Ashley Brown 0:00
Ever wonder why in certain seasons of life you have energy for a day's but in others, you're trying your best to keep going. I know it can be hard when you only have enough energy to do the bare minimum. In this episode of the routine and things podcast, I share what's contributing to this and why it's so important to stop letting this unhealthy pattern decrease your momentum, motivation and commitment to self. Trust me, you don't want to miss this episode.
Ashley Brown 0:41
One of my least favorite memories as a mom happened when I was a stay at home mom. This day in particular, I had so many things to do. I was behind on laundry I needed to schedule my daughter a doctor's appointment, and the house was a mess. I mean a hot mess. And funny enough, even though it's not funny, when I got to the end of my day, nothing had been done. You know those days. Thankfully, I had a God moment and realize I have fallen out of routine. Yes, this routine oriented girl had fallen out of routine. And honestly, it took me a while to get back on track. Because routines are always naturally falling into place for me in the past. But this was very different. I had to intentionally rebuild my routines one by one. And although it took time and patience, the impact routines head on my life was incredible. And I learned so much along the way.
Ashley Brown 1:35
This is why I'm so excited to share with you that your girl did a thing. I wrote a book, the routine building handbook your all in one habit builder for increased productivity inspired work and lasting success. The routine building handbook is an easy to use Practical Guide for starting creating and maintaining routines to help you decrease stress, improve your sleep, and build a productive, joyful life. It gives you all the tools you need to introduce structure predictability, and stability, including a customizable habit building roadmap, ideas for weekday, weekend, morning and night routines. plenty of examples of realistic daily and weekly routines, and advice for staying flexible. You can now preorder the book, which comes with some amazing bonuses for a limited time to preorder the routine building handbook, you can head to routineandthings.com/ book, or click the link in the show notes.
Ashley Brown 2:40
Hey, Hey, and welcome back for another episode. I'm so happy that you are joining me this is gonna be a good one today. Did you see that title? Stop letting this unhealthy pattern decrease your momentum, motivation and commitment to self. When I hear that I'm like, I even want to pay attention. Like, so I'm super excited to talk to you about this today. We're in a part of the year where we have a bunch of aspirations, right? Like things that we want to accomplish goals that we want to meet. Things we want to make happen, right? Like it's at the top of the year where it's like this vibe and this rush of energy and renewal and refreshment. And so we are many times so gung ho about this is when I'm doing this one, what I want to accomplish for the year, which is amazing. And so this is why I'm doing this episode, because I don't want the unhealthy pattern I'm going to share with you to stop you from reaching the goals that you have this year.
Ashley Brown 3:41
I don't want this unhealthy pattern to stop you from being your favorite self this year. That's so important for me. And I want the best for you. So I'm sharing this with you today. So you're probably like Ashley, what's the unhealthy pattern that I'm doing? What is this unhealthy pattern you're talking about? Let's get to it. So the healthy pattern is keeping things in your head and not releasing them. Did you hear me? Keeping it all up top and not letting stuff go? Mm hmm. Yep. The mental clutter. The mental clutter you have in your head right now, as you're listening to this, the mental clutter. That's unhealthy pattern that more than likely you're doing and we all get into this pattern from time to time. I'm not even exempt from this. I'm not exempt from keeping things in my head. But I have become very clear about when that is happening and being able to be like No, we got to do this. We're not doing it today. Right.
Ashley Brown 4:48
So I want you to become clear that this is more than likely a pattern that comes about from time to time in your life. That I want you to be clear on. That you keep things in your head for far too long and too many things are running in that mind of yours at one time and it's not healthy, and it's not helping you at all. It's harming your mental health, and that's affecting other things in your life. So you may be like, okay, Ashley, the unhealthy pattern is mental clutter, that I'm keeping things in my head, but I want you to understand that it looks different ways, like mental clutter, like a cluttered mind looks very differently from person to person. And from season to season, like it can look very different. So a cluttered mind can look like thinking about too much at once. A cluttered mind could look like overthinking.
Ashley Brown 5:43
This is the one that kind of get into from time to time is like the overthinking like over analyzing, like, what if I don't know, and you just stay stuck, like that overthinking. Also, a cluttered mind can look like ruminating on the same thought over and over and over. You know what I'm talking about. So a clutter mind can look in these ways. But what you also know or what I want for you to know is that in a cluttered mind, we don't have a lot of room in there. Think about a cluttered house where a house is just cluttered things everywhere. You go out to the store, buy a dresser, and you're trying to fit a dresser into this cluttered house. It don't fit baby it don't fit boo, it don't fit. Its the same thing that you're doing in your mind, your mind is cluttered. And then something comes about and you're trying to fit it into your head, boo, it don't fit.
