10 REALISTIC Habits for Getting Your Life Together at 20, 30, and 40+
Summary
TLDRIn this video, the speaker shares 10 small, realistic habits that helped her regain control of her life after experiencing significant personal and financial challenges. After relocating back to the U.S. from Europe and coping with her family’s struggles, she emphasizes slowing down, prioritizing what matters most, and learning to drop less important 'plastic balls' to focus on crucial 'glass balls.' She also opens up about her personal battle with binge eating and offers insights on coping with stress, self-reflection, managing debt, and the importance of small habits in creating positive change.
Takeaways
- 😊 Take your foot off the gas pedal: When feeling lost, don't push harder; instead, step back and evaluate your direction.
- 🤹 Know when to drop the plastic balls: Prioritize important tasks (glass balls) over less critical ones (plastic balls) when overwhelmed.
- 💡 Adopt healthier ways to cope with stress: Replace destructive habits like binge eating with healthier coping mechanisms like journaling, meditation, and therapy.
- 📊 Conduct a life audit: Reflect on different areas of your life and identify which ones need improvement, such as using tools like the Wheel of Life assessment.
- 💰 Pay off debt ASAP: Eliminate debt as soon as possible for financial freedom and peace of mind, just like the speaker did after escaping an abusive relationship.
- ✂️ Know when to cut your losses: Avoid the sunk cost fallacy by recognizing when it’s time to move on from unproductive investments of time, money, or energy.
- 📝 Write things down: If you struggle with forgetting things, make a habit of writing them down immediately to stay on top of tasks.
- 👗 Get dressed to boost motivation: Changing out of pajamas into real clothes can help break a cycle of low motivation and inactivity.
- 🛏️ Make your bed: This simple habit can have a powerful impact on your mindset and set a positive tone for the day.
- 🧹 Pick things up off the floor: Tidying small areas, even just picking things up off the floor, can create a sense of accomplishment and reduce visual clutter.
Q & A
What prompted the speaker to 'start over' at age 40?
-The speaker and her family had to start over at age 40 due to her husband's job loss and a series of unfortunate events at their children's school, which led them to move back to the USA from Europe.
Why does the speaker recommend 'taking your foot off the gas pedal' when feeling lost?
-The speaker suggests slowing down and evaluating one's direction, as moving fast in the wrong direction is counterproductive. Taking a step back helps in reassessing priorities and determining where to go next.
What does 'dropping the plastic balls' metaphor mean in this context?
-The 'plastic balls' metaphor refers to prioritizing tasks in life and recognizing which ones are less important and can be temporarily dropped without serious consequences, unlike the 'glass balls' that represent essential priorities.
How does the speaker cope with stress in a healthier way after experiencing binge eating disorder relapses?
-The speaker copes with stress by practicing healthier habits such as keeping a food journal, meditation, breathing techniques, and regular therapy sessions, which help her manage her binge eating tendencies.
What is the Wheel of Life assessment, and how did it help the speaker?
-The Wheel of Life assessment is a self-reflection tool that evaluates satisfaction across key life areas. It helped the speaker identify which aspects of her life needed more focus and guided her in making necessary changes.
How did the speaker's experience with debt shape her approach to finances?
-After escaping an abusive relationship and being left in debt, the speaker developed frugal habits and prioritized paying off her debts quickly. This experience made her more financially disciplined, leading her and her husband to pay off over $250,000 in debt in 5 years.
What is the 'sunk cost fallacy,' and how did the speaker overcome it?
-The sunk cost fallacy is the tendency to continue investing in something despite negative outcomes because of past investments. The speaker overcame this by recognizing when to cut her losses, such as leaving a toxic relationship in her 20s.
Why does the speaker emphasize the importance of 'writing things down'?
-The speaker emphasizes writing things down because it helps her remember important tasks or commitments. Without writing things down, she often forgets to follow up on messages or appointments.
How does changing out of pajamas help the speaker regain motivation?
-The speaker finds that getting dressed in regular clothes helps her feel more productive and motivated. Staying in pajamas all day tends to reinforce feelings of being stuck and unmotivated.
What small habit does the speaker recommend for maintaining a sense of order at home?
-The speaker recommends the small habit of picking things up off the floor. Even when she doesn't have the energy to fully declutter, removing items from the floor helps her feel more in control and reduces visual clutter.
