How Better Decisions Create Less Clutter | with Heather Aardema

What were your three best decisions of 2025? Your three best decisions. Take a moment, think about it. If you want share below, I would love to read them. And in a moment I will share my three best decisions and why. I like this question so much. But first I want to tell you how I even arrived at this question. So forever. I had so much trouble throwing away our large family size wall calendars. Do you know the ones I'm talking about? These are huge and you can put almost everything in them. So at the end of each year, my husband Randy would say, okay, Heather, is this the year? Is this the year that we can throw these away? And I would say, no. And when he would ask me that, I would feel, I don't know, scared, and I'd kind of just. I would feel so uncomfortable. And I didn't understand why, but I just knew, no, we cannot throw out the wall calendars. So I decided to get curious about it and I wrote, just started writing about it. Not in a formal journal or anything like that, actually, just on some scrap paper that was close to me at the time. And what I figured out was that I had a lot of identity and worth woven, woven into these calendars. It was almost as if I had tangible proof that I was living a meaningful life and important life. And so that helped me get to the root cause of why the calendars were so important to me now. Now, could I throw them away at that point when I figured that out? No, I still had trouble letting them go. So another year or two went by. And again, my husband's saying, please, can we please throw this away? They're just clutter, they're just attracting dust. Because where I had them stored was behind a huge file cabinet between the back of the cabinet and the wall. And I would rarely take them out. And when I did, I mean, this is like once every, like six years, when I would take them out, there was so much dust at the bottom of them, and so they were gross. So anyway, I had gotten to the root cause of why I was so attached to the calendars, but I hadn't found a solution on how to actually tr. Let them go. Now, if you're thinking, oh my gosh, Heather, that's so silly, just throw them away, then you must just be a minimalist, because this did not come easy to me. So I came across this question and I realized, oh my gosh. If I ask myself, heather, what were your three best decisions? And if I asked my kids and my husband, what were your three best decisions? Or what were our family's three best decisions? And I keep that information on a spreadsheet on the computer. I can finally let go of these silly calendars. So we did it, and it was so much fun. The first year we did this exercise, my kids thought about it, and they took it seriously. We talked about it while we were on a walk, and they came up with their decisions. We talked about our family's best decisions, and it became a beautiful bonding experience. And so I wrote up that first year. I wrote up all of our best decisions just on one spreadsheet on the computer. Didn't even type up very much information, because I didn't need a lot of information. Because since they were our best decisions, just reading what the decision was, I didn't need any more detail than just what that decision was. And so typing that up and then looking at that immediately gave me permission or allowed me to give myself permission to throw away these calendars. And so I took them outside. I didn't have my husband do it. I thought it was really important that I do it. So I took these calendars outside. It was wintertime. It was cold. Probably didn't have a coat on or a hat. And I live in Colorado. It can get here. It can get cold here in the winter. Sunny, but it's cold. So I took the calendars out and I put them in the garbage can. I didn't try. What is the word? Recycling. I know that word well, but for some reason, it just. I didn't try recycling them. That's okay. It's. It's neutral. I just put them in the garbage can. And it felt so good. I put them there, and I felt so light because these calendars, even though I couldn't let them go, they felt heavy to me. I knew they were clutter. And so every time I thought about them or every time I kind of peeked behind the file cabinet, it felt heavy inside. And what that means is that that impacted my physiology. So if we're feeling heavy, that's creating a chemical. Chemical cascade of heaviness. That's not creating health and vitality. It's actually creating dis ease, which can lead to disease. And so I knew that these were clutter. And it took me, that kind of mental exploration to allow myself to say goodbye to my calendar clutter. So I threw those things away. I felt a huge sense of relief. I walked inside, and every year since, it has been so easy to throw out the wall calendar. It just feels so neutral. And I'm the one that does it? And there's no drama, there's no story, there's no thought that, oh, my gosh, my identity. And instead I just pull up that one little worksheet on the computer. And if you don't, you know, if you don't have worksheets on your computer, if you don't know how to do that, you could just write these things down if you wanted to. But it's so fun to pull up that worksheet and to look at what were the three best decisions of the year before the decisions be, you know, the year before that and so forth. And so right before filming this video, I looked at all those decisions. So we've been doing this for a few years now, and it's creating a beautiful document that 10 years from now, 10 years or 