The Great Purge: Spring Clean Your Life to Purge Negative Habits & Thoughts

Welcome to today's episode of the Mindset Mentor Podcast. I am your host, Rob Dial. Today we're going to be talking about how to purge stuff from your life. We're going to talk about going through a massive purge, and it's something that I recommend that you do a few times a year. Two to four times a year is what I recommend. Either every six months or every quarter. And it's kind of like spring cleaning, but it would be spring cleaning and be also beautiful summer cleaning. It'd also be fall cleaning and winter cleaning for your entire life. I don't mean that you have to just go through and purge your clothes or just go ahead and dust up every corner of your house. You can definitely do that if you want. I'm talking about the whole person that you are. I want you to look around your entire life and look at something and say, is this serving me anymore? And if it's not serving you anymore, can you let go of it? Can you actually purge it? Because imagine this. Just imagine that every single thing. And this is the way I like to think about things. Imagine that every single thing that you own. You know, it could be from a car to a house to a pencil. Every one of those things occupies a little teeny piece of your brain. Even if it's a pen that is inside of your drawer that you haven't seen in three years, just imagine that every single one of them owns a piece of your brain, just a little tiny piece. How much of your brain is scattered all over the place? What if we could get rid of all of the things that are not serving us in any sort of way? And I'll tell you what I mean by serving you in just a minute and start going, you know, what? If it's not serving me, there's no reason to have it anymore. If it's not serving me, there's no reason to have it. And so when I talk about serving you, what I mean by, is it helping you get to where you want to go in life? Is it helping you or is it hurting you? It. And if it's not helping you, there's no real reason for it to be around. But we like to hoard things and go, well, maybe in the future, I will need this thing that I've had for 17 years but haven't used it in so long. It's like, why don't you just purge those things? Why don't you just let go of them? Why don't you just have. And I'm not talking about Being a minimalist, which I do think that that would be good for a lot of people. But just having less so that you can have more mental space, that's really the way I like to think about it. Because all too often, we hang onto things that we just don't really need them around anymore. That could be physical things, but it could also be thoughts, it could be habits, it could be other people, because we think we might need them later on down the road. But if it's not propelling you forward in life, it's weighing you down in some sort of way. And when you purge, you move faster, you feel lighter, life becomes more effortless, you think quicker on your feet, and you don't have that mental energy scattered all over the place. And so some of you may have never done this before. Once again, I'm not just talking about cleaning out your environment. That will be a part of it. But really, some of you have never done this before, which means that when you do this, you will feel like a different person. It will help you. And I like to call it the Great Purge. And really, the Great Purge, it's not the most fun day. It's not the most fun thing you could do. And some people are gonna listen to this podcast episode, and you're not gonna do shit. I already know that. But some of you are gonna listen to this podcast episode. You're gonna do it, you're gonna implement it, and it's gonna make you feel better. And what you do is you take one day and you do nothing but purge. You get rid of whatever is not serving you, whatever is not propelling you to be better. And I'm going to teach you all the different categories. And just a few that popped up into my head as I was planning this, and there's quite a few more. But really, it's not just spring cleaning. It is mental and emotional cleaning as well. It is mental emotional cleaning more than it's spring cleaning. So when I say, like, oh, throw away of a pen. Yeah, that's fine. Like, you could throw away a pen, but I'd prefer you throw away that toxic relationship of this person that's just been kind of lingering around. And you're saying to yourself, well, you know, I'm keeping them around because we were friends in middle school, and I would feel really bad if I didn't hang out with them anymore. But there's a part of you that knows, like, they're. They're holding me back. Like, there's. They're really just holding me Back in some sort of way. And so, you know, we could talk about physical objects, and we will, but we're gonna really dive into some deep stuff, and we're gonna go through every single thing in your house, every single thing in your. In your relationships, every single thing in your thoughts, all of that stuff, and we're just gonna get rid of everything that doesn't serve you. Purge anything doesn't serve you. Stop hoarding all the things. Everything that you own takes a tiny piece of real estate in your subconscious. And so we want to design your life to support you in hitting your goals. Hitting your goals is hard enough, but if you have all of these things that are just holding you back in some sort of way, it's only making it harder. So wouldn't