Outlines
💡 Overcoming Life's Challenges and Resetting in Your 40s
In this opening paragraph, the speaker shares her journey of starting over at age 40 due to various life challenges, including her husband losing his job and their children facing difficulties at school. This led her family to leave their life in Europe and return to the U.S. She emphasizes how small, realistic habits have helped her reset her life and how these habits can benefit others at any age. The first suggestion is to 'take your foot off the gas pedal,' meaning to pause and reassess rather than push forward aimlessly.
🎯 Learning to Prioritize: Plastic vs. Glass Balls
The speaker discusses the concept of juggling life's responsibilities, comparing them to balls—some plastic and some glass. Plastic balls, representing less critical tasks, can bounce back when dropped, whereas glass balls, like her children’s well-being, can shatter. She reflects on her decision to prioritize her kids over work and fitness during their adjustment to a new life. This required her to let go of certain tasks, including publishing YouTube videos regularly. She stresses the importance of determining which 'balls' are vital and which can be dropped without significant consequences.
🍽️ Coping with Stress and Unhealthy Habits
In this section, the speaker reveals her struggles with food addiction, particularly how the stress from relocating caused her to relapse into binge eating. Despite this, she is actively working to replace binge eating with healthier habits like journaling, meditation, and therapy. She shares personal anecdotes about her family's history of addiction, as well as her experience with the passing of close family members due to their own addictions. The speaker introduces her sponsor, BetterHelp, explaining how therapy has been instrumental in helping her navigate grief, stress, and her eating disorder.
📝 Reflecting on Life through Audits and Assessment Tools
The speaker introduces the concept of a 'life audit,' an exercise that helps assess one's satisfaction across various life areas. She highlights the 'Wheel of Life assessment,' a tool she discovered in the audiobook 'The Miracle Morning,' which helped her evaluate and prioritize aspects of her life, such as family, health, and environment. This tool played a key role in guiding her decisions and addressing areas that needed improvement. She encourages the audience to use similar tools to reflect and realign their lives, offering links to resources for further exploration.
💰 Paying Off Debt and Financial Liberation
In this paragraph, the speaker shares her personal story of overcoming debt, which began in her early 20s after escaping an abusive relationship. She reflects on the hard lessons learned, including how she used frugality and careful financial planning to pay off her debt. This experience taught her the importance of financial independence and smart money management, which she later applied with her husband to pay off over $250,000 in debt. She highlights how liberating it felt to become debt-free and encourages viewers to adopt similar practices.
✂️ Knowing When to Cut Your Losses
The speaker introduces the concept of 'sunk cost fallacy,' explaining how people often continue investing in failing efforts due to their previous commitments. She shares how this applied to her toxic relationship in her 20s and how she’s since become better at recognizing when to cut her losses. She provides relatable examples, such as continuing to read a book or invest in a friendship that isn’t serving you, emphasizing the importance of letting go to invest time and energy into more rewarding pursuits.
📝 Write It Down or Risk Forgetting
In this section, the speaker humorously reflects on her tendency to forget tasks and messages if she doesn’t write them down immediately. She admits to often missing texts or important reminders, despite having once been academically successful. She stresses the importance of writing things down as a method of combating forgetfulness and ensuring responsibilities aren’t neglected.
👖 The Power of Getting Dressed
The speaker highlights the impact that simply getting dressed can have on motivation and mood. While she enjoys the comfort of pajamas, wearing them continuously can perpetuate feelings of lethargy and demotivation. She shares that getting dressed in proper clothes, even if not fancy, helps her mentally shift into a more productive state, snapping her out of periods of low motivation.
🛏️ Small Habits: Making the Bed and Picking Up Clutter
The speaker touches on the importance of small, manageable habits when feeling down, such as making the bed and picking up items from the floor. She shares how making the bed is a foundational task that positively impacts her mindset for the day, while picking up clutter—especially from the floor—creates a sense of order. She concludes by linking this to her long-term journey with decluttering and minimalism, which has made it easier to maintain a tidy home.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Life Reset
💡Plastic Balls vs. Glass Balls
💡Coping with Stress
💡Sunk Cost Fallacy
💡Financial Freedom
💡Healthy Habits
💡Generational Trauma
💡Therapy
💡Wheel of Life Assessment
💡Life Audit
Highlights
Starting over at age 40 after facing financial, mental, and physical challenges, including her husband's job loss and moving back to the USA.
