writing

QUIT MAKING EXCUSES

/ OrganizedWithJoy / Leave a comment

Hey friends! I know it’s been a while since I posted here! Life has been busy, and it is just now slowing down! For today’s Thoughtful Thursday topic I wanted to encourage you to quit making excuses. Please know that when I tackle topics like this that sound a little judgy – I am talking to myself too. I have said this before: these posts are just as much to encourage me as it is to encourage you!

I think it is human nature to make excuses for why we don’t do certain things or why we do certain things in life. It helps us to feel better about ourselves and our choices. We rationalize to comfort us when we fall short, and to protect our egos from failure. But one thing I have noticed for myself is that it can be helpful to be an observer of your thoughts (or even what you say) to really determine if you truly are living authentically, or if you are just making excuses to not do things that could help you to learn and grow. I’ll give you an example. I want to read more. I have been wanting to read more for years. Yet when I talk to people about wanting to read more, I tend to immediately make excuses for why I don’t read more. I blame my high energy and how it’s hard for me to sit still, my perimenopause induced ADHD which causes a lack of focus, or how I feel unproductive when I just sit and read. The truth is, I lack the discipline to make reading a more regular part of my routines. It would be one thing if I just accepted that I don’t have the discipline, but instead I make excuses so I don’t feel bad about myself.

Excuses often stem from fear – fear of failure, fear of judgement, or fear of change. When someone says, “I don’t have time to do this or that” what they actually mean is that they don’t want to prioritize it. When someone says, “I’m just not good at this or that” they really mean they don’t want to put in the effort to try that thing and/or they don’t want to risk failure. Excuses can come from a place of victim mentality. We may believe that our circumstances dictate our success or failure. While it’s true that we may have challenges or injustices in our lives, blaming others or our circumstances strips us of our autonomy and the belief that we have the power to change our circumstances.

Making excuses may protect our ego in the short term, but in the long term it sabotages our goals. Excuses prevent us from learning and growing. It can also diminish our self respect. Deep down we may know that we are not being authentic. This inner conflict can lead to anxiety, low self esteem, and lack of motivation. The more someone hides behind excuses, the more they drift from who they truly want to be. When we choose to quit making excuses, it doesn’t deny that life can be hard or that things are not always in your control. It means that while you can’t control everything, you can control your response to things. Taking responsibility instead of making excuses shifts the focus to what you can do instead of what you can’t do.

I have said this phrase so many times: you choose your hard. We often make excuses for why we are not doing the hard thing. But doing the hard thing up front makes the long term easier or at least more enjoyable. Often it’s when we don’t do the hard thing and we make excuses as to why we are not doing the hard thing, that later things actually become more difficult.

Excuses are easy, but progress is hard. If you want to live a life of purpose, achievement, and growth you have to quit making excuses. Stop blaming, stop delaying, and stop doubting. Take responsibility for your choices, your mindset, and your future. It’s not always comfortable, but it’s always worth it. Because the moment you stop making excuses is the moment you start making progress.

Here is the YouTube video I shared in conjunction with this blog post.

THE STRUGGLES OF CONTENT CREATION

/ OrganizedWithJoy / Leave a comment

Okay friends, for today’s Thoughtful Thursday post I wanted to share that I’m struggling. I did have a topic planned for this post, but the reality is I was not feeling the topic I had planned to discuss today. It took everything within me to quit staring at that blinking cursor on the screen as it mocked me and to just start typing SOMETHING! Admittedly, sometimes it’s difficult being a content creator and consistently sharing content publicly. And for me in particular, as a recovering perfectionist, I always want to share really high quality content. However, I’m learning that maybe it’s okay to sometimes share things in a little more raw and uncurated way.

