Clean Up to Elevate: Why You Must Declutter Your Life to Level Up

[Ep. 24 in The Bold Life Podcast] 

Do you want to level up but feel weighed down by clutter, the to-dos, commitments, obligations, or even the physical chaos around you?

When I stepped into my next Bold Life chapter and began building my coaching business part-time, it was alongside my full-time career and family responsibilities.

Well, I hit a wall.

I felt stressed, overbooked, overwhelmed, like I was drowning in life clutter. My calendar and my habits were too crowded for my next level to begin. My energy was depleted. And that's when I realized all of this clutter was the ceiling preventing me from moving forward.

You can't step into a new chapter while dragging around the debris from your present one.

So today, we're talking about preparing to elevate your life. Cleaning up everything that's been silently draining your time, energy and focus. It's about doing a hard reset, clearing out, cleaning up, and creating space so your next chapter has room to unfold.

Your next level requires capacity.

Emotional, mental, and physical space.

And clutter equals friction.

And friction kills momentum.

It kills creativity.

How can you focus on being creative or available when you're surrounded and distracted by clutter?

Our nervous system thrives on clarity and order. I know I personally cannot focus on my tasks when I know I have a whole bunch of distracting to-dos lined up in the back of my mind. It's like clearing cobwebs. I have to get that stuff out so that I can focus on moving forward.

Rule number one: every major reinvention starts with clearing, not adding.

Now let's get to the action. We're going to talk about seven areas you must clean up to level up.

We'll discuss what to clean, why it matters, and how to tackle it head-on.

1. First, your physical space.

Look around you in your house, your car, your closets, your drawers, your workspace.

What state is your environment in?

Are you housing old clothes and shoes from your past self, stuff you haven't worn in years?

Has your car become a storage closet for your children's clothes, snack trash, and miscellaneous items?

When's the last time you went through your papers, your files?

How many expired products do you have in your bathroom?

If you're looking around and you see clutter from the past, it's time to get clear.

A cleaner space instantly boosts energy and decisiveness. Physical clutter fogs mental clarity. It can be stressful to think about all the unfinished business in our lives.  How can you focus on being intentional when you're surrounded by the guilt of an incomplete to-do list hanging over your head?

I've been in a season of clearing myself. Instead of buying more clothes and shoes, I took some time off from shopping this year. I realized it was time to part ways with a whole bunch of things.

I started with multiple boxes of shoes. I'd been carrying these around from house to house over multiple years. Some of these shoes I haven't worn in years, and I don't plan to wear them again.

And the funny thing is, I couldn't even find the shoes that I would want to wear because they were hidden amongst all the boxes of shoes that I didn't want to wear. I couldn't see what clothes I needed to buy because I was holding on to my just-in-case clothes. Just in case I lose 10 pounds. Just in case I gain 10 pounds, I'll keep these five similar hats just in case I need to go to a Halloween party. I'll keep these 20 pairs of work pumps in case I decide that I ever want to go back to wearing heels every day, even though I work remotely most of the time. And I don't plan on going back to wearing heels every day ever.

The point is that your environment is sort of a mirror of your internal world. If you're looking around only to see your past self, who you used to be, what you used to do in the clutter, it's time to start reflecting on the future you.

Who do you want future you to be? 

What does future you dress like?

What does future house look like?

To start implementing a clearing, start with some of your identity items like your clothes, your shoes,

old work badges. Maybe it is a bunch of office knick-knacks that you just don't enjoy or relate to anymore. For some of us, this could take days or weeks. So don't overdo it. Just start with a 60-minute power purge or maybe a 30-minute power purge. You'd be amazed at what you could even accomplish by taking ten minutes to clean out things that no longer work for you. Donate it. I recently took a bunch of items to Goodwill. Some of them were really brand new, nice, expensive, shoes, but I realized I don't like these shoes. They really don't fit my identity that I want to share with the world. I don't enjoy wearing them. They're not comfortable. Let somebody else find a nugget or a treasure in the store for a good price, and in its place, you will be left with the space needed to step into the possibilities for the future.

2. Clean up your digital life.

Now that we've been living in the digital era for about a quarter century. We've become weighed down with the mental load of the email inbox, files, and photos. We're keeping 500,000 photos just in case we need them or we want to look at them someday. But the question is, “How are you going to find the photos that you want if they're surrounded by all the other photos that you don't want?” Then we have all the old paper stuff, the taxes, old resumes, work decks, projects that we're keeping just in case.

