Clearing your physical space is a pretty straightforward task since it’s obvious what qualifies as clutter in your home or office: last week’s newspaper, the stack of unopened mail on your kitchen table, the garbage about to come over the sides of your garbage can, the 10 pairs of shoes hanging out by your front door “on their way” back to your closet. All of a sudden, you have room for new stuff!
Too bad it’s not as simple to sort your mental clutter.
Here’s the problem with clearing mental clutter: If you accept that we are the sum of our experiences, how do you decide which experiences, memories, and habits to clear and what to hang onto as you move through life and tackle new challenges? It’s like the reverse of that priorities puzzle, the one where the professor shows his students that they have to put the big rocks (their life priorities) in a mason jar first in order to make room for the pebbles, sand, and water (the other stuff in their life). Which bits do you remove to make room for your new experiences without creating so much space that you’re no longer you? What’s an integral part of who you are and what’s just clutter standing in the way of what’s next?
I’ve been having a lot of conversations about this subject recently, particularly with other small business/entrepreneur types. While we recognize that the path we’ve chosen is potentially a long and challenging one that requires a lot of hard work, we also believe that we need to “make space” for our future success. Making space means letting go of old expectations, old ways of doing things, and, sometimes, old relationships. The trick, I guess, is to recognize what from your past might help you get to your future and what’s just blocking your way.
I’m not generally a horoscope reader; but yesterday, after I started thinking about mental clutter, I went to my iGoogle page and found this in “today’s horoscope” by Rick Levine:
“You can feel the gentle yet persuasive pull from your key planet Venus today. But it’s confusing when she lures you simultaneously in two different directions. You nostalgically long for the simpler days to return, but they won’t; they cannot. Once you accept the fact that your future is more complex than the memories of your past, you’ll have a shot at what’s most important to you.”
What do you think? How do you decide what to hang onto and what to clear as you move forward in your career and in your life?