it be easier if we could just make it easier on you? That's what we're trying to do. So let's dive into it. Mental. What about thoughts? What are some thoughts that you have? You know, with my wife, I'm gonna have her on the podcast soon, and we're gonna talk through this. But we were together for, like, five years before she really opened up to me and told me that she was so tough on herself and just talk so much shit to herself. And eventually she got to a point where she's like, this isn't serving me. Being this way is not serving me. Talking shit to myself is not helping me get to where I want to go. And so really what it came down to is a mental purge of, like, how do I speak to myself? And is that helping me or is that hurting me? Because if you're, like I said, hitting your goals is hard enough, but if you're shitty to yourself, man, that's so much harder. It's like somebody punching you in the face as you're trying to run the marathon, right? Just makes it. It's unnecessary. You don't need to. So I want you to think of, like, inside of your own head, what goes on. How do you talk to yourself? What fears do you have? Are those fears helping you in some sort of way? Because some fears can help you in some way, but a lot of fears really hold you back, and so really start to take, you know, take a pen and paper, write this stuff down, and think, like, okay, category of mental. How do I speak to myself? What fears do I have? What limiting beliefs do I have? Are these things helping me or are they hurting me? And if they're hurting you, how can you start to work through them? Now, the process of my wife Starting to work through the way that she talks to herself has been years now, three or four years she's been working on it, and she's way better than she was. But we had a conversation a couple days ago, and she's still not where she wants to be. She still says some things. She still holds herself back mentally. And that's just a process of just purging them slowly starting. You know, she tried. If she could get rid of all of them at once and flip a switch, she definitely would. But sometimes things have been there. They've been habits for so long. That's just really hard to let go of. The way that you talk to yourself. And so thoughts that go through your head, maybe you're more of like a pessimist. Is that pessimism really helping you get to where you want to go, something to think about? And you start to go through your life and say, like, in the way that I speak to myself and the way that I think of things, maybe you're. Maybe you don't talk trash to yourself, but maybe you sit there and you're like, well, I want to do this thing. And you say, oh, yeah, but I've never really been a motivated person. I've always kind of been lazy. Is it like, is that mindset helping you or is it hurting you? And how do we start to actually switch it? So the first category that I think of is mental. Next thing I think of are your habits. What habits do you have? We all have tons of habits. About 47%, according to Harvard psychologist, a study they did, about 47% of what you do on a daily basis is habits. So can we start to become aware of our habits and say, does this habit help me? Like, if you have the habit of waking up early in the morning, that's probably a habit that you want to keep. If you have the habit of, you know, eating Twinkies at 11pm at night, is that one helping you get to where you want to go? And you start thinking about the habits that you have, and you take a mental assessment of the entire day from the moment that you wake up to the moment that you go to bed. And you say, like, what are my habits? Like, the things that I consistently do. I brush my teeth every single morning. Is that helping me? Yeah, I'd recommend you continue to brush your teeth and you start thinking about all the things that you do on a daily basis. Oh, usually after eating, I usually get a cup of coffee. Is that helping me or hurting me? Well, it depends on who you are and what you're trying to do. And while I'm drinking that cup of coffee, I spend 45 minutes on Instagram. That's probably not helping you. So is that something that you need to purge? You start thinking about the habits that you have throughout the day. Hey, if you're loving this podcast episode about purging things from your life, do me a favor for the YouTube algorithm, give us a like down below. It helps more than you know. And if you have any topics you want me to cover, comment them down below in the comments. I'll check them out and maybe you will see one of your comments and your topic covered in a future episode. Next one going to be a really big one and also triggering for a lot of people is your relationships. Go through all of your relationships and ask yourself, is your relationship with this person helping you or is it hurting you? And it could be friends, it could be family, it could be significant others. It could be people that you follow on Instagram. That's a big one as well. I'll cover in just a minute. But one of the things I want you to think about is, and I've said this on the podcast, and I've gotten some backlash on this before, of people from the podcast as well, is if somebody is holding you back in your life, if somebody talks down to you, if they make you feel less than. If they make your life less peaceful, no matter who they are, there should be an opportunity where, if you want to, you could let them go. And this does even