In our personal and professional lives, we have the added layer of social media management. We can spend hours doom scrolling, engaging in toxic back-and-forths with bots, for Christ's sake.

And how is that helping us elevate our lives? I've been here, the place where I'm exhausted by the time I'm done reading through the emails and social posts that don't even matter. I've got no time left because I used it on dribble, where I've literally run out of energy before I've gotten out of bed.

Digital clutter seems harmless, but it can be exhausting mentally. Personally, I'm exhausted by clicking my mouse day and night in the log, doing the login password game, double verifications, and endless screen time. In order to focus on my priorities, I've made some hard cuts, not really doing much on my social media accounts right now. In fact, I deleted the apps from my phone. Therefore I have to work harder. If I really want to get in there, I can, but I have to log in through my browser. And then there's the passwords. When I can't even recall my password, it actually saves me time and energy because I just decide not to go there.

As a result, I am able to focus on a few key priorities instead of wasting my time on social media.

You need a digital ecosystem that supports where you're going, but filling up all of your time going through junk mail, social media binging, and keeping 10,000 photos and screenshots? It's only stealing your focus from your vital key priorities.

So how do you reduce your digital clutter? A couple of ways that I’ve been working on lately is unsubscribing. Unsubscribe in bulk. When your email inbox is filled up with junk, it might be time to actually get a new email address. I've been thinking about this one. Then my new email address becomes my main email address, and my old email address becomes my junk email address. Then eventually, I get rid of the junk email address and keep moving forward. You can start your new email fresh with only the key items you need: online bills, friends and family connections, and so forth. And don't sign up for junk mail there!

Next, you might consider deleting your social media. Now I'm not saying all of it, but maybe you could delete some old versions tied to identities that you've outgrown. This can be a tough one because we live in a time where many of us are using social media to keep long-term connections, childhood friends, and they've become picture archives of our lives. But think about the future here. 

Does your future self want to be associated with those party pics from 15 years ago on Facebook?

Particularly if you desire to reflect professionalism on a different level for work, business, or future goals. Social media can be a platform for your future self, or it can be a window into the past. You just want to make sure that the window in the past that others can see is a window that fits with your future identity. There's an opportunity to clean up to ensure that your platform reflects to the world where you're going, not where you've been.

Curate your social algorithms intentionally. The opportunity is to reduce the negativity, the negative influences in your feed, and replace them with positives. The old saying goes that you are the culmination of the five people that you spend the most time with. If that's the case when your looking at your social media do you wanna be associated with the type of energy that your feed is bringing? If not, delete, remove. Use social media wisely for the advantage of your future self, future growth.

3. Next, let's look at your calendar and time commitments.

We can't do everything well, even though we keep trying. It's helpful to map out your schedule, your meetings, tasks, responsibilities, but the real work is filtering for what actually matters. To level up, you have to create space for the vital few: your strategy, your non-negotiables, your future.

You can't keep adding without subtracting. It's not realistic. New goals require a trade off. If you're training for a marathon or building a side business, something else will have to give. You'll have to dial something else down for a season. And that's not failure, that's math. And it's maturity.

We all have priorities, but it's essential to be honest about how many top priorities you can handle and how many you can do well. The good news is that clearing space isn't only about making big cuts. There are dozens of small reductions you can make immediately. For example, at work, look at your standing meetings:

Which ones of these can you delegate?

Do you really need three team members attending one meeting?

In most cases, the answer is no. You could be guided by micromanaging or fear of missing out.

When in reality, you could have someone else attend the meeting and keep you posted on any action items or follow-ups.

Is your presence required weekly?

Or could you be optional? Or maybe on demand?

And then there are the obligations you said yes to out of guilt: School events, mom stuff, organizational fluff, community tasks, or cleaning activities you don't even want to be part of. When you're committed to leveling up with intention in a clear outcome, you have to make peace with saying no. If it doesn't fit the plan, it has to go. And this is why it matters. You can't create space for new opportunities if your calendar's booked with fluff.

High-achieving women often sabotage elevation to the next level by feeling bogged down by duty-based commitments. Things that they have to do or that they should do or that nice girls do and good moms do. But when you're trying to focus on strategic elements of your job and your life, you have to make some hard cuts, and you have to be a little bit selfish.

