661. Why Cleaning Your Room Matters: The Life-Changing Power of Personal Responsibility

Hey, Britney. Hi, Rachel. Britney, you should clean your room. I should. I got to say it. I got to say it. No, I'm just kidding. Your room looks immaculate. But what I'm referring to really is um in the uh 12 uh rules boot camp and from the Tuttle Twins, there are 12 rules for life. That's kind of based off of Jordan Peterson's 12 rules for living and they are so insightful. Yes. Oh, look what you Vanna Whiting. Is Wheel of Fortune even a show anymore? Vanna Whiting. That's a that's a verb. Yeah. Very good. So So uh 12 Rules Boot Camp is kind of uh a for a kids version of Jordan Peterson's 12 rules for living. And today I wanted to talk about rule seven in the boot camp which is clean your room which is a favorite for all moms everywhere. Well take control of myself in the world but it's clean your room and uh that yeah that's what it means is u do you ever feel like you want to go to u people around you and tell them what's wrong with what they're doing? You know you're doing it wrong. You should do it this way and uh blah blah blah. I know everything and this is what you're doing wrong and you should change your ways. Meanwhile, your life is a mess. And I think that's such a good rule because uh it there there's also uh some things in the Bible about that, you know, um take take the plank out of your own eye before you worry about the speck in your neighbor's eye. And that's so important because it it kind of highlights that we're all going through a battle. Like we're we're all going through our own mess and you don't know what that person is going through. Like they're fighting a battle that you can't see and you're fighting battles that they can't see. And maybe the world would be a better place if all of us would worry about cleaning our own room and getting our ourself in order, working on oursel before we go pointing fingers at others and telling them how to live. because, you know, maybe we don't know everything. Just a thought. Yeah. It also reminds me of every time you go on an airplane, they do the safety warning and they tell you to put your own mask on before you help somebody else if there's um an accident. And I always I always think of that. I'm like, that's it sounds like bad advice, but it's like you're thinking like what? No, I got to help other people. But you can't help other people if you don't know if you haven't become, you know, master of your own domain kind of. Um, and that's why and I think for me it actually Yeah. Yeah. And it wasn't even my room, you don't have to start with your room cuz sometimes your room can be so messy that you're just like it's overwhelming, right? So, one thing I know, it's beyond dope. If your room looked like I did when I was a kid with all my dolls and toys everywhere. Oh, goodness gracious. Legos. Lots of Legos. And parents hate stepping on Legos. believe me, it's the worst. But for me, even as an adult, you start with your bed. That's what I did. I started with my bed. And the amount of just how I feel so much better about my day when I know that I got up and made my bed. And it seems silly, right? Cuz you're like, it's just your bed. But then it's like you make your bed and then you're like, you know, maybe I'll clean up this little area. Maybe I'll hang up my clothes. Maybe I'll put those Legos away. And then it gets bigger and bigger and bigger until you've taken on more responsibility. Yeah. And lately I've been on this kick with my kitchen. You know, sometimes as a mom the kitchen gets like just destroyed throughout the day with dishes and pots and pans that are all dirty and everything out on the counter and the counters are just a mess and you're so tired at the end of the day that you just want to go to bed. I'll worry about it in the morning. But then the morning comes and you wake up to this filth and it just kind of h and then you don't want to make breakfast in that filthy kitchen because then you got to you got to wash this all of these pots first before you can do that and it's like an hour's worth of work before you get to breakfast, you know. So I've been on this kick where, you know, the last, you know, 30 minutes of the day I just I clean the kitchen and I make it spotless and I have the dishwasher running. I have all the pots dried and put away and then I wake up in the morning and it just I just want to light a candle and h and it's Could you come over to my house? Could you hop on a plane? I'll be right there. Yeah, my kitchen is my biggest battleground I think because that's that's harder than my room even because we're just always using things in it. Yeah, but you know the start small. Clean your sink. Just clean your sink. You know, just dishes for me. That's the thing first. If I can just do the dishes, then everything else kind of gets Yeah. And then you get on a kick and then before you know it, it's an hour later. Yeah. And you're you're like, "My house is perfect." But it is it is so important and it's also humbling. It's humbling when you're sitting there in your high horse and we all do it. Not pointing fingers. I know that for me, especially people like, you know, we do this podcast and Rachel and I write and it's like we're always writing our views and opinions on things, which is in a lot of ways saying, "Well, I'm right." Even if you're not saying I'm right, it's kind of saying like even right now we're saying we're right by telling you to start, you know, cleaning your room. But then sometimes you'll be sitting there. Imagine being in like an internet argument and you're just sitting there typing out your response and you're just like, I'm so right. This person's so wrong. Imagine pausing and looking around at your room and realizing it's a mess of being like, should I really be telling this person that they're wrong? Do I have any right? Yeah. Is is my house all in order? Yeah. So yeah, because the person that you're criticizing, you know, they're trying their best just like you are. And hopefully we all Yeah, hopefully. I mean, let's assume the best. But um yeah, what what right do we have to to judge others and tell them how to live when our own life is a mess? Now, when you get all that figured out and you know you you've got your morning schedule down and your routines and you're taking all your vitamins and you're eating perfect and your weight is perfect and everything is in order and you know then you'll be like 80 years old when you figure all that out. Then you can impart wisdom to to the rest of it can snowball in either direction, right? it can snowball and you start with your bed and then you start with your room and then you start with your routines and before you know it like you're so ahead of where you thought you'd be but then if you don't do it like the kitchen you don't do it one day and then the dishes pile up and then the pots and pans pile up and then I don't want to make dinner and so then maybe I order takeout and now I'm not eating healthy and it's like this spiral right but you can control which way the spiral goes a