This morning I am making the most of this beautiful, sunny September weather (a rare blessing in the north of Scotland).
It has prompted me to finally clear out the garage which is something I have been putting off for months. I find myself stepping over ‘useful’ things that have been here a long time and as I started sifting through boxes that I haven’t opened in over 17 years I unearthed lots of ‘useful’ things.
This got me thinking about how we keep things or keep doing because we think they are useful. They may have been useful once, but are they still useful now?
My garage, like my office and my kitchen drawers are full of useful things that I haven’t used for years. Some I have even forgotten I have. The challenge is I hate putting useful things in the bin to be put into the ground, I have a thing about recycling and re-using so I end up holding on to loads of ‘useful’ things, old computer’s, folders, files, even battery chargers. The problem is I want it to be used, but haven’t quite worked out where.
So yesterday I started my Maria Condo thing. but instead of asking “does this bring me joy”, I was asking “will I ever use this, will I do anything useful with it”.
My computer is the same. It is cluttered with useful documents and files that I intend to do something with, and when I cleared out my father’s house after his death, that was the same. There were loads of tools and old tins of screws etc. that he never got round to doing anything with.
But it is not just the material objects we hang on to. There are things we do in our life, that we keep doing because we have always done them, because it was useful to do things that way at a certain point, but maybe it’s not useful to do them any more.
This reminded me of something Keith Blakemore-Nobel said in our last event. “When you’re young you’re told not to talk to strangers, but when you reach the age of 16+ not talking to strangers can be very restrictive in your life.
There are probably numerous things in our history, in our psyche in the way we do things that no longer apply, that are no longer useful.
So my suggestion is to reflect on what you have in your life that is no longer useful? Maybe it is time to replace “that could be useful” with “this is no longer useful to me”
So that is where clearing out the garage led me on this beautiful day. I hope you find some beauty where you are.
FOOTNOTE
I will be live on the Life Passion and Business Facebook page on Wednesday to tell you about a new event that goes live in the middle of November.
The next podcast is with Fear Strategist, Keith Blakemore-Noble and we will be discussing how he overcame his fears. Keith has published 3-4 books and his newest “The Masks We Wear”
It is nothing to do with Covid – he wrote it before all this began. The book is being launched on 26th September and will be available on Amazon at the exclusive price of just 79p (Link Here) and it comes with a package of loads of additional resources, so it is well worth ordering your copy before the price goes up.