You've got one life to live and it's yours. So, how do you clean up your calendar and time commitments?

Well, first, let's just look at what's been going on for you. Take the last 60 days and do a calendar audit. First of all, do you even track your time in your calendar? If not, that's the first step. Figuring out what you are spending your time on. Once you figure out what you are actually spending your time on, ask for each item:

Does this move me forward?

Does this nourish me?

Does this help me reach my goals?

Is this part of the vital few?

And then begin editing, delegate, cancel, complete and get some things out of the way. Or just say no and decline.

4. Next, let's talk about your money and financial habits.

Money can be a tricky topic. It's the topic that no one wants to talk about, but worse, no one wants to worry about. This is about the clutter that you hope no one ever sees. Money clutter. It's not just the pile of envelopes that you pretend is decor and sit there for months on your desk, but the emotional mess hiding in your bank account. This includes things like subscriptions you forgot about. You know, the free trial from 2021 that's been charging you $9.99 a month. Debt you avoid. Money shame. The things you tell yourself, like “I'm terrible with money,” or “One day I'll get ahead, hopefully.” Old money identities. Still acting like the broke college kid even though you now make adult money and shop at Target for fun, not for survival. Money clutter is sneaky. It doesn't just empty your wallet, but it drains your energy, particularly if you're worried about it, and you don't have enough.

When you don't know what's going on with your money, there's low-level anxiety humming in the background. Financial strain is stressful and can lead to long-term health problems. When you avoid debt or spend without awareness, it's nearly impossible to feel powerful, grounded or in control. Sometimes it's even hard to feel grateful because you're so used to just buying and spending whatever you want with no control on life. 

If you're entering a reinvention year, maybe it's a new role, a business, a move, taking a sabbatical. Guess what? That new chapter needs a financially honest main character. The truth is that money clarity equals confidence, and confident women make bold moves. Stressed, confused women will they freak out over money, subscribe to more things, make senseless purchases to feel better,

and make a lot of financial mistakes.

So how to clean it up? First, know where your money is going.

Just tracking your spending for 30 days can be a good way to play detective.

Where is my money actually going?

Why am I paying 12.99 for something I haven't used in years?

How many subscriptions do I have to various TV channels?

Cancel or renegotiate your subscriptions. Highlight every single recurring charge and make sure that it's something that you are still using, that you still care about, that you want to be spending time and money on intentionally. 

Many of us worry about keeping track of all of the items that we need to pay, the bills that we need to pay, and it's unnecessary clutter in our minds. That's what autopay was made for. Make it boring, make it automatic. Remove the emotional drama of, “Did I pay that bill or will I be living in the woods next month? Are they going to come and take my home away from me because I didn't pay my mortgage?”

And next, even when you are reducing the financial clutter in your life, it is important to create a next chapter fund. This isn't savings; it's money with a mission. Call it the Bold Life Fund or your Career Pivot Plot or your Sabbatical Savings, or maybe your I'm Leaving This Job jar. Putting away money, even $25 a month, tells your brain that you are funding a new reality.

Most importantly, get brutally honest with yourself around money. Where are you wasting money and what emotional need is it fulfilling for you? Revenge shopping? Boredom? Door-dashing? Shopping therapy. Be honest so you can choose differently and intentionally to build the future life that you want to build.

5. The next area to clean up may be one of the hardest ones. Cleaning up your relationships.

We can buy new planners, we can organize closets. But cleaning up relationships? That requires real courage. So we're looking at one-sided friendships where you're always the listener, never the one held. Draining family dynamics. The group text that spikes your anxiety. The relative who always needs something. Mentors, bosses or colleagues who no longer align with who you're becoming. Maybe it's negative Nancy or gossipy Gary at the office and people who subtly or loudly shrink your ambition, roll their eyes at your ideas or keep you in the old you box.

People who don't want you to change because it makes them feel jealous or less than or unworthy.

You don't have to blow up every relationship, but you do need to tell the truth about which ones nourish you and which ones deplete you. Which ones do you want to be associated with in the future as future you, and which ones are simply dragging you down?