20 years from now, if I want, you know, if I continue doing this, I can just have fun looking back now, I'm only going to do it if it feels light or right, because if it starts to feel heavy, and that's, that's a different form of clutter. So anyway, I did just take a peek at the best decisions and it was fun to look at what they have been. And, and then I thought about what were the best decision decisions for me this year. And so I want to share those with you now. And I would love to hear again what you think about these decisions down below. And I would love to hear what your best decisions are. And the reason why here's, here's the thing why I like this question so much is it's not the question of what are the three best things that happened to you, it's the best decisions that you made. And when we are intentionally making decisions, we are showing up with agency. And that's where the power is. That's where the fun is. That's where. That's how we can live by design and not default. This is how we get off autopilot. And when we start to ask ourselves, what are the three best decisions we made, What I noticed is that because I've been asking myself that question for a couple years now, it's the way I live, it's the way I go through each month. It's when I make a decision, I kind of subconsciously and consciously ask myself, is this going to be one of the three best decisions? And so what happens is I'm making more good decisions than I was before before doing this exercise. Okay? So that's why I like this question so much. So back to my three best decisions. Okay? Number one, not the best, but just one of the three was I went to the emergency room. Now, you might think, like, that's the best decision. Yes. I really, truly feel like it saved my. My sanity, if not my life. So for the last seven years, I've been really sick. In some of my prior videos, you'll hear that I'm coughing a lot like this. I've. I say the word cough, and it's like a trigger. You need to cough. So I'm working on that. But I'm coughing a lot, I'm wheezing a lot. And it's so silly. But we tried to hide that a lot in the videos. And what was going on was that I had scar tissue blocking my trachea. And it was triggered from toxic mold that was up above me and down below. So in our attic and down in our crawl space. And it gave me over a hundred symptoms. And that is not an exaggeration. It made me really, really sick, the toxic mold, and triggered something called subglottic sten. And I was misdiagnosed over and over and over again, misdiagnosed with asthma. I said, I don't have asthma. I kept failing the asthma test because I couldn't breathe enough. I couldn't do their tests. And nobody got curious about that and said, hey, let's stick a camera down your nose and see if there's a blockage. When I went to ent, Ears, nose, and throat, they were more worried about my vertigo, which was another symptom, than my wheezing and my stridor. And so they didn't put a camera down my nose either. And then I also. So I worked with allopathic medicine, but I also worked with functional medicine doctors that were really myopic and not looking outside of the box. And so I stayed sick. And I tried. I went. Spent a lot of money and went to a lot of doctors, but it was not getting better. Well, I got to a point where I just could not breathe, I was so sick. And I went to the emergency room. I felt like there was no other option. And it was that emergency room doctor who looked at me, looked me straight in the eyes and said, heather, I know exactly what's going on with you. You have something called strider, and you need to get a camera down your nose right away. And he then looked at my husband and said, if your wife does not do this today, she will stay sick. And because I also had whooping cough at the time. And so they gave me some antibiotics for whooping cough. Usually. I'm not a fan of antibiotics. It had been decades since I'd been on them. In this case, though, I really, truly believe I needed them. And it was the right choice for me. And so we. If he had not said that, we probably just would have gone with antibiotics and gone home, back to our family, our kids. And so because he said that, we. We said, okay, we're all in. And they put the camera down my throat, down my nose, down my throat. And yeah, I had that blockage. It was blocking over 80% of my trachea, meaning that I was breathing out of basically a thin straw. And that's why things were so hard. Best decision was deciding in that moment, we need to go to the emergency room. We have tried everything else that I can think of, and we have to go to the emergency room. It's definitely one of my best decisions because that then led me to doing some more alternative things. Red light. And just all kinds of different alternative things. And finding a surgeon that I trusted and really liked to have the surgery. I did not go with the first surgeon. That's another one of my best decisions. Not going with the first surgeon I met didn't feel right. Okay, Another best decision. This is one that I make every single year, and I'm making again this year. The decision is to eat the blueberries. So if you're wondering why, what are you talking about? So we buy organic blueberries. I think blueberries are on the dirty dozen, the EWG list of the dirty dozen. So you want to eat the organic blueberries if you're going to eat blueberries. And so for years when our boys were younger, my husband and I had this kind of unsaid rule that the. The blueberries should go for the kids because they're