go back to your parents. And this is where I get a bunch of backlash. Oh, my gosh. How could you ever tell someone to get rid of their father? And then what I say to them is, if you heard some of the stories of what some people's fathers have done to them, you'd go, oh, yeah, they should definitely get them out of their life. Because maybe your relationship with your father is not toxic. But when you hear somebody's relationship with their father and what is it they do? And some of the toxic people that are in other people's lives, you'd go, oh, yeah, shit, yeah, I would. Yeah, you should get rid of that guy. Right? So that's. I get a lot of backlash every time I talk about purging your parents. If they are toxic or, you know, spending less time with them, People are like, how could you ever say that? I'm like, if you could hear some of the stories that I've been told from people about what their parents have done to them and what they continue to do to them daily, every single day. I got a message on Instagram the other day, and it was just terrible about how someone's mother treats them and this. The. What they say to them. But, you know, one of the someone's mother says that almost on a daily, every single day, their mother calls them a piece of shit. I'm like, that sounds pretty damn toxic. And so you might be like, well, you can't get rid of your mother, but you have a great relationship with your mother. Well, there's other people. You never really know what people are going through. And so it's something to think about. And it's tough. It's not easy. I know it's not easy, but you can start distancing yourself from some people. Another thing that I would recommend is the people that you follow on Instagram. Every couple months, I go through my Instagram and I unfollow like, 150, 200 people because I'm like, is this person helping or hurting me? And about two years ago, especially when all the stuff with COVID was happening and it was. It was kind of really ramping up, I unfollowed a lot of people because I realized that I would wake up in the morning and, you know, I'd go through my morning routine, and then I'd spend about 5, 10 minutes on Instagram and I would see some people's stories, and some people I didn't realize, but about an hour later, I was like, man, I feel like, shit. Why do I feel so bad? And I realized that I was seeing people's stories that were just talking about doom and gloom and conspiracies and this and that. And they were both sides and, you know, the right and the left, and they were saying this thing and that thing and this thing and that thing. And I was like, oh, my God. Seeing other people's stories is making me feel bad throughout the day. And so I just went through and I said, do I enjoy following this person anymore? And what you have to realize is when you decide to follow somebody. I heard James Clear say this one time, when you decide to follow somebody, you're deciding your future thoughts. So if you look at what they're doing, you're following somebody that's a quote, unquote celebrity on a reality show, and they're just trashing other people, and it's taking. Throwing people under the bus, and it's drama, drama, drama, drama, drama. Is that drama helping your life get better? Or do you think there might be a part of your mind that's kind of, you know, being pulled down by it. So what are some people you should stop following in real life and also on Instagram as well? Another thing, you could think about purging as well. Go through all of the food in your house. Yesterday, literally yesterday, I opened up the pantry, and I was like, we have so much food that's just sitting here that we haven't used in, like, 10, two years. I was like, we gotta purge this entire thing. It's actually what inspired me to make this podcast episode is I was like, we have. So, Lauren, we have so much shit in here. We gotta get rid of some of these things. We have rice from, like, 12 years ago. It feels like. Like it's just old. It doesn't need to be in the house. And it's like, I open up the pantry and there's. It's just so much clutter. I'm like, this doesn't just. It doesn't feel good to open up this thing. I have to, like, search for stuff. So we decided on this weekend, we're just gonna purge the pantry. So is there food in the house? You know, if you're trying. If you're on your fitness journey, is there certain food that. That you need to purge from the house? Therefore, you don't get tempted? So there's food in the house. What about your finances? What are you spending money on? Have you actually gone through and looked at your finances and see where you're spending your money and seen, like, oh, man, like, I have this thing I've been paying $12 a month for. I haven't used it in two years. Well, why don't you recoup? You know, if it's $12 a month, 12 months, that's $144 a year. Could you recoup some extra finances? So start looking through your finances and purging some of the things that you don't need anymore. What about your living situation? Maybe you live with a roommate, and you're like, you know what? Living with this roommate. I've been trying to wake up early, I'm trying to change my life, but they're up late, they're partying, they bring people over, and they wake me up in the middle of the night. Maybe your living situation needs to change. And it might not be, like, an immediate thing that changes today, but it's something that you could start moving towards so you