Your environment is the container for your elevation. You become like the people you spend the most time with in mindset, in energy, in expectations. And anytime you have unhealthy or misaligned relationships, it will absolutely block access to your boldest self. If you're trying to level up while still keeping everyone else comfortable around you, you'll stay stuck. It's easier there not to move when the people around you are also not moving.

So how to clean it up? First, identify your biggest energy drains. Write down the names. Don't overthink it. You know who they are. Who leaves you feeling smaller, guilty, tense, anxious, exhausted after every interaction? 

Start creating some boundaries. This might mean taking more space, less texting, saying no to certain events or limiting certain topics. Maybe you refuse to spend time wasting around gossip you don't owe everyone access to all of you all of the time and step back from those relationships that you find do sabotage your growth.

It doesn't have to be dramatic. Sometimes it's simply, “Hey, I'm no longer available for this dynamic. I just don't have time for it. I don't want to spend my time and energy on nonsense.” And so you just back away slowly and let your own actions shift: 

Slower replies,

fewer yeses,

more time invested in aligned people,

in positivity, in future movement.

It doesn't have to be dramatic, you just quietly change from within.

6. Relationships really feed into the sixth thing we're going to talk about, which is your emotional backpack.

Now inside your emotional backpack, you might be carrying a lot of old sentiments and resentments from these relationships, from work, from past friendships, and even resentments towards yourself. There are old wounds in there, baggage that hasn't been cleaned up, betrayals, disappointments, failures you still replay in your mind.

We've all got unprocessed stress. These are years you've spent in survival mode with no decompression that's stuck inside your body. We've got perfectionism, people pleasing, proving all the ways you try to earn your worth that drag down your confidence, that drag down your spirit. These are the stories that you drag from room to room, year to year, in your backpack. Sounds a lot like the stuff that we drag around from house to house from year to year in our closets, in our living rooms. And this is why it matters:

Emotional clutter creates self-doubt. It dims our light. It dims our confidence. You can't build a bold new chapter while telling yourself old stories about yourself like “I always mess this up” or “People always leave” or “I'm not ready yet.” These limiting self-beliefs are just messages that you've been repeating. Your nervous system will resist opportunity if it still associates visibility, risk or change with past pain. You can't move beyond the past if you're stuck in thoughts about your past self.

There are a ton of ways to clean up your emotional backpack. You probably tried or if not tried you should, Journaling. Just talking to yourself and writing freely without censoring, without making it look pretty for anyone. Ask yourselves, 

What emotions am I dragging around from room to room?

How do I feel about life? 

How do I feel about what happened at Thanksgiving? 

How do I feel about what my mom said to me the other day? 

Name the anger, the grief, the disappointment, the regret. No holds barred. With regular journaling practice, you might find that you're able to be more truthful with yourself. And over time, you can identify patterns about the emotions that are stuck in your body and the thoughts that are stuck in your head and get some idea of what you need to break through to move forward. 

Make a regular thing about it. Practice naming your emotions daily. The biggest problem is that a lot of us aren't even in touch with what we're feeling. We're stifling. We're stuffing it. Instead of saying "I'm fine" or "I'm stressed," get specific: I feel anxious because of blank. I feel resentful when you say blank. Naming is the first step to processing emotions and then sitting with them and moving beyond them eventually.

And of course, you can work with a coach or a therapist to release old loops. You don't have to do it alone. Remember, coaching is about moving forward. It's strategic. It is goal setting. It is working through some of your thoughts, feelings, and the actions you are or aren't taking to achieve your current results and your future results. Sometimes we need another human to help us see where we're still carrying around 2020 in our 2025 body.

7. Your identity and your self-concept are the seventh and deepest layer of what needs to be cleaned up to elevate your life.

This is who you think you are. I didn't necessarily say who you are, but who you think you are. This includes any outdated beliefs about who you should be. The good girl, the fixer, the responsible one, the always available mom, the high performer at all costs. These are the labels you never consciously chose but have been living inside. Saying, “I'm the reliable one” or “I'm the overachiever. I'm a perfectionist. I'm the one that holds it together.” These are the identities rooted in roles you've outgrown. Old jobs, old versions of motherhood, old seasons of your life, old expectations and boundaries for yourself. You can't build a new chapter on an expired identity. If the person that you've been in the past isn't who you want to be in the future, you'll need an identity upgrade.