Emphasizing the importance of taking your foot off the gas when feeling lost, instead of trying to catch up by doing more.
Using the metaphor of dropping plastic balls (less important tasks) and holding onto glass balls (important priorities) to manage stress and prioritize life.
The 40% rule: when you give 40% on days where you only have 40% to give, you're actually giving 100% of your capacity.
Struggles with binge eating disorder and stress-related weight gain, acknowledging relapse but seeking healthier coping mechanisms like food journaling and therapy.
Highlighting the importance of seeking therapy and support for mental health, mentioning Better Help as a resource.
Conducting a life audit to evaluate key areas of life for improvement, using the Wheel of Life assessment tool.
Emphasizing the importance of paying off debts, sharing a personal story of clearing over $250,000 of debt in 5 years.
Recognizing sunk cost fallacy: the tendency to keep investing time or money into something that no longer serves you.
The habit of writing things down to avoid forgetfulness and improve productivity.
Getting dressed and out of pajamas to boost motivation and productivity when feeling low.
Making the bed as a small but powerful habit that can help kickstart the day and improve mental health.
Clearing visual clutter by focusing on simple tasks like picking things up off the floor to feel more in control and better organized.
The importance of self-care, noting how small habits can help regain control and improve life even during tough times.
Promoting minimalism and decluttering as ways to simplify life and make it easier to maintain a clean and organized home.
Transcripts
today I wanted to share 10 small and
realistic habits that always help me get
my life together whenever I feel down
anxious or just plain stuck the past
year has been a tough year for me
mentally physically and even financially
because I found myself in the odd
position of having to start over at age
40 between my husband losing his job and
our kids falling behind and feeling
unsafe due to a series of unfortunate
events at our school our family made a
tough decision to leave the beautiful
home and life we built in Europe to move
back to the USA in fact the day that I'm
filming this marks exactly 1 year and 1
month ago that I shared a video on my
channel titled I'm starting over at age
40 so I thought that it was high time
for me to share an update on that as
well as the small habits that have
helped me hit the reset button on my
life in my 20s 30s and 40s that I think
might help you as well no matter how old
you are let's dive
and the first suggestion that I have for
you on this list is to take your foot
off the gas pedal I don't know about you
but I've noticed that when I start
feeling lost and left behind in life I
have this instinct to try and catch up
by pushing myself to do more and go
faster when what I really need to do is
pump the brakes and take a step back to
evaluate where I am and where I want to
be going because honestly it doesn't
matter how fast fast you're going if
you're moving in the wrong
direction next up it's important to know
when it's time to let the plastic balls
drop dropping the plastic balls is a
metaphor for prioritizing your life and
making tough decisions about what to
drop when you can't juggle everything
all of us have a lot of balls we're
juggling at any given time everything
from jobs and relationships with friends
and family to things like staying in
shape and keeping up with the housework
and speaking of managing the housework
that in and of itself has so many balls
that you have to juggle one ball for the
laundry one ball for meal planning and
yet another for knowing when it's time
to buy groceries and what the heck you
need to buy and then if you're a mom
with kids that's even more balls to add
to the mix planning playdates buying
gifts for friends who have birthday
parties coming up and helping them with
their homework after school that's three
out of about 300,000 balls that you need
to juggle when you're a mom plastic
balls are the things that are less
important and can bounce back when you
drop them while glass balls are the
things that are more important and can
shatter if dropped and a lot of us are
running ourselves into the ground trying
to keep every single ball in the air
instead of taking the time to try to
figure out which ones are plastic and
which ones are glass so that we can keep
the glass balls in the air and drop the
ones that bounce when we're really
stressed out and overwhelmed and it's
like like that quote about the 40% rule
from Jim quick that talks about how when
you give 40% on the days where you only
have 40% to give you didn't give 40% you
gave 100% effort for me the most
important glass balls are the ones that
represent my kids and their health
happiness and education and because they
needed a lot more one-on-one help and
attention adjusting to a new life and a
new school here that meant I had to let
a few other plastic balls drop I went
from being incredibly consistent and
pumping out a video every single week
here on YouTube to having weeks where I
didn't publish a video at all because
unlike a lot of other big YouTubers I
don't have an entire team behind me
right now I'm a one woman show and I
have to admit I also dropped a lot of
