Month: March 2020

5 Ideas for Navigating Troubled Times

March 21, 2020 / Matt McMann / 0 Comments

It was a heartbreaking conversation. A few days ago, my wife and I helped our son and his fiancé make the gut wrenching decision to postpone their long-planned wedding. Their immanent April celebration is now a distant October event.

It’s a challenging time. The reach of COVID-19 is affecting us all, but not in the same ways. Some of us have been devastated by the disease through personal illness, the loss of a loved one, or financial instability caused by industry shutdowns. For others, the impact to this point has been relatively mild, like adapting to the new realities of social distancing and sheltering in place at home.

Rather than write a “one size fits all” post, I decided to share a variety of suggestions to hopefully help you navigate this season regardless of where you’re at on the impact spectrum. You may be drawn to some suggestions while others might feel completely irrelevant to you. In the future, the appeal of these ideas may completely reverse as your situation changes. Here’s a list of thoughts and resources for you to browse as you choose:

1. FIND YOUR BALANCE

It’s okay to be scared right now. That’s normal and natural given the breadth and impact of this global pandemic. That said, huddling in the fetal position unable to function or stuffing an entire closet full of toilet paper is an unhelpful overreaction. Conversely, laughing this situation off as an overhyped hoax and not taking proper precautions for the good of yourself and others is also a dangerous extreme. Somewhere in the middle is a healthy place to land.

2. FIND YOUR PEACE

I use several apps to help me with this. The Calm app provides guided and unguided meditation experiences of varying lengths with soothing music, imagery, and nature sounds. For those with a spiritual bent, there’s the Pause app produced by author John Eldredge based of his book Get Your Life Back. It leads you through one, three, five, or ten minute reflections to quiet your anxious mind and realign your perspective. A friend also recommended Rob Bell’s latest podcast where he and his wife Kristen share tools they use to navigate these troubled times. Choosing your focus also really helps (you can read my post on that here).

3. FIND YOUR MOTIVATION

While not the right time for everyone, this may be an opportunity for you to get to some long-delayed or newly discovered home projects. Scanning old photos, decluttering (see my post on that here), deep cleaning, whatever. I plan on hanging picture shelves.

4. FIND YOUR FUN

In addition to binging that show you’ve been meaning to watch, break out the board games or coloring books. Curl up with a steaming mug and a novel. Check out Google Earth or the Google Arts & Culture web site and take a virtual stroll through the world’s greatest museums, cities, and sites of interest. My wife and I have a puzzle sitting out to noodle with during breaks in our writing sessions. For 94 different ideas, check out this great list of in-home activities from Apartment Therapy.

5. FIND YOUR RELATIONSHIPS

With many of us stuck at home, this is a great time to connect with friends and family on FaceTime or a good old fashioned phone call. I recently chatted with my parents then spent an hour and a half on speaker phone with my sister over lunch. Physical isolation doesn’t have to mean relational isolation.

So which of these ideas connect with you right now? Pick one and try it today. Keep the others in your back pocket as it looks like this “new normal” is going to be around for awhile. Find your BALANCE. Find your PEACE. Find your MOTIVATION. Find your FUN. Find your RELATIONSHIPS. If you do, you’ll make it through these challenging times, and you’ll take another step toward BecomingYourself.

The Beautiful or the Ugly? Choose Your Focus for a Happier Life

March 14, 2020 / Matt McMann / 2 Comments

Take a look at this picture:

That’s the view from just outside the door of our apartment in Sacramento, CA. Not so great.

Now look at this picture:

Much better right? Wouldn’t it be great if that was our view? Guess what? It is. I took both of those photos from the same spot. I didn’t even move my feet. I just changed what I chose to focus on.

What’s my point? In life, there’s beauty and ugliness all around us. In our physical surroundings, in other people, in our circumstances, in ourselves. Whether we choose to focus on the beautiful or the ugly will have a huge impact on our mood, our attitude, and our outlook on life.

We’ve all known people who choose to see the ugliness, the downside, the negative in everything. Their glass is always half empty. They’re like Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh, minus being cute and cuddly. They are not fun people to be around.

On the flip side, we’ve all known people who are contagiously positive, upbeat, and filled with wonder at the world around them. Think Will Ferrell’s character Buddy in the Christmas movie Elf. Their glass is always half full. We’ve been envious of them. What’s their secret? They choose to see the beauty in every situation.

I’m not saying this is easy. I’m not saying “just put on a happy face.” Sometimes life is really hard, and some of us go through pain that most people can’t even imagine. And sometimes we should look at the ugly parts of life in order to heal ourselves or to bring help and hope to others in need.

What I am saying is that we have a choice to make. In every situation, every day. We don’t get to choose many of the things that happen to us in life, but we do get to choose how we will respond to them. How we will view our circumstances. What aspects of life we will focus on.

This anonymous quote was found scrawled on a cellar wall in Germany during the Holocaust:

“I believe in the sun even when it is not shining. I believe in love even when I cannot feel it. I believe in God even when He is silent.”

Beauty and hope can be found in the most desperate of situations if we choose to look for it.

So how about you? What do you choose to see? Where do you fix your eyes? What do you notice? Where do you focus your attention? Give yourself, and those around you, an amazing gift. Choose today to see the beauty in everything and everyone. Train your eyes to see the good. If you do, you’ll take another step toward Becoming Yourself.