If your inner story is still “I’m the one who survives; I’m not the person who gets to do what I want or live the way I want,” you’ll unconsciously recreate survival over and over again. You will unconsciously limit your possibilities. Start by asking yourself some questions:

Who am I becoming?

Who do I want to become?

Not just What do you want to achieve, but who do you want to be?

If all of the possibilities in the world were possible, Do you want to be braver? More peaceful,

creative, joyful, wealthy, free vs who you are? 

So the next question is, what identity do I need to let go of?

Maybe it's letting go of the burned out corporate warrior idea of yourself. The martyr mom, the reliable fixer. What would happen if you simply changed the ways that no longer serve you and take action? Choose one of these beliefs to retire this month. Maybe you don't have to think I have to do everything myself or I only matter when I'm useful. Or I have to clean up the entire house for everyone because I'm the only one that ever will do it. What if you didn't believe that anymore?

When the thought shows up, gently say I don't believe that anymore.

If you were the one that believes that you have to do everything around the house and you decided to get rid of that thought, it brings possibilities into your life. Maybe you could get a housekeeper. Maybe you could require the children to do chores. It's only when you release the burden of having to do everything yourself that you can open up yourself to help. Practice speaking from your future.

What does future you do?

Does future you spend day and night cleaning up after everyone?

How does she make decisions?

What does she say yes to?

What does she decline?

Borrow her voice. Start living with it today and let her start narrating your life now. Starting to practice becoming future you does not always take on the first try. Emotional resistance shows up when you start to clean up. When you start making these changes, your brain and body are going to fight it. They're going to have feelings about it, and so will the people around you. It's not a sign that you're doing it wrong or that you can't do it or that you're bad at it. It's a sign that you're doing something new and it's normal. You might notice guilt. Who am I to say no? Am I being selfish? Fear comes up. The fear of disappointing others. What if they're mad? What if they judge me? Nostalgia for old identities. Like missing a version of you who was more fun, who could just push through anything even though you know she was exhausted. And there's the myth that I should be able to handle it all.

It can be hard to take a look at yourself and be like, no, I just can't handle it all. As if being human is a personal failure. But normalize it. Expect it. Move anyway. We're not supposed to be able to handle it all. It's okay to drop some balls. It's inevitable. Especially if you are an ambitious, motivated woman trying to do it all and please it all and be it all. You can literally say to yourself, of course I feel guilty. Of course this feels weird. I'm breaking old patterns and I'm allowed to do that. It will be all right. We can continue moving forward. It's safe for me to release what no longer fits. It's safe for me to disappoint others instead of constantly disappointing myself. 

Making all of these changes to declutter your life eventually comes with payoff. This is what happens after you clean house on the other side of all this. Clearing is the fun part. When you clean house physically, digitally, financially, relationally, emotionally and energetically, here's what starts to happen. You feel lighter, clearer, sharper. Decisions get easier because you're not choosing from chaos. You're being intentional. You've magnetized opportunities, ideas and alignment. You're feeling more like yourself and you suddenly have space to notice. Nudges, inspirations, open doors, glimmers of joy, and you experience emotional spaciousness. You're not reacting from stress all the time. You're getting in front of your decisions. You have room to respond. You're acting from a place of strategy and you regain your power to make decisions intentionally. You're not just operating on autopilot, putting out fires on a day to day basis and saying yes to everything. You are being more deliberate and you become someone who moves boldly instead of just surviving. You start to have energy to look better, to feel better, to engage better. Other people will notice the shift. They may not know what changed, but you will. You cleared room for your next level. A clean life is a clear runway for future possibilities. Your next level isn't waiting for you to hustle harder. It's not always about that. It's waiting for you to make space, to make peace with yourself.

Reinvention doesn't start with adding more to your plate. It starts with subtracting everything that doesn't fit anymore. With being brave to look at your life and say this stays. That goes. I choose me. So your homework from this episode is simple. Pick one of the seven areas we talked about today and take one bold cleaning action this week. Just one. Get it started. Because once you feel that first hit of relief, you'll realize you were never stuck. You were just too crowded.

Dear Bold One, I hope that this message resonated with you. If you want to talk more, reach out to me and book a clarity call at www.theboldlife.coach and see you next time.

If you enjoyed today's episode, head over to TheBoldLife Coach for more resources. Join our community and start living your boldest life today.