balls related to staying in shape and my
physical health while I do make it a
priority to get to bed at a decent hour
get enough sleep and drink plenty of
water I've definitely Fallen back into
some bad habits in other areas which
brings us to the next point on this list
which is to find healthy or at least
healthy your ways to cope with stress
addiction runs deep in my family
unfortunately some people inherit
generational wealth I inherited
generational trauma it's one of those
things where I have to laugh about it so
that I don't cry the same year I lost my
father to alcoholism my grandmother's
cigarette addiction from her younger
years caught up with her and and she
ended up passing away 6 months after
getting diagnosed with lung cancer now I
don't smoke and I'm not an alcoholic
like my dad or my grandfather but one
thing that I do struggle with is food
addiction and I'm a little bit
embarrassed to admit that all of the
stress and anxiety of this move has
caused me to have a relapse of my Bening
cheating disorder I I can
notice when I'm starting a benge like I
can notice and I know that I
am but for some reason I just feel right
now like I don't have the willpower to
stop myself I can't even tell you how
much weight I've gained over the past
year because I don't own a scale but I
do know that at one point this pair of
pants that used to be huge on me became
snug enough that I could wear them
without a belt even though I haven't
been binging as bad as I was in my early
20s when I fell into a deep depression
after losing my dad and my childhood
home I knew that putting my head in the
sand and ignoring the problem wasn't
going to make things any better and in
fact it was probably more likely than
not going to make them worse which is
why I've been working hard to swap binge
eating with healthier coping habits when
I'm feeling stressed out and overwhelmed
things like keeping a food journal
practicing meditation and breathing
techniques and of course talking to my
therapist which brings me to the sponsor
of today's video better Help Therapy has
gotten me through so many ups and downs
in life from coping with the loss of my
parents and letting go of the 30 years
of grief related to that to reducing
stress and overcoming binge eating
disorder my therapists have been there
to hold my hand through it all better
health therapist are trained mental
health professionals who are there to
listen ask questions and provide a safe
and judgment free space where you can
share what's on your mind and get
valuable insights and guidance on how to
do things like manage your emotions
reduce stress stress and make positive
changes in your life to get started with
betterhelp just go to betterhelp.com
slades andlife and answer a few quick
questions about your needs and
preferences in therapy so that better
health can match you with the right
therapist from their Network usually
within 48 hours and then once you get
matched you can message your therapist
or schedule a call or video chat with
them at a time that's most convenient to
you right in the comfort of your very
own home which is perfect for an
introverted homebody like me so if
you're ready to take control of your
mental health go to better health.com
AES and life or click on my special link
in the description box below to get a
discount off your first month of therapy
and thanks again to Better Health for
sponsoring today's
video sitting down to do a life audit is
another thing that's really helped me in
the past especially when I find myself
feeling lost a life audit is a
self-reflection exercise that helps you
evaluate your life and identify key
areas of improvement I've done life
audits in the past but the best tool
that I've ever found was a fairly recent
discovery for me and it's called The
Wheel of Life assessment and I picked it
up from this awesome audio book called
The Miracle morning that I listened to
when I was really struggling at the
beginning of the year so right here is
the exact Wheel of Life assessment that
I filled out in January and how I rated
my satisfaction across 10 key areas of
my life on a scale of 1 to 10 and as you
can see I was feeling pretty low and
down about where I was wiiz where I was
with things like friends and family
health and fitness and the physical
environment that I was in and getting
that down on paper played a huge role in
me deciding which balls I was going to
drop and which areas I needed to shift
my focus to and act upon and if you're
interested in finding out more about
this and how to do it I will make sure
to link to the miracle morning book and
audio book that I listened to down in
the description box below for you for
your convenience habit number five is
paying off my DB's ASAP I've always
hated being in debt ever since my early
20s when I escaped an abusive
relationship that left me a couple
thousand in debt I had co-signed for an
apartment with this guy that I thought
was the love of my life but who turned
out to be a total loser who couldn't
even hold a job down let alone pay his
part of the rent
and while I felt fortunate that I was
able to get away from him since he
didn't have a job and refused to cop up
money for us breaking the lease or the
damage he had done to the apartment
things like broken blinds and cigarette
Burns in the carpet that meant that the
