It’s Never Too Late

One of the most curious reasons I hear for not starting the Journey is ‘It’s too late’, I’m too old’ or ‘I don’t want to spend 2 or 3 years of what’s left of my life dealing with my clutter’.

Whenever I hear someone say any of those things, I know it’s almost certainly nothing to do with their age or the time it will take.

It’s usually because they’re scared of failing or worse – scared of succeeding. If they fail, then they’ll have wasted more time doing something that doesn’t work (as if what they’ve been doing so far has been such a success). At least if they don’t even start they don’t risk failing – again.

However, if they break their starting and giving up habit, get the help they need to succeed, and they do clear it in 2, 3 or even 4 years (after potentially a lifetime of failing), they might feel like they’ve wasted all that time, energy and effort over the years and decades, trying to  do  it on their own, when actually, allthey needed to do was start the Journey and get the help they need to make regular time to follow it.

I always respond  to these types of comments by sharing the story of June.

June

June was a client in the early years of Clutter Clearing. At age 78 when she first contacted me, June was one of my more mature clients. (I always remind people that we are never ‘old’ – we have aged and matured like a fine wine or a good cheese!)

June explained to me that she had a clutter challenge, and so too did one of her 2 daughters who had sadly passed away recently due to breast cancer. Her other daughter didn’t have a clutter challenge and wanted to deal with her sisters hoard by hiring a house clearance company to come in and deal with it all as fast as possible in a blitz.

Kindness and Respect

June didn’t want to just blitz her daughters clutter, or her own for that matter, because she knew that it wasn’t just ‘stuff’ to get rid of. She wanted to treat her late daughter’s belongings with the kindness and respect she believed they deserved. 

June also wanted to deal with her own clutter challenge so that her surviving daughter wouldn’t just blitz her things and send it all to landfill when her time came, which June now knew was what her daughter would do.

It wasn’t just June’s daughter who thought she was crazy to consider the Clutter Clearing Journey ‘at her age’. All June’s friends and family told her not to worry about dealing with her clutter. They told her it didn’t matter; she should enjoy the remaining years of her life doing fun things, not waste more time trying to deal with a challenge she’d had all her life. They told her that she just needed to accept that she was never going to be able to clear her clutter.

According to everyone else, June shouldn’t waste 2 hours a day, 5 days a week learning how to clear her clutter or try to clear it on her own. They wanted her to get a decluttering expert to visit her at home and help her like they do on the T.V. with a huge blitz. After all, how could she possibly expect to physically deal with it all on her own?! 

To them, starting the Journey that didn’t involve hands on physical help in her home made no sense. But June was adamant she wanted – and needed – to do this for her daughter, and before she departed this world. June felt she couldn’t enjoy or live her best life unless she cleared her clutter. She didn’t want to live with the regret of not dealing with it, or the guilt of sending her daughters things to landfill.

Secret Journey

To say June didn’t have supportive friends and family was an understatement, so much so that she decided to keep it a secret, even calling it her ‘Secret Journey’.

Fortunately, June’s daughters flat was mortgage free so there was no time pressure to get it all cleared, on the market, or sold as quickly as possible. With no children to leave her home to, her daughter had wanted to split the proceeds from the sale of her flat between her mother, sister and 3 charities. June wanted to get as much money as possible for the house so the charities in turn would get as much as possible, and this became her motivation.

June started her Journey by worked on her own clutter first, learning, starting slowly, building up her confidence and belief, doing the doing.

She cleared her own clutter, became completely clutter free in just over 2 years, and had her home redecorated as her goal reward. For her 81st birthday, several months after she’d cleared all her own clutter, she had a ‘Clutter Free Garden Party’ at her home for the first time in decades. 

Her friends and family couldn’t believe what she’d achieved, especially as she hadn’t mentioned she was on her Journey since they had told her not to bother. They were curious. How had she done it? They hadn’t seen people or skips outside her home. She hadn’t stopped spending time with them – so how had she made time to do all this? It must have been a huge blitz.

June then got to work on her daughters flat and thanks to everything she’d learnt on her own Journey, she was able to clear all her daughters clutter within a year of clearing her own.

June was able to sell her daughters flat for the full market value (something that would have been impossible in it’s cluttered state), and share the proceeds amongst 3 charities in accordance with her late daughters final wishes. June also gave her own share of the sale to the charities.

Honouring Her Daughter

June had honoured her daughter in a wonderful way and was now confident her surviving daughter wouldn’t – and couldn’t – just send her own belongings to landfill when her time came.

Every year after she completed both Journey’s I checked in with June on her Clutter Free Anniversary, and every year June told me that every day that she was living her best life, clutter free, knowing she’d respected her daughter’s belongings and honoured her daughters last wishes was worth the 3 years it had taken her to clear both homes.

June lived Completely Clutter Free for 3 more years before her time came to leave this world.

The next time you tell yourself it’s too late or you’re too old to start your Clutter Clearing Journey, remember June and ask yourself:

If you want to clear your clutter forever without an expensive home visit, the only way to do that is with the Clutter Clearing 7 Step Journey. Find out more here: https://www.clutterclearing.net/7-step-journey/