Spiritual Sidebar:

For those of you with a spiritual bent, this idea of choosing where to focus your gaze is something that’s written about a lot in the Bible. Here are some examples:

“Look to the Lord and his strength; seek his face always.” Psalm 105:4 (New International Version)

“Surely everyone goes around like a mere phantom; in vain they rush about, heaping up wealth without knowing whose it will finally be. But now, Lord, what do I look for? My hope is in you.” Psalm 39:6-7 (New International Version)

“And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us. We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, the champion who initiates and perfects our faith.” Hebrews 12:1b-2a (New Living Translation)

“I lift up my eyes to the mountains—where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.” Psalm 121:1-2 (New International Version)

“That is why we never give up. Though our bodies are dying, our spirits are being renewed every day. For our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever! So we don’t look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever.” 2 Corinthians 4:16-18 (New Living Translation)

“Meanwhile, the disciples were in trouble far away from land, for a strong wind had risen, and they were fighting heavy waves. About three o’clock in the morning Jesus came toward them, walking on the water. When the disciples saw him walking on the water, they were terrified. In their fear, they cried out, “It’s a ghost!”

But Jesus spoke to them at once. “Don’t be afraid,” he said. “Take courage. I am here!”

Then Peter called to him, “Lord, if it’s really you, tell me to come to you, walking on the water.”

“Yes, come,” Jesus said.

So Peter went over the side of the boat and walked on the water toward Jesus. But when he saw the strong wind and the waves, he was terrified and began to sink. “Save me, Lord!” he shouted.

Jesus immediately reached out and grabbed him. “You have so little faith,” Jesus said. “Why did you doubt me?”

Matthew 14:24-31 (New Living Version)

This post was originally published August 4, 2018.

How to Declutter and Downsize Your Home (and Your Life)

March 7, 2020 / Matt McMann / 2 Comments

I was surprised. In my last post (you can read that here), I shared some creative methods I used to create a “salary” for myself while trying to become a published author. I mentioned that was part of the dream life that my wife Lisa and I have worked on making for ourselves over the last few years, along with transitioning from living in a big house in suburban Phoenix AZ with two cars and lots of stuff to an apartment in midtown Sacramento CA with no cars and not much stuff.

What surprised me was the amount of questions I received on how we managed the decluttering and downsizing. With that in mind, here’s how we did it:

1. WE GOT ITCHY

I’ve always been a sentimental pack rat who loved stuff – a huge collection of books, lots of art, upright arcade games, ping-pong table, tons of furniture, swimming pool, fire pit, basketball court, two cars, you get the idea. Most of it wasn’t high-end, but there was a lot of it. When we became empty nesters and began to travel more, I realized how much I didn’t miss or NEED all that stuff while we were away. I started to resent how much time, money, and energy it took to maintain it all. Lisa was on the same page. We were ready for a change.

2. WE GOT INSPIRED

We watched a Netflix documentary about the minimalist movement called Minimalism, whose adherents talk about the freedom and relief they found by embracing a “less is more” approach to material possessions. I looked at photos of tiny houses and imagined what it would be like to live in a smaller space. I read interviews with decluttering queen Marie Kondo highlighting how letting go of things we don’t need brings us joy. An older friend I respect told me, “At some point, we stop owning our stuff and our stuff starts owning us.” The motivation was building.

3. WE GOT ORGANIZED

I wandered our 4,100 square foot house with a legal pad, trying to see each room with fresh eyes. I opened every closet, looked in cupboards and under beds, and made a list of all the spaces that needed decluttering, from the overflowing garage to the junk drawer in the kitchen. It was shocking and overwhelming to realize we had SO much stuff that hadn’t been touched in years. I broke the bigger jobs, like the garage, into smaller, more manageable tasks like “clear the metal shelving unit.”

4. WE GOT STARTED

I chipped away at the list, starting with the smallest, least intimidating area (a coat closet) and sorting everything into piles – trash, donate, sell, keep. I used Marie Kondo’s most famous decluttering rule for the non-essentials – if it brings you joy, keep it; if it doesn’t, let it go. Looking at the clean and organized closet gave me not just a sense of accomplishment – I felt strangely lighter, more free. That motivated me to tackle the next area. For sentimental things that I struggled to part with (I’m looking at you graphic t-shirts and kids school projects), I took photos of them, allowing me to hang on to the memories while letting go of the physical objects. Over about a year, I worked my way through the house, slowly purging us of unneeded stuff.

5. WE GOT BOLD

After discovering the lightness and freedom of a decluttered house, Lisa and I wanted that feeling in every area of our lives. We brainstormed about the kind of life we really wanted (more on that story here). That included eliminating home maintenance and living in a walkable area near our son. After multiple trips to visit him in Sacramento CA, we chose an apartment with a high walkability score. We selected only our favorite and most essential items from our books, art, mementos, clothes, and papers and moved them to the apartment via one SUV load, eleven mailed boxes, and checked airplane luggage. We hired an estate sale company who sold everything else we owned including both vehicles in one day – the house was full in the morning and empty by sundown. With the proceeds from the sale, we bought basic furnishings for our new apartment and pocketed the profit.

That’s how we did it. It took time, intentionality, and effort, but the results have been amazing! We LOVE our lives working as writers from our cozy, easy-to-clean apartment, free from home maintenance and vehicle hassle in our new walkable city. All the work to get here has been so worth it.

So how about you? Are you feeling the ITCH to declutter your home? Your life? If so, just take that next step. Get INSPIRED. Get ORGANIZED. Get STARTED. Get BOLD. If you do, you’ll find new freedom and joy as you take another step toward Becoming Yourself.