Cheryl Wright

Now, let us look at a few more tasks to put on our spring-clean­ing to-do list.

Re­move tox­ic el­e­ments. They strain and drain us. We could re­move them com­plete­ly. Or, we could min­i­mize the im­pact they have on our lives by keep­ing them at a dis­tance so that their tox­i­c­i­ty doesn't poi­son our minds, our re­la­tion­ships, our ca­reers and our dreams.

Re­fresh our pri­or­i­ties.

Yes­ter­day's list of pri­or­i­ties may longer mo­ti­vate us be­cause we may change as we, rush here and there, jug­gle this and that and say yes when we should say no. Spring-clean­ing is the per­fect time to re­fresh our old list of pri­or­i­ties to re­flect who we are to­day and who we wish to be to­mor­row.

Re­or­gan­ise how we man­age our re­spon­si­bil­i­ties. Fi­nances, time, health, dai­ly house­hold chores, fam­i­ly time, leisure, em­ploy­ment ef­fi­cien­cy and pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, ca­reer as­pi­ra­tions, dreams - ne­glect, tar­di­ness, over­whelm and busy­ness could send them out of con­trol. We can be more ef­fi­cient man­agers by re-pri­or­i­tiz­ing, plan­ning, del­e­gat­ing, be­ing mind­ful of the pur­pose of our re­spon­si­bil­i­ties and ho­n­our­ing them with joy.

Re­shape our ac­tions and

re­ac­tions. Of­ten we al­low peo­ple and cir­cum­stances to dic­tate how we act and re­act. Neg­a­tive ac­tions and re­ac­tions por­tray a lack of in­tegri­ty, grace and self-con­trol. They com­pli­cate our lives and com­pro­mise our re­la­tion­ships. They may keep us stuck in our ca­reers and paral­ysed in the pur­suit of our dreams. They build a bed rep­u­ta­tion and di­min­ish our qual­i­ty of life. To spring-clean this area of our lives, we can re­shape our neg­a­tive ac­tions and re­ac­tions to re­flect our ra­tio­nale thoughts, de­cen­cy, poise, com­pas­sion and self-con­trol. This doesn't hap­pen overnight. It is a grad­ual process fu­elled by con­sis­tent and per­sis­tent pos­i­tive self-talk, will pow­er and a deep de­sire to be our best and act ho­n­ourably in every sit­u­a­tion.

Dust off our dreams. When our days are busy and ex­haust­ing, we tend to park our dreams in a cor­ner, telling our­selves that we'll re­turn to them when our lives are set­tled, eas­i­er, sim­pler, per­fect. When we can't fath­om how we'll re­spond to fail­ure or suc­cess, we stick our dreams in a draw or on the high­est shelf � out of sight and out of mind. When our dreams live on­ly in our heads and we have nev­er played with their po­ten­tial, we think they are im­pos­si­ble and they nev­er see the light of day.

Spring-clean­ing en­tails: re­mov­ing the dust of ne­glect, dis­man­tling the cob­webs of fear, shak­ing off the in­ner self-doubt and ex­ter­nal dis­cour­age­ment, fluff­ing our dreams and putting them on our to-do list for de­ci­sive ac­tion.

Dec­o­rate with our achieve­ments. Every time we com­plete a step from our life plan, con­quer an ob­sta­cle or reach a goal (how­ev­er small), we should cel­e­brate and re­ward our­selves. It's a habit that will re­new and strength­en our re­solve to con­tin­ue on to our big dreams. Ac­knowl­edg­ing and cel­e­brat­ing each achieve­ment can be a ma­jor dec­o­ra­tive fo­cal point in the de­sign of our lives. Busy days with ex­haust­ing tasks and nu­mer­ous chal­lenges lose their sting in the light of the achieve­ments that dec­o­rate our lives. More­over, each new ac­com­plish­ment mo­ti­vates us to con­tin­ue on a path of dili­gence and ex­cel­lence on our in­di­vid­ual jour­neys.

Spring-clean­ing can trig­ger over­whelm. How­ev­er, if we ap­proach it as small, man­age­able and at­tain­able tasks, we can spring-clean our lives for more joy­ful dai­ly liv­ing, more sat­is­fy­ing re­la­tion­ships, more ef­fi­cient man­age­ment of our com­mit­ments and more pas­sion­ate pur­suit of our dreams.