I love a good declutterring programme, I did go through a phase of binge watching The Home Edit some time ago and it inspired me to completely overhaul our Dimpsey supplies cupboard to make it easier to restock ready to do our shepherd hut changeovers.

I committed and went for it big time, even ordering the containers to put things in to make the shelves in the cupboard much more useable. I threw out all the rubbish and gave everything else a specific place to be. Then I made sure everyone else knew the new system and it just became part of the way we do things.

Doing it transformed our changeovers – it’s now so much easier to put our working baskets together and also to see when things are getting low and need re-ordering.

But the reason the cupboard had got so cluttered was because we just kept stuffing things in there as they were delivered or when we got back from a changeover, and over time we really couldn’t see the wood for the trees.

And to put it right I had to step back, empty the cupboard, create a system and put everything back in an orderly fashion and then do a bit of ongoing maintenance here and there.

Short term pain, long term gain. I invested a good few hours to make things easier going forward on an ongoing basis.

I’m sure you’re reading this, nodding along with me and maybe I’ve even inspired you to do a radical clear out of a cupboard? I certainly know I’ve got other cupboards I need to do a similar exercise on!

But let’s take this one step further…

How about you, how about life?

It’s so easy to visualise an over-stuffed cupboard that you need to do a hold and pray shutting exercise on, hoping against all hopes that when you open it again there won’t be a tsunami of contents onto the floor.

But we do the same thing to ourselves, all the flippin’ time and we’re so busy that we don’t even realise we’re doing it.

We juggle work, looking after others, shopping, socialising, exercising, learning, problem solving, travelling, resting (rarely!) and many other things.

You see, as we go through life, the list of things we need to do grows. It’s like we start off juggling a couple of balls and then a few more balls get added one by one – but we’re pros, we’re on it, after a momentary pause we up our game and soon we’re juggling them all again.

But it doesn’t stop there! Somehow we manage to master the art of juggling many balls and then someone throws a stick in unexpectedly from the sidelines. It throws us momentarily, we might even drop a ball or two, but being the super heroes that we are, we pick them up and soon we’re juggling sticks and balls together.

Then just when we think we have this juggling lark absolutely nailed, a burning poi stick gets chucked at us. Again, it throws us for a while, but instead of putting something down to concentrate on this flaming stick, we momentarily drop a ball or two, pick them up and carry on like the stalwarts we are.

Except now, occasionally we are dropping things here and there, and when we stoop to pick them up, we drop something else, or our hand gets burned from holding the poi stick for too long.

We know we’re not juggling to our best standard any more, but we’re doing the best we can aren’t we?

I could go on, but I think you’ve got the picture by now…

It’s just not sustainable, but we’re so busy trying to catch everything that we completely miss that we’re setting ourselves up to fail.

We never stop, put the balls down, step back and assess what we’re trying to do.

We never take some of the balls out of play to make the juggling act easier, we simply believe that it’s our job to cope with whatever is thrown at us.

But remember the overstuffed cupboard that we talked about earlier? How much easier organising it and getting rid of some of the stuff made things?

Remember how you thought that’s a great idea and mentally visualised the cupboard you’re going to clear?

So here’s the thing – you are in charge of your life.

You are the juggler and you call the shots.

You can hit pause, step back and assess what’s really going on.

And you get to choose what you pick up again and what gets discarded.

Sometimes it’s as simple as deciding that someone else can take on responsibility for a particular ball.

If you look up from your juggling sometimes, you’ll see that there are people in the room who will gladly catch a ball if you throw it to them.

Other times, it takes a bit of thinking about before you decide if it’s a ball you want to continue juggling, because you do have that choice you know.

And remember, sometimes the best answers aren’t always the easy answers and that’s absolutely OK.

But when you’re looking at that pile of things that you need to juggle going forwards, I urge you to make sure that you pick up some of the things that you really like juggling as well as the ones that you have to juggle.

I remind you that if someone throws a burning stick at you, it’s OK to put a ball or two down while you learn to cope with juggling it.

Lastly, remember that you don’t have to pick everything up again, you can leave some things on the floor to be added when you have time, or maybe that’s it, your time with them is done.

You see, the power of this pause to reflect, followed by mindful action on your part about what to juggle going forwards can completely change how living your life feels.

It reminds you that you do have a say in what goes on in your life, in fact you’re in charge of it…

I’ll leave you with this quote from Barbara Walters, the American Journalist

“Most of us have trouble juggling. The woman who says she doesn’t is someone whom I admire but have never met.”