good, they're healthy, they're organic. We should not eat them. They should be for the boys. As if we were not worthy of eating the blueberries. And my husband is definitely more frugal than I am. And so I decided, hey, I'm worth it. I am worth. I'm worth the blueberries. And even when we buy the Costco size of blueberries, maybe I am worth a whole container of Costco sized blueberries in one sitting. And that is okay. I love blueberries. So blueberries bring a lot of joy to my life. And so I make the intentional decision to eat a lot of blueberries and to not feel as if I am robbing my children from blueberries. If I decide to finish off the blueberries, we can always get more. Have you ever done something like that where you have prioritized your kids over your own health? Yeah. Share the good, right? Why does it have to be one or the other? We can all enjoy the blueberries. Okay. The third thing this year was something totally outside of my norm. I am so glad I did it, though. So I went to an event and I decided, I'm going to show this to you. I decided, look at all these colors. Aren't they so pretty? See all these colors? Let's see if I can get this. There we go. Aren't these colors so pretty? They're so pretty. So I went and got my colors done, and, yeah, I went and got my colors done. So you might be thinking, but that's so extravagant. Or that's so silly. As you can see, I'm actually wearing a color right now. I never would have won these, worn these colors. I would have only worn, like, white or black. And excuse me, I never would have worn these colors. I did this. I got the opportunity. I got the opportunity to do it. And I remember my mom doing it when I was in high school and my mom loving it. Now, I'm sure this was much more expensive, but here's how it's going to save me money. And here is how it's not going to create more clutter for the planet. I am never going to buy any clothing ever again. That's not one of my colors. And if you're like, what is even a color? Well, you just. There are colors that you are going to feel better in. So, like a mustard jello? No, I. I love the color mustard yellow, but I do not look good in it. And every time I've bought it in the past, those clothes has. Have just hung in the closet and not ever been worn. And so when you do your colors, then, you know, here are the colors that I. You feel good in and you look good in. And so the experience was fun. I will never buy a piece of clothing, a new piece of clothing that is not one of my colors, because I know I won't wear it, and I won't buy a used piece of clothing that's not one of my colors either. So. Because fast fashion is filling up our planet with clutter now, because we donate things and throw things out or throw things away. Well, we don't really notice that or see that, but away is actually in someone's backyard, just not your backyard. And so if you think of landfills, they're already all over the world. But where a lot of Our clothing is going is to Africa and to the beaches of Africa. There are huge mountains of clothing. And those clothes are going into the water and just dyes the colors, the chemicals. It's just polluting everything, and it's not good for anybody. Fast fashion is horrible. And so I know that's a bit of a tangent, but I have fun taking my colors into a donation center and just holding them up and then scanning the. The rows, the aisles, and then just making a beeline for my colors. And then if it's my size, then I'm like, oh, okay, maybe that's something I'll try. And it's like three bucks. And so, yeah, those are the three best decisions for me. Those are three of my best decisions. I mean, sometimes there might be a stickler inside of us that says, are you sure those are the three best? You know, maybe there's another one that's even better. Well, it does not matter. So three of your best decisions. That's what I'm curious about. Oh, I'm so grateful that this question came to me. And I don't remember how it came to me. Did I think it of it or did somebody else, you know, say it and I heard it or I read it, but this question has transformed my life. What are three of the best decisions that I have made over a certain time period? And I truly believe that if you ask yourself this question, there will be a lot less clutter in your life. A lot less physical clutter, tangible clutter, a lot less emotional clutter, mind clutter. You will feel so much lighter asking yourself these questions. It's fun to do this, and it's fun to also look back and see what those. Those questions were. And doing this not only is fun, but I know it helps me live more intentionally, more on design. And that is my end goal is to live more time by design than by default. So this will help you get off autopilot. And frankly, this question will help us live with less regret. So hope you enjoyed my story and this question. And again, please comment below. I would so I really would love to hear what this question means to you. It will also help the algorithm and help me get this message of living lighter, this message that the lighter path is available to all of us, to more people. And I think it's a question that can help so many. A lot of the heaviness that we have is optional. So. Okay. Thanks so much for tuning in. And I'll see you in the next. The next show. Cheers. Thanks for watching. If this resonated with you. Give us a like and share with friends who could use some lightness. Don't forget to follow our page for daily doses of living lighter. And remember, if it feels light, it's right.