Ashley Brown 6:45
That's why you're driving yourself crazy. That's why you are having a headache. That is why you can't focus. That is why you're unproductive. That is why you are not reaching the goals you want to reach. You can't take in more than what you already have in your head. So we have to release was in our minds, we have to process through what we're thinking about. And we have to make room because in a cluttered mind, there's no room for focus. There's no room for creativity, there's no room for joy, in a cluttered mind is no room for that. And I want you to have all of these things, I want you to be able to focus I want you to be able to be creative, because creativity creates solution. And I want for you that have maximum joy in your life. You know how it feels to have a cluttered mind, it drains you. That's why many times on we are feeling really tired or exhausted is really our minds has us feeling this way it's a mental exhaustion it's a mental tiredness. Because we're thinking about too much. And we're not letting things go.
Ashley Brown 7:59
And we're not structuring things in our minds in a way that is conducive for our mental health. I'm talking about mental health a lot this year. Just you know, if you don't want to hear about that, then you might as well stop listening to the podcast, I'm just being very honest. I'm talking about mental health a lot. Because out of the the years of me having this business of routine and things, that's what I've learned. We need to do better with our mental health. And so I'm helping, I'm helping with that. I'm helping with that. That's that's a goal of mine this year. Because I want for you to thrive. It all starts in your head. It all starts in your head. So this year, the unhealthy pattern of keeping things in your head and not releasing them. We're not doing it no more. Right. And so the first step is really being and understanding.
Ashley Brown 8:55
When are you starting to keep more in your head? Many times it becomes very clear, you might get a headache, you may start to feel tired. You start to get irritable. Right, that was a sign for me getting irritable. You start to get irritable, right snapping on people or snapping on yourself getting mad over little things. Your house look like a little hot mess. Like, let's be real. That's probably an indication that your mind isn't clear your mind clutter. You ran all over the place. Those are symptoms of a cluttered mind. So becoming aware when your mind is getting cluttered is the first step in you breaking this pattern. It's gonna come up. And let's be clear, this is a life right? This is the reality of life. We have many things on our plates. That's a reality, especially if you have kids and multiple kids. That's reality of the situation.
Ashley Brown 9:55
We have many things on our plates. It's enough when you don't have children. Right, you don't have a husband and kids, right? You don't have a partner and kids, it's enough by yourself, but then you start adding on people. It's like your plate is filling up. So the reality is we're going to have things that come into our minds. But that doesn't mean we have to keep it there. Okay, so that's what I want you to start thinking about and start to pay attention to, is when you are keeping in, grabbing hold to things and keeping it in your mind. We got to start releasing some of these things. But I want to share that with you today. That's unhealthy pattern, keeping things in your head, not releasing them. Stop letting this be the reason why you lose sight of your goals and aspirations for yourself, for your home and for your family.
Ashley Brown 10:46
You got this? Right, keep your mind as clear as possible and I promise you'll notice a difference in your momentum and in your motivation. You can't be motivated or stay motivated or keep momentum when your mind is bogged down. It doesn't work because your energy is being drained. Unclutter that mind, girl, okay, you can do so with products we have in the shop, specifically made for this reason. Get that mind uncluttered? Right. So that is what I wanted to talk to you about today. Let me know if this was helpful. Definitely take a screenshot of this episode. tag me on Instagram, at Routine and things. Let me know if this was helpful for you.
Ashley Brown 11:33
And if you find in your life that you are always having a cluttered mind and that could be the reason why many times you lose momentum. Or you make goals and you don't reach them or your plans don't get accomplished right. So I really, really pray this was helpful for you. Before you leave today, be sure to rate and review the show if you enjoy it. Share this episode with someone today as well. You may have a friend that you see or a family member that you know that could definitely use this episode today. And until next time, I hope that you continue to enjoy wherever you are, whatever you're doing. Stay happy girl, and I'll talk to you next week.
Ashley Brown 12:19 [Outro]
Thanks for listening. If you enjoy today's episode, take a screenshot and share it on social I would love to know your listening and for tools to help you start maintain and enjoy your routines. Be sure to head to routineandthings.com. Here's to staying happy.