good one or a bad one right so spiral up so it's it's crazy. And you know, if you get into a a bad spiral like that, it kind of I don't know whe it's like a chicken and egg thing. Which comes first? The the mess accumulates or you your mental health suffers and you feel more depressed? But, you know, if you do it in reverse and you just clean one thing, your mental health gets a little better. So, I don't know. The these two things feed off of each other. Just, you know, put yourself in order. It sets and it sets you up for success. Yeah. And I'm also on this kick where I'm trying to take better care of myself and go to the gym more. And I mean it just it just spirals like and if if you just make one little incremental change and try to do it every day, just a small thing like you said, clean, you know, make your bed or clean your sink, you know, or read 10 minutes of a of a book that you think is is going to help you improve yourself. just little little things and try to do it every day. It's such a challenge, but it will it will help you feel better. It will help you look at the world in a better way, and you might be a little less judgmental of others, too. One of my favorite things that my one of my students taught me, she said, "Practice makes permanent." Because, you know, we always say practice makes perfect. And she said, "My mom always tells me practice makes permanent." And I to this day think about that because I think like if I go if I decide that I should I don't want to make my bed for a week or I don't want to clean up my room. If I don't do it for one day, it gets real easy to the next day say I'll do it later. I don't need to do it today and then the next day and the next day and then that practice becomes permanent. Right? But on the other hand, if I do it one day and I kind of tell myself that if I get up one day and I'm like I don't really want to make my bed today. I said like remember though you've gotten in this good habit. All it takes is a couple times to completely fall out of that and then you're back to square one. And again I am not perfect. I have I could I could list you all my flaws and written areas for improvement. Gosh. But one thing that I am very proud of myself on is I have become almost addicted to routines. So I don't know if it's very good but um to the point where like vacations are hard cuz I'm like I need my routines. But I do those because I was in a situation where I did feel just kind of like gh, you know, just kind of disorganized and chaotic. And it all started with Jordan Peterson. It all started with hearing clean your room. Like why can't you just clean your room? And I was like, why can't I just clean my room? You know, and it started with putting my laundry away after I cleaned it. Making my bed. Doing this. you know, if I can do this, maybe I can get up at 6:30 and write a gratitude journal of things I'm thankful for and go to the gym and do this and have the, you know, eating healthy is very hard for me cuz I love sugar. But you kind of get to a point where you start thinking like, oh well, if I care about my room so much that I want to make my bed because I care about the kind of environment I want to live in, then you also say like the environment that I'm giving my body, right? Like working out and drinking enough water and all that. So, it's a really interesting snowball that it that it uh goes into. Yeah. And you you reminded me of a pattern that I have in my life. I'm going to just confess here. This is something that I tend to do. I tend to like get on a a really strong health kick and I do really great. And then I have a goal like we go on a cruise and I want to be down like 20 pounds by the time we go on this cruise because I'm going to look fabulous in the vacation photos. and I make the goal and I go on the cruise and we're on the boat for like five days or a week and I gorge myself like a pig because I've earned it, right? I've earned it. And then I get home from the cruise and it's like and I've probably gained five pounds of it back just in the last few days and I haven't been working out and I don't want to work out because I'm recovering from my vacation, you see. And then the next day, you know, I'm still kind of recovering and then the next day it's like, oh, whatever. It takes me a month to recover from vacation. I've totally lost my momentum and I I've done that over and over and over and I need to stop that. I you know I love going on vacations but I need to stop thinking that you know when I go on vacation like I'm off my diet and my routine because I'll never get back on. You know this a little bit of a tangent but it's a good reminder because I'm very much the same way and there's something kind of helpful when you have like a health problem. Obviously, not a big one. You want, you know, I don't wish health bad health on me or anyone else. But sometimes when you get like really sick or you get something that is a really rough patch for you health-wise, you start really realizing how important taking care of yourself is and then you're like, "Oh my goodness, how did I how was I like like I miss the days when I could go to the gym cuz now I'm so sick. I can't get up and do and you start missing that even if you get the flu and you're sick for like two weeks and you start thinking like how did I ever take it for granted when I could eat, you know, real food and could go to the gym and you're reminded of how blessed you are to even be able to get up and make your bed and be able to get up and take care of yourself and and make yourself healthy food. So perspective uh is interesting also. Oh, that's really important. You know, you you can you can if you're healthy enough to go to the gym, why wouldn't you? Mhm. Um because someday you might not be able to someday that's actually and this this is going to be really cheesy, but I actually every time I go to the gym, I start off by saying kind of a little thank you prayer. It doesn't have to be a prayer if that's not what you like to do, but a little just like thank you for like wow, I'm healthy enough. My body is good enough to where I'm healthy enough to even get up and and run. Like that's amazing because there are a lot of people that are like sick or you know are struggling with these diseases and I'm like how cool is it because I'm gonna be 80 before you know it. You know it'll happen quickly and maybe I'll be able to run then but like wow that's so cool. So that's I do that every single morning and it's kind of funny. Again I am not saying like look how gritty and believe me like I said I got a long list of things I need to work on. I just ate a box of Girl Scout cookies before filming this. Wow. I wish I had girls.

But anyway, maybe we'll leave it there for now. Yes. Well, thank you so much for uh for listening to us. We always have such a good time chatting with you guys and we hope you enjoy listening to us as well. So, please don't forget to like and subscribe to the podcast and until next time, we will talk to you later. Talk to you later.

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