From Chore to Joy: The Ultimate Mindset Hack to LOVE Cleaning Your House!

0:00 For many of us, one of the most stressful and annoying parts of being a parent and running a home is all of the chores and housework that we have to do, they have to get done. The floor has to be cleaned, the laundry has to be folded, the food needs to be cooked. And these are the types of things that can sometimes really weigh us down and strain us. I know that I often feel like it's a never ending rat race, right?

0:22 Like I'm on that hamster wheel and it's just going faster and faster. There's more and more things to pick up from the floor, there's more and more chores to do. But today I want to share a mindset hack that has definitely helped me to enjoy and sometimes even love cleaning my house. And here's how I'll illustrate this for you. You know, many people really love sewing, knitting or gardening. These are the types of creative endeavors that we almost think of as hobbies today.

0:51 We think of this as self care time, as time to relax, unwind. We think of it as meditative, as creative and as therapeutic. But these are chores, or at least used to be chores that everyone pretty much had to do. If you wanted clothes, you had to sew. If you wanted vegetables, you had to tend to your garden. And people had them on their to do list. Just like we have other things today, like doing the laundry, cooking the meals and cleaning.

1:19 And so I want you to notice how really everything is mindset. This is something I say often, but I really mean it. Everything is mindset. How we look at a certain activity or chore is how it will become to us. If we see washing dishes, cleaning the floor, cleaning our house as therapeutic, as meditative, as a time for self care, as time to reflect, as time to take care of our surroundings and kind of signal to ourself a sense of worthiness.

1:48 If we take joy and pride in our environment and we see this as a way of really looking after ourselves, we see it as nourishing or even as fun, then that's how it will become. I think it might be a bit of a stretch to say that you could love cleaning your house. But on the other hand, why is it such a stretch? Why not take pride and joy in the things that we do on a regular basis?

2:13 And why not detach a little bit from our sense of victim mindset around the things that it takes to live a life? I think so often we bemoan and kind of fight against simple realities. But as Byron Katie teaches, you've got to love what is, you've got to be a lover of reality. You've got to make friends with reality. And the reality is that if we want food on the table, we need to cook it. That if we want a clean house, we need to clean it, or at least someone does.

2:43 And if we want clean clothes, we've got to wash them. Those are just realities. Just like trees, you know, their leaves fall in the fall, and it's a cycle, and it's seasonal and it perpetuates, but we don't hold onto it and attach to it and be like, oh, no, now the leaves have fallen. And again, it's so unfair. I can't believe this is happening again. I have to rake them again. We just kind of realize that that's seasonal, that that's just the way the earth works.

3:09 So when we have to yet again clear up breakfast, yet again cook dinner, yet again do the laundry, maybe we could take that same kind of seasonal approach, or even that kind of meditative, therapeutic approach that we take to hobbies and to things that we do for fun. Or at the very least, we could make it just a habit, like brushing our teeth, that we don't need to constantly r really, you know, wish away, but rather something that we just accept as it's a reality.

3:38 We just brush our teeth to maintain oral hygiene. We don't really need to overthink it or fight against it or wish it away. It simply is. When I take these approaches to my housework, I feel a lot calmer. I feel a lot happier about it. I just feel this sense of acceptance, surrender, and even a certain sense of meditative therapeuticness. Right? Or even a level of certain self care, like, oh, I feel accomplished. I feel feel worthy and happy that I'm tending to my surroundings, that I'm tending and taking care, that I'm homemaking.

4:13 That pride of homemaking is something that I think has been kind of pulled out from under our feet. It used to be, I think, a great point of pride, or at least a role that we had was to be a homemaker. But now that many of us work, in addition, we have our careers and our jobs and our projects and our parenting and our marriages, et cetera. Then the sense that we have to be homemakers, too, can just be one too many things on our plate.

4:37 And I certainly empathize with the feeling of being overloaded. What I'm suggesting, though, is that we notice our mindset around it. Now, is there room to delegate here? Sure. Great. Like, if that's available. Go for it. I certainly take all the help that I can afford. But with that said, there's also room to reframe and to reframe these chores. Not as something that it's unfair to do, not as something that we're a victim of, but as something that we get to do.

5:03 I mean, after all, having dirty plates or clothes to wash means that we have food on the table, clothes to wear, and surely that's something to be grateful for. So I wonder if it would benefit you, as it's benefited me, to reframe housework in a way that makes me feel light and energetic and happy, rather than like I'm being used or like it's so unfair or like I'm a victim of circumstance and like I shouldn't have to do this.

5:29 When I think in those ways, I feel heavy and I really hate parenting and hate taking care of everything because I feel like everything's just being piled on me and I get quite resentful and bitter. But when I reframe it, I feel light, I feel airy, and I feel a lot more capable and confident. Something to think about. Let me know what you think. Have you been able to reframe housework in a positive way for you?

5:52 If you have, I'd love to know how. Let me know in the comments below. If you like this video, be sure to give it the thumbs up and hit the subscribe button and notification bell. I'll see you in the next video.