My sister called me last year and told me it was time....she wanted to create change in her life. If you know me you know those words make me pretty excited....I love a good makeover in any form!
She was ready for a complete redo of her house. She wanted to create a home that she loved. She wanted to be surrounded by beauty and have a home that made her feel calm and peaceful.
I am not a professional decorator but I do love to decorate. I believe creating a beautiful home is one of the best gifts you can give yourself and your family.
This was a big project, we spent months researching, planning, and saving. Before we spent any money or made any big changes we had endless discussions on exactly what her vision was. Once we were clear on what she wanted to create, we then made detailed plans on how to implement her vision.
My sister's vision of her home took over a year to create. There were lots of steps, but even in the small steps, she found new happiness. As we accomplished each step, the reality became closer and closer to the home she had envisioned and the result was even more joyful than she had imagined.
I realized that this process of redoing my sister's house is very similar to how my clients create a life that they love.
Taking action to change our lives might seem overwhelming. To "redecorate" our lives and make significant changes takes courage - but it is so worth it. My sister's hard work and planning gave her a home she is proud of and loves being in.
It won't happen overnight but if you take the following steps you will see how you can create the beauty you desire in your life.
1. Let it Go....
After my sister took inventory of the items in her home she realized that 90% of the items in her home brought her zero joy. These items didn't represent her current taste and most of these items she realized she didn't even choose. They just somehow accumulated in her home and she ended with a home that stopped bringing her joy.
This is similar to our thinking and results in our lives. We accumulate beliefs and ideas that might not be serving you or representing who you are today. You might find yourself waking up one day and wonder what has happened to your life. Why aren't you getting the results you want?
Just because you have believed things for a long time doesn't make theses beliefs true or useful. In order to decide if you want to keep believing your current thoughts, you have to examine your thinking and start giving yourself permission to let these thoughts go. Remember we think over 60,000 thoughts a day and most are subconscious so the odds are we all have a significant amount of useless thoughts that aren't serving us.
2. Foundation
My sister's home has beautiful bones but she realized that she had to strip it down to those bones so she can build on the beauty of those bones. She had to start fresh. Choosing the right basics for her home was essential. The right color pallet for the paint, carpet, and furniture was one of the most important steps in creating her vision.
Investing in quality paint, flooring, and furniture that will endure the test of time will actually save you money in the end. This same concept is similar to investing in your mental health. Investing in the right tools for your emotional well being will also give you lifetime returns.
Investing in a good emotional foundation looks like spending time with yourself daily, learning new skills, and having the courage to being vulnerable. Learning how to process negative emotions and creating daily habits that enable you to live life purposefully will give you stronger emotional health. You make real traction with changing your life when your realize the value of outside help. Being smart about what you are not good at and realizing your limitations and investing in professionals will amplify the results in your life.
3. Learning to make decisions purposefully
To me, this is the fun part. This is what we call the "layering" in decorating. It is the layering that can take a drab room to fab. Combining textures and colors in a room is what gives a room it's unique warmth and beauty. This is where you can highlight your individual's taste and vision.
When we first started this project my sister would always say "I don't care" or "I don't even know what I want". But after months of research and making choices, she started developing her individual style and could make decisions about what brought her joy and what was beautiful to her.
I often hear my clients say..."I don't even know what I want at this point". We get so used to feeling numb emotionally or going through the motions in our lives that we stop developing the skill of noticing what brings us joy.
To regain this skill you need to start small. I started by having my sister invest time looking at different rooms until she could begin to notice what spoke to her. She had to invest time in developing her own taste and eye.
To learn what would bring joy into your life, start noticing when you are feeling peaceful. When you are feeling peace, try to notice your thinking. Feeling peace and noticing your thoughts will help you discover what brings you joy and this will you develop your awareness of your personal preferences and needs. Once you know this you can start making decisions of what you want to start including in your life.
4. Editing
Editing is probably the hardest part of implementing a beautiful room. Deciding where to put things and how much is too much. Having the skill to notice when something is missing in a room takes time to develop. This decorating skill comes with lots of practice. You can buy all the elements for a room but combining all the elements into a beautiful room takes a certain skill.
To me, this is where the decorating magic happens. Some rooms come together effortless and some rooms take a lot of rearranging and changing until they feel right.
This was my role in my sister's house. Up to this point we had counseled together on all the decisions, but at this step, it was up to me to pull it all together. She knew how she wanted it to feel and look, but she didn't know how to create that feel.
This is similar to hiring a coach for creating the life you want. You can have the right foundation and vision of what you want your life to be but sometimes we get stuck and don't know how to move forward to get better results. It helps to have an outside eye to see what is going on in our brain to help uncover why we are stuck so we can move forward.
Hiring the right coach will help you move past the obstacles so that your vision can become your reality. If you are ready to 'redecorate your life' I would love to coach you through it. Don't wait another day, book a call.
I'm grateful that my sister asked me to help her create a home she was proud of. It is such an honor to help someone bring their vision to life. It is the same way I feel about all my clients. Helping them create a life they are proud of has been one of the greatest privileges of my life.
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