Need Motivation to Declutter? Try Gratitude.

I stood in the kitchen, 2019 calendar in hand. My eyes scanned the squares, falling on mid January. We move in one month. The thought hit me hard. In one month all the stuff in this house will find a new home in a 2 bedroom apartment.

The thought was as exhilarating as it was overwhelming. The opportunity to really go “all in” on minimizing was before me. But I felt stuck. How was I really going to do all this? How was I going to make decisions on what to keep and what to toss/donate? I started second guessing myself. Wouldn’t it just be easier to pack everything up, put it in storage, and deal with it later?

I needed a way to stay motivated. The decluttering project before me felt too big. That night I pulled up my gratitude journal on my phone. As I was recording and rereading things I was thankful for, I had an “Aha” moment.

I realized that, most often, the thing I was grateful for at the end of the day wasn’t a thing money could buy. It was a person. Our baby and her adorable laugh at dinner time. It was an experience. A walk around the block hand-in-hand with our five year old. It was a sensation. The feel of a wet snowflake caught on my tongue. Rarely did a “thing” show up on my gratitude list.

Gratitude, I realized, is a prerequisite for minimalism. When we are content with what we have, we want less. And when we find our contentment outside of “stuff,” letting go of the “stuff” we already have (but don’t need) suddenly becomes easier.

I also realized having less stuff would make space for more of what sparked contentment. With less clutter around I really could experience life more deeply with fewer distractions.

The next morning, I set out to declutter our living room, but felt overwhelm creeping in again. I decided to try tapping into gratitude. I took a few minutes and journaled about what I was most thankful for. Being the brain science nerd I am, I knew this activated the happiness center in my brain (the right prefrontal cortex, according to Dr. Earl Henslin in his book This is Your Brain on Joy). This gratitude exercise also produced neurotransmitters like dopamine (according to Owen Griffith in Gratitude: A Way of Teaching). How great, I thought, that being thankful for what I already have could give me a dopamine zap similar to the one I got when purchasing something new.

After the gratitude exercise, I felt more balanced. I felt focused. My motivation was back. This was this mindset I needed before every decluttering surge.

I returned to my gratitude list several times that day. Anytime the task before me seemed to big, I used gratitude exercises to gain a fresh perspective and reset my motivation. Family strolls down the beach on vacation. Five year old “I love you, Mama” whispers at bedtime. The smell of fresh coffee filling the house every morning. These were the things I wanted more of – not more stuff.

And I’m determined to keep my motivation going for a month of intense decluttering before the move. The best things in life truly are not things. My goal is for our home and life to reflect this. And as we journey in that direction, I’ll let gratitude guide the way.