collection agencies came after me for
thousands and thousands of dollars that
year I learned a pretty harsh lesson
about toxic people and all of the ways
that they can damage you but I walked
away from that experience smarter and
stronger for sure and one of the first
things I did was put myself on a
spending freeze and create a financial
plan for me to pay off that debt as fast
as possible and I remember how
liberating it
felt when I saved up enough money to
stop making the minimum payments and pay
off that balance in full it was almost
like the last chain that was tying me to
that horrible horrible person had
finally fallen off and I was 100% free
again and then later my husband and I Ed
the same Frugal habits and methods to
pay off over
$250,000 worth of debt in 5 years to
become completely debt-free and if you
want to find out more about that and how
we did it make sure to go check out this
video that I'll link up here and down in
the description box below next up number
six on this list is knowing when to cut
your losses I didn't know it at the time
but one of the reasons that I had such a
hard time walking away from that toxic
relationship was because of something
known as as sunk cost fallacy which is a
tendency for us as humans to continue
pouring time money and energy into
something we're invested in even when
it's not working out in our favor
examples of sunk cost fallacy include
things like continuing to read a book or
watch a movie you're not enjoying
because you spent good money to buy it
or continuing to invest time and energy
into a one-sided friendship or even
something like holding on to a stock
that's losing value instead of selling
it at a lost and investing in a stock
that's more likely to rise in value
after going through that experience with
my toxic X in my early 20s I've gotten a
lot better at recognizing when it's time
to cut my losses and move on habit
number seven is to write it down or
else Sinister music mortisha Adam SP are
you scared you should be I can't tell
you how many times I've glanced at a
late night early morning text and
thought to myself I'll just message them
back at a decent hour which of course
doesn't happen and that text is good and
forgotten until the next time that
person messages me and I have an O crap
moment it's kind of funny because I look
at myself and I think you must have been
smart and had all of your ducks in a row
at one time because you got your
master's degree from a big 10 University
and you even graduated with a 3.8 GPA to
boot and yet here you are forgetting to
answer people's text messages anyway
I've accepted the fact that if I don't
write something down right away there is
a 99.9% chance that I'm going to forget
it so I really had to force myself to
get into the habit of writing things
down whether that's a play dat or a
doctor's appointment that I need to
schedule so if you've got a bad case of
chronic brain farts like I do I can't
recommend this habit highly enough
another habit that I fall back on when I
need to get my life back together is
forcing myself to get out of my pajamas
and into some real clothes I mean I'm a
huge fan of cozy clothes and there are
times when I have absolutely no problem
with wearing my pajamas 24/7 but when
I'm feeling really low and unmotivated
and day after day after day after day
I'm just continuing to wear pajamas from
Sunrise until sunset Monday through
Sunday that has a way of dragging me
down it's like I'm giving myself too
much permission to remain unmotivated
and not get things done you know what I
mean so sometimes just forcing myself to
get into the habit of getting up taking
off my pajamas and putting on some
actual clothes that I wouldn't be
embarrassed to be seen in out in public
is all it takes to kind of snap me out
of my funk another small habit that I
find helpful when I need to get my life
together is doing something as simple as
making the bed which I know sounds so so
cliche the days where I don't make my
bed are the days when my mental health
is honestly at its absolute lowest if
you think about it your bed is the first
thing that you see and touch when you
wake up in the morning and it's the last
thing that you touch and see before you
go to bed for the evening so making your
bed is a great way to Kickstart your day
when you're trying to get to your home
or your life in order and finally the
last habit on this list is picking stuff
up off the floor of course if you have
the time and energy for it clearing
visual clutter completely can be really
really helpful but when you're feeling
down and unmotivated you don't always
have the bandwidth for that but I found
that even if I can't clean up all of the
messes just getting into the habit of
picking stuff up off of the floor is
really doable and it makes me feel so
much better not to see piles of clothing
on the floor and toys and paper
scattered here and there now I will say
that after 8 years of decluttering in
minimalism it is so much easier to keep
our home clean and tidy than it was
before we radically simplified
everything and if you want to hear more
about that or find out even more habits
that can change your life make sure to
go check out one of these videos that
YouTube thinks that you'll like or I'll
see you next week until then take care
bye-bye
浏览更多相关视频
5.0 / 5 (0 votes)