Fuck diet culture. There are so many better ways you can cleanse your life & start the New Year with a fresh start that has nothing to do with dieting or shrinking your body.
This year, don’t pull out your waller & let that toxic shapewear and diet food brands starve. Instead cleanse your life in actually positive ways.
1. Delete Subscriptions You No Longer Need
The subscription model is so dang popular right now and it’s really easy to forget about all the things you have on auto-renew. Take time to go through your credit card statements from the past year to remind yourself of all the subscriptions and services you signed up for and slash anything that you actually don’t need anymore. These can be:
- Streaming services (Acorn, HBO, Disney+, etc)
- Spotify or Audible
- Meal kits & food (HelloFresh, SnapKitchen, Daily Harvest, etc)
- Beauty (Myro, Billie, FitFabFun)
- Wellness (Ritual vitamins, ashwagandha orders, etc)
- Adobe Creative Cloud (Photoshop, Illustrator, etc)
- Business tools (Tailwind, Quickbooks, Planoly, Zubtile, etc)
- Apple Cloud storage
- Sirus AM Radio
- Clothing subscriptions (Rent The Runway, etc)
- Premium Memberships (wine.com, Amazon Prime, etc)
I feel like this list could go on and on, but this is a good starting off point. I’m not suggesting you slash and burn everything (I love my Spotify premium!) but there is probably a subscription or two in there that you aren’t using to its full potential. Cleanse yourself of that excess spending!
2. Undownload Podcast Episodes, Playlist & Apps
This is one I struggle with a lot. I download podcasts and playlists all the time, but never actually remember to undownload them once I finished listening.
Right now I have over 10GB of media to remove from my Spotify downloads. YIKES!
Let’s both take time this week to go through and delete all the songs, podcasts, audiobooks we already listened to & cleanse our phone storage space. This includes apps you never use!
3. Toss Out Expired Makeup
Yes, makeup does expire!! It can literally go rancid and is so not something you want to put on your face. I’m a little ashamed to admit I didn’t know this until my mid-twenties and was instantly grossed out that I still had lipstick from my early college days in my makeup drawer.
Every brand & product expires at different rates but here’s an estimated timeline:
- Mascara: 6 months
- Nail polish: 2-3 years
- Lipstick: 3 years
- Foundation: 1 year
- Liquid Eyeliner: 6 months
- Facial Moisturizer: 1.5 years
4. Trash Expired Food
I’m talking about that can of soup in the back of your pantry that’s been there since Obama was still President. That gluten-free flour you bought just for fun, used once and is now still opened and untouched.
And even those Thanksgiving turkey leftovers in the back of your fridge. Toss it all out!! Your kitchen will literally be so much fresher after.
5. Do A Deep Clean On Your House
I LOVE our semi-annual deep cleans. They’re a pain and usually take us at least 2 solid days of cleaning and organizing, but hot dang, I always feel lighter and happier when I’m left with a decluttered apartment.
This year it felt extra great – like I was literally washing away 2020 bad vibes and riding my home of all the depression room junk & grim that built over the course of quarantine life.
I have the privilege of being able to take a whole weekend to dedicate to cleaning at once. But not everyone can (work, kids, etc.) So at the very least, set aside one day a week for the whole month to tackle a single room. That’s a great place to start your literal cleanse!
6. Deep Clean Your Car
I am SO bad at just leaving shit in our car. Hats, waterbottles, coats, sunglasses.
Combined with my husband’s habit of buying candy while grocery shopping and eating it all before he gets home & hiding the wrapper under car seats (he thinkgs I don’t know lol) our car is just gross AF. And I can’t be the only one!
PS try sprucing your car up even more with nice smells! I just got us a Pura car diffuser so we can always have good smells going.
7. Smoke Cleanse Your Space
Lastly, you can use smoke in your home to cleanse it of negative energy.
If you’re new to smoke cleansing, a great first mantra to hold in your heart as you smudge is “let hate out and love in.” but we also have a huge guide on how to cleanse your space if you want more indepth details.
8. Revamp Your Planner
The start of the year is the perfect time to evaluate how your personal and/or work planner functioned for you. Did you feel like whatever tool you used helped you feel organized and on top of things, or did you still feel all over the place?
If you feel like the way you manage all your to-do lists and goals need cleansing and makeover, try something new. I just downloaded Notion for myself after hearing about int on TikTok all year long and I think this Notion template is going to be KEY for helping me feel extra organized next year!
Even if you don’t want to use Notion, take an hour this week to clear out your notes page, Google Cal, Evernote – whatever you use and make sure all those random notes you jotted down are deleted or organized, that cal events are still helpful and everything is in tip-top shape.
9. Toss Out Those Papers
And also all those boxes (looking at you fellow millennials. You really don’t need them!) Something I was not prepared for as an adult in the digital age is just how much paper is still sent to me.
Healthcare statements, credit card statements, random paper updates on my investments and everything in between. I have a bin that we just toss everything that looks important in, but once a year we go through all that paperwork and decide what we actually need to keep on file.
If possible, we digitize it, if not we tuck it away somewhere safe. And everything else gets tossed and cleared out! Or shredded.
Our editor Taylor just bought herself a shredder to do this exact thing with personal documents. So smart!
10. Buy Something New & Functional
Most of the time, buying more stuff isn’t the answer to problems but sometimes your home is just begging for a literal refresh and cleanse. I just spent all of December organizing/decorating our dining area in our apartment kitchen so now it functions a whole lot better.
I added new shelving from Ikea (under $150!), swapped the dining table for a standing desk since my husband works from the kitchen, grabbed a new smart litter box to make chores easier for us both and I also tossed the gross old rug and got a new Ruggable one.
You don’t need to go all out and redecorate a room, but if there is an item or area in your home that is a pain in the behind, change it. You’ll start the new year feeling so much better.
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