I cannot even tell you how many clients I have worked with through the years who have unrealistic expectations about what they can read. One of the biggest culprits of self-defeating habits is magazine subscriptions! They seem to be a common source for making women feel like they will never have enough time.
A few months ago, I was working with a client. I asked her how many magazine subscriptions she had, and she said, “About 5.” As we went through sorting her magazines, we discovered she had 15 magazines subscriptions! This was a client who owned her own business and had three children. You do not need to know much more about her life to know she probably did not have enough bandwidth to keep up with 2 magazines a month, let alone 15!
Through our work together, she was able to realize she was supporting some self-defeating habits and unrealistic expectations for herself. She was able to let go of the 15 magazine subscriptions along with the guilt that came from not having time to read them!
I challenge you this week to count how many magazine subscriptions you have and answer these questions:
- Do you regularly have time to read each magazine, each month?
- Do you feel guilty when you don’t get a chance to read one of your subscriptions?
- Do you feel bad if you toss a magazine you had not yet read?
- Do you often forget which months you have read and which you have not read, resulting in the need to keep them all?
By taking the time to do this exercise you will be able to tell if you are practicing self-defeating habits or not!
Related
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This is helpful advice both on the source of a common clutter problem and unrealistic expectations. I have only heard that magazines need to be tossed after x number of months or the one in and one out principle of a magazine rack. But you address why we hang on to them and how to evaluate when we have signed up for too much. This applies to much more than magazines, so thank you. You should repost links on FB for some of these older articles (hidden gems) to highlight some of the articles where you’ve received comments of success and impacted lives. Sort of a Throwback Thursday to reflect on time tested advice and wisdom gained over the years.
WOW, thank you, Heidi! This is so encouraging!! We are thrilled with our new website and we’re taking the time to revitalize our blog so your comments are perfectly timed and make this massive effort worthwhile!
Vicki