Lose the Clutter, Lose the Weight (12 page)

Chapter
3

WHERE AM I NOW (AND HOW DID MY MIND BRING ME HERE)?

T
he 6-week program at the heart of
Lose the Clutter, Lose the Weight
will keep you pretty busy. You'll be emptying dressers. Hauling bags of trash to the curb. Carrying trunkloads of goodies to the donation center (a
lot
of them, if you're anything like the test panelists who went through the program). Going on calorie-burning walks. Hoisting household objects until your muscles grow stronger.

If you
only
did these tasks, I think the physical activity alone could change your body and home enough that a bystander would notice the progress. But the improvements likely wouldn't last very long. After all, you've probably lost weight before. You've probably tamed the mess in areas of your home many times. But the changes didn't stick. Your body size went up, and the clutter piled up on your counters again.

I don't want that to happen to you this time. I want the changes you observe in your body and your home 6 weeks from now to stick around for a long time. I want you to have even
greater
success over your weight and your clutter in the months and years after the program is over.

But for that to happen, you can't just
do
. You also have to
think
.

So many of the people I work with—people who struggle with varying degrees of clutter in their homes and lives every day—have one thing in common:
They are frequently not engaged in their own lives. By this I mean that much of their daily activity is conducted almost by rote. They buy things without really thinking about it, eat food without really tasting it, watch TV without noticing what they're seeing, and interact with people around them in a distracted way. Put simply, they're preoccupied by so many distractions they're just not
thinking
.

If your mind continues to force you to overeat, overshop, and hang on to household items long after they've stopped being useful, your body won't be able to exercise and declutter fast enough to keep up. If your mind continues to be unhappy, overstressed, and unfocused, your drive to maintain your improvements will fade.

To make deep, lasting changes to the appearance of your body and home, you're going to have to use your mind differently than before. I want you to do the following:

Work
with
your mind, not
for
it. Avoid blindly following your impulses.

Observe the things your mind is telling you, without immediately obeying its commands or spending time arguing with it.

Recognize when your mind is viewing the world as a darker, scarier place than it really is.

Stop confusing the memories attached to your household items with the items themselves.

Stop envisioning catastrophe in your future.

Celebrate your successes rather than focusing on your shortcomings.

Your attitude plays a crucial role here. I am constantly surprised by the negative perspective so many people have about themselves and their homes. Often when I am in the middle of a decluttering project, a word or look or comment will give this attitude away. When I get a sense of it, I always ask, “Do you think you deserve to be happy?” The response I frequently get first is shock that I would even
ask
such a question, followed by tears, and then a negative shake of the head.

So many people who struggle with clutter have filled their homes with “stuff” in hopes of finding some peace or happiness—always without success. Understand this: You do deserve to live in a tranquil, happy, peaceful home. You do deserve to be happy.

Both your body's weight and your home's appearance evolved to their current state largely because of the thoughts, perceptions, and attitudes in your mind. So you'll need to use your mind differently—in the next 6 weeks and the years to follow—to keep your body and your home in shape.

Taking Stock

But before you can develop a new relationship with your mind, you need a better sense of what's going on in there right now. In this chapter, I'm asking you to fill out a few simple questionnaires that measure your mood, your focus, and your attitudes toward your possessions. The information you gain from these tools will help you declutter more effectively—and permanently—and examine your relationship with food and exercise in a new way.

Ready? Grab a pencil. You might want to scan or photocopy the quizzes first in case you want to repeat them later to measure improvements in your mental outlook. I strongly recommend that you do these quizzes now, and again after you go through the program. The improvements you're likely to see will give you more successes from the program that you can celebrate.

MEASURING YOUR CLUTTER

The first survey you'll take provides a sense of how much your clutter affects your life. It also draws attention to the attitudes that seem to be fueling your clutter. Hoarding expert David Tolin, PhD, says this is a well-regarded tool for measuring the way you feel about clutter. I asked all our test panelists to take this survey. Once you're finished, you can compare your score to theirs.

SAVING INVENTORY—REVISED (MODIFIED FORMAT)

Your score will give you a better sense of how badly you want to bring items home and how much you have to struggle to get rid of them later. For each of these questions, circle the number that corresponds most closely to your experience during the past week.

For each of these questions, circle the number that corresponds most closely to your experience during the past week.