Some days it can be challenging to feel inspired and that’s tough since as a content creator I tend to share out of inspiration. But, I also strive to share content consistently. For the most part I absolutely love content creation. I am a creative person in general, and over my lifetime that creativity has been channeled in different ways. When I was very young I enjoyed writing poetry and short stories, or even just journaling to process thoughts and feelings. In high school and college I was really into photography and enjoyed that as a creative outlet. Later as a wife I was able to express creativity in the kitchen and in decorating our home and making it cozy. Then when our children were young I enjoyed spending time with them and coming up with fun activities for them. As the kids became school aged, I got involved in volunteering with their schools and working with some non for profit organizations, which seemed to usually involve communication and community building. I was also able to express creativity when I ran my own business as a professional organizer. Currently a lot of my creativity has been channeled into sharing creative content. For those of you who don’t know, I did graduate with a journalism degree and I never anticipated using my degree in this way, but I do feel like content creation is adjacent to journalism. 

I think in addition to sometimes feeling uninspired and unsure of what to share for Thoughtful Thursday thoughts, I sometimes feel unsure or uninspired in general with what to share on all social media outlets. For my YouTube channel, I have been feeling like I have exhausted all of the organizing, decluttering, and cleaning projects around my home. Hopefully even in the redundancy I inspire or motivate people though my videos. I’m not sure how most people feel, but I wonder if over time content creators become repetitive and therefore boring. For me it’s not just about making sure my audience isn’t bored, it’s also about feeling creatively inspired in my sharing and for my YouTube channel I get tired of editing the same type of footage over and over. Because of that, there will be some changes on my channel and part of that is a shift in my own personal focus – away from decluttering and organizing my spaces now that most of my spaces are in maintenance mode and towards living a slower life and incorporating more travel in particular. I have several trips planned coming up and I will be sharing those experiences in travel vlogs. My hope is this type of content, while different from what I have shared in the past will still be enjoyable and my viewers would get value from some of my upcoming content.

Here is my most recent video on my YouTube channel!

Part of the struggle of being a content creator is for sure coming up with content and consistently sharing from a place of inspiration. But, another challenging part of being a content creator is everything going on behind the scenes as I share somewhat benign content online.

Most content creators are sharing within a niche. For me I’m sharing organizing, cleaning, decluttering, and minimalism content. Obviously this is one small facet of my life. I have been trying to share a little more candidly through these Thoughtful Thursday posts, but I want you to know there are a lot of things I don’t share about my life. This is something that is intentional. I think it’s important to have boundaries online with what I share. I don’t share details about my personal life or about my family, and that is intentional. My intention has never been to hide anything, but more so to protect my family and to keep my content within my niche.

However, because of that, when I’m having a rough day or a rough few days it can be especially difficult to share content. I am someone who is pretty vulnerable and open with people in my real life, so it does sometimes feel odd to have heavy stuff going on behind the scenes and not talk about it the places I share creative content. But like I said, this is an intentional choice I have made.

I think a lot of content creators are the same way. We all are real people with real problems in life. Just because we don’t talk about them doesn’t mean we don’t have them. Most content creators curate what they show you. Not because we are deceitful, but because we are showing you a very small facet of our lives to motivate, inspire, challenge, or encourage our audience.

With all this said, the past few days have been pretty rough for me, and it’s been challenging to share content publicly. It feels like I’m hiding heavy stuff that is going on behind the scenes. That is why I am sharing about this today, being as real as I can while also honoring my boundaries. If you look at someone’s online presence and think they have it all together, they have a near perfect life, they seem so happy, or they don’t seem to have many problems, I can guarantee that there ARE things going on behind the scenes that you know nothing about. And I can attest to this with my own life.

I know for the most part I come across as very positive and upbeat, and that truly is who I am. I am in general someone who is an optimist and sees the silver linings, but some days are harder than others. And some days it’s too much to handle the heavy stuff going on in life and I feel down. So I want you to know if you feel like you don’t have it together, your life is a mess, you are struggling to feel happy, or you are dealing with some heavy problems in life – YOU ARE NOT ALONE! 

Today, the sun is shining in Austin, and it is helping me to feel better. I am just going to continue all of those healthy practices that I strive to make a part of my everyday life – getting exercise, getting good sleep, eating healthy, drinking plenty of water, and meditating. When we can’t change the people around us, or change our circumstances, we CAN change how we react. And we can do everything within our power to make OURSELVES better. Because we are the only person we are in charge of. We have autonomy over our actions, our thoughts, and the way we handle things. I hope this encourages someone today!