Have the home you want
Are you happy with and in your home? Fill in the questionnaire to find out what, if anything, you want to change about your home.
Download questionnaire (Right click and select "Save as/Save target as")
How did you do? Is there anything you want to change about your home? Spring cleaning your living space, whether literally or metaphorically, is something you can do at any time of year and it will make a huge difference to your sense of wellbeing.
Your home
Let’s start by looking at the place itself. If you’re not happy with the location, size, layout, etc of the place where you live, why are you still living there? When you really think about it, almost any objection you raise as to why you can’t move can be refuted. It’s just a question of priorities.
I can’t afford to move.
Is this really true? If you’re renting, the major cost involved is the actual removals 
and you can do quite a bit of that yourself, with the help of your friends. If you own your home, it’s more complicated but, if you really want to move and property prices are against you, why not let out your current place and rent somewhere else for you?
If you do your research, you may well find a treasure lurking somewhere that everyone else has overlooked or dismissed. Don’t take the media’s word for how difficult it is to find reasonably-priced property these days, get out there and have a look around.
We need to stay near my children’s school.
This is perfectly valid, if your children are thriving there – but is there honestly no other property in the catchment area that you’d be happy living in? Ask yourself also whether this really is the reason or whether you’re using it as a smokescreen.
I need to live near my mother/father/someone who depends on me.
This is a big one and may link into much bigger issues. Depending on your situation, it may be time to put yourself first and move away.
Living where you want to live is, as I say, a question of priorities. Life is too short to spend much of it living somewhere you don’t like. What is your dream home? What is stopping from you living there? If it’s not realistic for you to move there right now, you can at least start working towards it.
If it really is impossible for you to move at the moment, what changes could you make to your existing property to make it easier and more comfortable to live in? Perhaps redecoration and some new shelves would be enough to cheer you up.
Do you want to live abroad?
If your dream is to live abroad, do it! So many people wish they could live in a foreign country but never actually get round to it. You can do it. Why not? You can always come back.
I’m not saying it’s necessarily easy but I am saying it’s a very worthwhile thing to do. A few months or years of immersing yourself in a foreign culture can enrich your life immeasurably. I spent two years teaching English in Milan and it was one of the very best things I’ve ever done.
Maintaining your home
Life is about today, not tomorrow. If you’re not maintaining your home properly, this means you’re living with constant niggles and problems and chores you’re procrastinating. Change this and you’ll find a huge weight lifting from you.
If you’re always cold at home, for example, don’t just shiver on the sofa under a duvet. Insulate your loft, hang a blanket across your front door, check whether your radiators need bleeding… Don’t just live with it, fix it!
It may seem more relaxing not to bother to mend, wash or tidy things but actually it means you’re living with a constant, significant level of stress, whether you realise it or not. You owe it to yourself to look after yourself and your surroundings. When you’ve spring cleaned your home, you’ll be amazed how much lighter, stronger, freer and more capable you feel.
If you clean up regularly, it doesn’t have to take long.
Declutter your home
Clutter is one of the curses of the consumer society and the cause of enormous stress. If your home is a complete mess, it can be a daunting prospect to tidy it up but, as with every big job, it can be broken down into manageable chunks. Set yourself the target of cleaning up one room per week/fortnight (or even month if there’s a serious amount to do). Don’t be disheartened by the size of the task; focus on the positive achievements you’re making. If you keep at it and don’t let the rooms you’ve done slide back, in the end you’ll have a clutter-free, spacious, lovely home.
Something I’ve found very useful for keeping my flat uncluttered is a filing cabinet. Into this I put all my important papers and a lot of sentimental things I otherwise wouldn’t know where to keep. Theatre tickets from special shows, letters and postcards, magazine articles and newspaper clippings, beer mats… It’s amazing what will fit and it’s so much better than taking up drawer space.
Gather all the stuff you want to get rid of – unwanted presents, impulse buys that didn’t work, things you’ve grown out of/moved on from and so on – and either take it to the charity shop or sell it. I went through a phase of selling accumulated items on e-Bay and Amazon and I found it extremely satisfying. A car boot sale can be fun too. Don’t live surrounded by clutter; get it out of the house and you’ll feel so much better.
Value yourself
If you don’t make your bed every day, wash your sheets regularly, keep your plants healthy, put things away when you’ve used them and generally look after your home, you are not valuing yourself. You deserve to live in a clean, tidy, uplifting environment. If you start to give yourself that, you’ll find life starts to spiral upwards.