Celebrate Your Dream – Create a Space that Inspires You

Your attitude and mindset are the most vital components in the pursuit of your dreams. How you wake up, spend your precious time and how you sleep at night are the catalysts for living an inspired life.  Your perception of yourself, beliefs and feelings about life are physically manifested in the space you call home.

Imagining and creating give us a sense of purpose – Tony Wagner

Creativity is an important component of pursuing your dream, it makes you happier, less stressed, more equipped and resilient when it comes to problem-solving in challenging situations.

An easy way to express creativity is to design your space using color, style and placement of the items you choose so wherever you call home can be an inspiration for your dreams. Someone I saw on a show recently said, “Where you lay your head at night can set the foundation for every aspect of your life“, I have to agree with that 100% because I know it to be true. When you create your surroundings with the intention and purpose of aligning yourself with your dreams, it makes an extraordinary difference in how you feel about yourself and your life.

Use these helpful tips below to get started with your space creation:

1. Don’t analyze or choose what you “should” like or what is trending.
2. Go with your gut and pin or clip things that you instantly respond to. You’ll pare them down later and, when you do, you’ll find common threads without even trying to make it happen.
3. Take your time and enjoy the process.

My Choice to Live Minimally

Because my focus now is my photography/lifestyle business, I choose to live very simply. I’ve consciously made a choice to be surrounded only by items I love, colors that speak to me and my unique style. Everything in my space has been selected very carefully.  I’ve allowed myself to feel something before I bought, which has made a huge difference in what I do have. My surroundings are also clutter-free, so my space is not only inspirational but harmonious and peaceful.  If I don’t use something or need it, I get rid of it.

Minimalism is a tool to rid yourself of life’s excess in favor of focusing on what’s important—so you can find happiness, fulfillment, and freedom. The Minimalists

A Space for Dreaming:

• Encourage yourself and design a space for dreaming, whether you live with people or have a space of your own, find a place where you can use colors and objects that you choose, even if it is a corner of a room.

 

• Lighting is foremost, so make sure you choose wisely. Natural lighting in any room makes a huge difference, so choose window coverings to optimize the light and place furniture to take advantage of it. The combination of natural and soft lighting and candles helps to fuel your inspiration. Use natural oils and incense to fragrance the room, it makes a room feel magical.

 

Photo courtesy of Evija-Roberts Blog

• Choose colors that you love and are inspired by. Color is the most tangible way to express yourself.  Remember to use bright and vivid colors sensibly such as on one wall, in throw pillows, a bed throw, or cover, decorator items or in curtains, too much of it can overwhelm you.  When you combine neutrals with color it will make the room an expression of you rather than the star, that is you, always.

Photo courtesy of Trendir

• Use natural items, such as wood, cotton fabrics, plants, a water feature, metal, whatever you can find to help your space feel like you’ve invited nature indoors. Because we feel most connected in nature, bringing it into your space is motivation to be more authentic and true to what you are and your purpose in life.

This is part of my room, I found the dresser at a thrift shop, I fell in love the moment I saw it. To highlight the beautiful wood, I use soft lighting with a beautiful vintage style lamp, one of my photographs designed intentionally in warm tones and a lovingly handmade wooden bookcase that all inspire me.

• Create a place with your dreams and intentions written where you can see them, it will spark your imagination, keep you focused and create a happy place to be a constant reminder of your plans.  One way to do that is to write them out and frame them.

Finally, declutter, this one act can improve your health, emotionally and physically, rapidly.  Here are some tips to declutter and the benefits from mindbodygreen.com.

HOW TO DECLUTTER

When we declutter around here, I use a method that I learned from a home improvement, when going through a room, we separate things into three categories:

• keep
• donate
• trash/recycling

For whatever reason, separating things this way helps me work through junk drawers, backs of closets and corners of rooms that I’ve been ignoring for months. I hope it helps you, too!

It can also be helpful to keep your eye on the prize. Decluttering feels good, when it’s done, and keeping the important benefits of decluttering below in mind can help you stay on track during the “it gets worse before it gets better” part of the process.

BENEFITS OF DECLUTTERING

1. Less clutter equals less stress.

A cluttered home can make you feel disorganized and out of control. There’s something just plain calming about a tidy living space.

Clutter also makes it easier to lose things, which can be stressful. Have you ever torn apart the house looking for your keys, only to find them under a pile of papers on your desk that shouldn’t have been there in the first place? Just me?

2. You’ll save money.

A prime example of clutter costing money just popped up in my kitchen last night. My husband came home from work with a bag of groceries, including a box of green tea. This box looked incredibly familiar to me, and we discovered that, buried under a mountain of spice jars and other boxes of tea in the pantry, we had another (unopened) box of that exact same tea.

An extra $4 box of tea might not seem like much, but little things like that happen all the time when your living space is cluttered, and those small expenses add up.

3. There will be less cleaning to do.

Less clutter means less housework. It means fewer knickknacks to collect dust and fewer places for dust bunnies to hide. According to the National Cleaning Institute (formerly the National Soap and Detergent Association), clutter can add up to 40 percent to the amount of housework you have to handle.

Forty percent seems pretty high, but even if you’re just shaving 10-15 minutes of dusting off of your cleaning routine, I think decluttering is worth it.

4. Reducing clutter makes you more productive.

Decluttering your home can streamline your life, which gives you more time to get things done. Have you ever been late to work because your kid couldn’t decide on what pair of pants to wear? Or maybe you are still hunting for those keys that are under that pile of paper on your desk (still just me?).

When you have less clutter, you avoid these little hold-ups that make you late, derail your plans and interrupt your creative flow.

5. It’s good for your kids, young and grown.

If your kids are still living at home, clutter can cause them stress and hurt their productivity, just like it does to you. In extreme cases, it can cause your kids extreme anxiety.

This isn’t something we like to think about, but our clutter impacts our kids, even after they move out of the house. As we get older and less able to care for ourselves, that clutter is going to become our kids’ problem. Many adults I know stress about their parents’ cluttered homes, especially if their parents aren’t in the best health.

This kind of stress is tough on its own, but it also comes with a side dish of guilt, because they feel selfish for dwelling on what seems like such a small thing. 

I don’t know about you, but I’m going to finally tackle that embarrassing pile of papers on my desk and donate some knick-knacks to the thrift store this weekend.

Thank you for reading my post, I appreciate your time.