could change your living situation. Also, when you look at your living situation, think about your entire house. Does your house facilitate you growing and becoming better. I always say this all the time. So many people spend time watching too much TV. And if you find yourself watching too much TV, can you go. For the next 30 days, I'm going to take my TV off the wall, I'm going to throw it inside of the closet, and I'm just going to put books on the coffee table instead. When you come over to my house, we have like 10 books on the coffee table. Just because there's. Sometimes I find myself there and it's like, I. I could be on Instagram or I could pick up a book, and at least I have the decision. I'm like, I'm gonna pick up this book instead. And so look at your living situation. Next thing I think about technology. What technology do you have in your life that you don't really need anymore? We go back to tv. I just explained, like, are you spending too much time? You know what would be really good is if Netflix had, like, had, like, screen time, the same way that you have screen time on your iPhone. Netflix came in and said at a weekly report, this is how much time you spent every single day on Netflix. Most people are like, what the hell? I think the average person spends about two and a half to three hours a day on Netflix. And so do you spend too much time on your tv? Could you start to purge some of that? What about social media? Are there social media apps you're spending too much time on you can delete? I don't know. It's completely up to you. I know that I took Instagram off my phone, and I have two phones. I have my personal phone and I have my business phone. And my business phone is where I post on Instagram and it stays inside of my office. I never move it from. It's always charging, always the time. And I have Instagram on that phone. I don't have it on my personal phone. I took it off. My screen time went down 22%. The very first week. I gained 22% back. It was like an hour and 15 minutes. I gained back just from not having it. So maybe you could try out purging some social media for a little while. Try it for 30 days. If you don't like it and you want it, want to have it back, redownload it. Not a big deal. Okay, what about your physical possessions? Like, what are the things that you actually own where you're like, I don't need this anymore. This is. Is too much stuff. What's your garage look like? Oh, God, right? Probably Have a lot of stuff in your garage you get rid of. What do your possessions look like? Could you have a garage sale, make some extra money, do some of that money, go to a conference? What if you decided to get rid of some of the possessions that are just hanging out in your garage that you don't have anymore? You had a garage sale, you get an extra thousand, two thousand bucks, and you're like, you know what, I'm going to go to a self development conference. Then you go to some sort of conference, or maybe you go to some conference of something that you're interested in, maybe you're interested in cryptocurrency and you go to cryptocurrency conference, whatever it might be, and you actually start working towards your goals a little bit more. Wouldn't that be better than just keeping that stuff in there? Because those things are worth money. You can get rid of them. You haven't been golfing in 12 years. You still have your golf clubs. Maybe you can make a couple hundred bucks off those golf clubs, right? So you start thinking about the possessions that you have as well. And then the last thing, and there's many categories of life, last thing I think of is like your goals and your vision. Your goals and your vision are going to change over time. You, you could purge some goals. Ah, this doesn't really line up. You know, this is. We're halfway through the year. This one that I had, that was a New Year's resolution, doesn't really line up with me anymore. I'm gonna change this around a little bit. I'm gonna make it different. What about your vision? Your vision should change over life. Like, you should always know kind of the direction that you're going in, like your North Star, where you're following this thing. But there might be some things that don't necessarily align with you anymore, and that's completely fine. What we're really trying to work at here is to clear out anything that does not serve you and does not propel you and help you in becoming the type of person you want to become and really accessing your true potential here. Because I believe that we're all here to experience life and have fun and see what it's like to be a human and to really find out what our true potential could be. And if anything gets in the way of that, can we just purge it? And this is something really good to do. If you've never done it before, do it this weekend, okay? Take a day. I know it's a lot of work. Hey, so is also creating the life that you want, but it will benefit you and be able to have more mental clarity, more space when you start to purge the things that you don't really need anymore. So that is how you access your true potential. So that's what I got for you for today. If you love this podcast episode, please share it on your Instagram stories and tag me obdialjr. R O B D I A L J R And I'm gonna leave you the same way I leave you every single podcast episode. Make it your mission to make someone else's day better. I appreciate you, and I hope that you have an amazing day.