you are. It has nothing to do with how other people perceive you or see you. It has nothing to do with how you look, where you live, what your job is. It's about identifying who you want to be and who you see yourself as and taking small actions to justify that. And this kitchen sink challenge taught me how impactful that could be. I believed I could be a clean person and clean my sink every night and ultimately it rippled until I literally was able to change my view myself from a messy person to a clean person. And when I identified as someone who is clean, my actions reflected that without me even realizing it. Okay so once I saw how great the sink challenge went, I realized I could probably change other aspects of my life and my identity using the same method by making a small little change and committing to it every day. So the next little change I made was picking out what I wanted to wear the night before so that every morning I didn't have an excuse not to get dressed. Now listen, I'm not saying I was pulling out slacks and a blazer and heels every morning, but I do think that there's benefit in getting yourself to a level where you feel put together every morning. And put together is different for all of us. For me, I get myself to a place where I feel like if I needed to run errands or someone had to come by the house, I wouldn't feel like embarrassed by what I was wearing or how I looked. It's a simple casual outfit. For me, it's like leggings or a pair of comfortable jeans. It's not pajamas, sweats, or my cozy robe. This also includes my hair. This doesn't mean I'm doing a 30-minute session of curling it, but I'll brush it and I'll smooth it at least. And on my face, I make sure I get on some tended SPF, some concealer, some blush, and mascara. Now I know getting dressed often can feel like the bottom of your priority list. Maybe you're like, um I spend all day sitting at a desk in my bedroom or I'm watching my toddler and my baby all morning. I'm There have been studies that show that putting effort into your appearance, getting dressed, doing your hair, getting presentable actually correlates directly with your mental and emotional state. Actually one of the main signs of depression is not bathing or getting dressed regularly. In contrast, putting on an outfit that makes you feel good and feel like you're put together is said to release the good neurotransmitters like dopamine, endorphins, and serotonin. Not only do I, yes, feel presentable and put together and probably get a little more endorphin rush when I look in the mirror versus when I look in the mirror with bed head and PJs, but I feel more capable. Getting dressed mentally switches me from just waking up and getting my coffee to ready to start the day. I'm able to tackle whatever the day is going to throw at me. It's daytime and it's time to work and be productive. Now all these things I just spewed at you is great and true. Getting dressed will make you mentally and emotionally feel better and prepared for your day to be more successful and productive, but ultimately the act of getting dressed is so important because like the kitchen sink, it creates a ripple effect. Getting dressed is just one little task that ripples into more. The habit of getting dressed often creates the other healthy habits around productivity and self-care. Just like cleaning my kitchen sink helped me change my self-identity into someone who cleans, putting on my outfit each day so I'm dressed each morning helps me change my self-identity into someone who is more productive and capable. In examples, when I had my second baby, I obviously didn't really focus on like getting dressed every morning right away. I had a baby, you know what I mean, in those first few weeks. But the minute that I started back on getting dressed every morning, even if it was just postpartum leggings and a loose t-shirt with a little concealer and a little mascara, my life started to feel a little more back to normal. I made time to shower. I started journaling in the morning. I felt more capable and able to tackle little tasks around the house when she was sleeping. I started waking up a little earlier to have time to like start my day. I started doing yoga, which for me is bizarre because I have never been a worker out or in any capacity. All I'm saying is it rippled into other acts and habits of self-care and productivity. Okay, so we've talked about habit number one, cleaning your sink every night and how it will help you create simple routines and habits to tie to your home. And habit two, getting dressed each day which boosts your emotional and mental well-being and ripples into other habits that promote self-care and productivity. So my final habit is to declutter one thing every day in your home or general life. We all have clutter of some type in our home. I mean truth be told we're a nation like waging a war on clutter with our access to one-click shopping and online deliveries. There are way more means in which things enter our home than exit our home and thus you end up with clutter. And I don't care how good you are asking yourself if things are sparking joy or not, stuff gets into our house. Packages, school works, tools from home projects, gifts from family and friends, mail, paperwork, empty boxes, stuff comes in and you can't always control it. The problem is when left unattended for just a short period of time clutter can get out of control really easily and it can really start to impact our day-to-day living. Clutter makes us feel overwhelmed, it's linked to stress, it wastes our time, our energy, and our money. But the biggest problem I've found with clutter is that many of us equate the solution to our clutter problem to the show hoarders. We think the only way to declutter is an all-or-nothing attack. We need to empty the contents of our home onto our front lawn and spend an entire weekend meticulously sorting through each thing into keep, toss, or donate piles. But in reality most of us don't have an entire weekend and a full team of professional organizers to come help us empty the contents of our home onto our front lawn. It's also not practical solution to avoid our clutter for months and months and then try to tackle it all in one fell swoop. Okay fun little side note I always thought it was pronounced one foul swoop like foul like a bird you know because like birds swoop anyways turns out it's not it's one fell swoop and the origin is actually from Shakespeare's Macbeth where he compares the murder of Macduff's wife and his children to a hawk swooping down on defenseless prey. However again still not foul he uses fell as an adjective meaning ruthless and swoop as in a bird swooping ruthlessly and thus the origin actually does have to do with a bird but not at all in the way that I thought and there is your literacy history fact of the day you're welcome. However no we can't tackle all of our clutter in one fell swoop. Once again the answer is a small little change that you commit to every day. Every day I pick one small thing to declutter in my home. This can be as little as a small pile of papers that has accumulated on top of my microwave or the cutlery drawer or the medicine cabinet. Some days it's bigger like my pantry and it takes me 20 minutes and sometimes it's something really small like my nightstand and takes me two minutes. The point is every day I'm in the act of decluttering instead of ignoring it for periods of time I'm actively participating in it daily and the act of this doing this over and over and over again helps to build a habit. I'm literally turning myself into someone who declutters. So there you have it the three little changes that I made in my life that rippled into bigger and bigger changes and ultimately changed how I identify myself and changed my life. I'm a tidy person therefore I clean my sink each night. I'm a productive person therefore I will dress each morning for whatever the day may bring and I am an organized person therefore I will declutter one thing every single day. I really hope that this video inspires you guys to look at some of the small little changes that you can make in your life and how it could ripple out into more and the biggest most important takeaway isn't necessarily my three little things maybe your three little things are different than mine. The point is choosing a small little task that supports who you want to be and what you want to do and then committing to doing it every day for a long period of time and sticking with it is the key. As always I really appreciate you guys stopping by and watching my videos. I hope you're having an amazing day and I will see you all in my next video.