4 Tactics To Take Control of Your Life

Feeling overwhelmed, cluttered and disorganized can lead to multiple challenges.

Before getting their life organized, many clients have complained about not being able to sleep well at night. They lay in bed wide awake as they run their list of ‘to do’s’ not done through their brain.

Feeling out of control where things are falling through the cracks of their life creates unnecessary worry. The lack of a good night’s sleep leaves them exhausted and living on fumes for days.

Bottom line, it’s not a good chain of events.

Feeling overwhelmed happens when we have too much stuff in our environment, too many things on our schedule or when our routines have completely changed.

Here are some great tips to help you avoid overwhelm and start feeling more in control of your life!

How can you take control of your life when you feel overwhelmed?

1. Why make a responsibility list?

Write down all the things you feel responsible for. Why? Because when you take responsibility for things you’ll feel more in charge.

Once you brainstorm all these things, go back and circle the things you must do.

Now underline the things you love to do.

All the things that are circled, but not underlined, you’ll want to pass over to other people. This should free up a good chunk of your time.

Then you can use this new free time to focus on your new life and renewed energy.

2. How does eliminating clutter help?

Look around where you work and live. Is there lots of clutter?

If so, you need to get rid of everything that you don’t use, love or need. One easy rule of thumb is to eliminate anything that you haven’t used in the last 12 months. I know that might be a scary idea. But trust me when I say that the old stuff is holding you back.

Clearing that out will help you make room for new things. Like cooking one new healthy recipe each week, riding your bike to do local errands, taking a virtual yoga class, going for a walk after dinner or having 10 extra minutes to read something inspiring.

If you are not sure where to start, Kathi’s 3 questions to help alleviate clutter overwhelm can help.

3. What is your BIG goal?

What do you want? What makes YOU happy? (Not what you think will make others happy).

You must be very clear on this.

Once you are, then you can start saying ‘yes’ to the actions that get you closer to your goal. And, more importantly, start saying ‘no’ to the obligations, routines and nonsense that keep you from your goals.

Since you want to have more energy and motivation to get your life in order, you need to make time in your life to take the action to move towards that goal.

A life with less stress and more freedom won’t magically happen on its own!

So set a BIG goal and commit to investing time each day to develop the new habits to make that happen. Kathi’s post It Takes 4-6 Weeks to Develop a New Habit looks at how habits take hold.

4. How do you know which system to follow?

Often times we get bad advice from well meaning people. You can find this advice everywhere. Friends, family, YouTube, bad blog posts.

Information is everywhere.

So how do you know who to trust?

Look for evidence that the advice you’re getting has gotten results for others.

For example, if you want to buy a new TV, it’s best to visit Amazon and check the reviews. If the reviews are good, then it’s a pretty safe bet.

Have you regained your balance?

Your schedule may have changed a great deal. A good question to ask yourself is: have I been able to regain my balance? Have I taken this opportunity of change to reinvent my life in ways that help me feel in more control?

If not, seize this day! Even though it is sometimes hard to change and others around you might be experiencing the same ‘growing / changing’ pains, this is the perfect time to restructure your life with new priorities that will help you feel a greater sense of satisfaction.

Carpe Diem!

What are the action steps?

• List all of the daily tasks you have to complete
• Figure out all of the tasks you like to do
• Set a big goal towards what you want
• Cut the clutter and follow a system