How to Decorate Your Apartment When You Deal With Anxiety
Living Pretty Ep10: How to Decorate Your Apartment When You Deal With Anxiety
How to decorate your apartment when you deal with anxiety… it’s a difficult conundrum! You want to be creating a calm peaceful home, but you’re also dealing with crippling anxiety that’s holding you back. You want to level up your small apartment decor, but you just don’t know where to start.
In this video, I give you 3 tips on how to break through your anxiety and finally take action on decorating your space.
If you’re looking for small apartment tips, studio apartment decor inspiration, and some thoughts on breaking through your anxiety in order to create your dream apartment, you’ll want to watch! And if you’re interested in hygge home decor and the slow living lifestyle, this video is perfect for incorporating a sense of wellbeing into your interior decor.
Watch the video now!
↓ Wanna read the episode? ↓
I’ve made some slight edits in the transcript below so that everything makes more sense in text form. But overall, this is almost a word-for-word dictation of what I say in the episode. I’m a much better writer than this, I swear, haha.
Anxiety does not control your apartment. Anxiety doesn't pay your rent. Anxiety doesn't get to decorate your space. You do.
As somebody who deals with sometimes crippling anxiety, I want to talk to you about not letting anxiety get in the way of decorating your apartment. If my anxiety-ridden ass can make my apartment into my dream space, anyone can do it.
You just have to take control. You have to breathe and you have to be gentle with yourself.
Let me paint a picture. You wake up in the morning and you start getting ready for work. It's one of those days where you have back-to-back meetings ahead of you or you're gonna be on your feet all day serving customers or you're rushing from class to class.
Whatever it is you do on a daily basis, it's just one of those days where you know, you have to buckle your seat belt for it. You know what I mean?
And as you get ready for this crazy day ahead of you, there's an added layer of stress and that is you hate your apartment. It's cluttered. It's not your style, it's oppressively unattractive and claustrophobic.
Then you go on and you have an exhausting day one of those days that pushes you to your limit, and where you had to use every possible brain cell available to you.
You return to your apartment after this long day, and it looks just how you left. It’s sad, oppressive, messy, and impersonal. It doesn't feel like your space.
You want nothing more than to just come home to a place that's inviting and pretty and warm, but you just don't have time. How do you push past this roadblock?
How do you decorate a space that's only adding to your anxiety instead of relieving it?
This predicament is so common. Allow that to comfort you - you're not alone.
You're not inadequate just because you haven't gotten your space together yet. You're very normal.
So in addition to reminding you just how normal this is, I'm gonna give you three tips to push past the anxiety and finally take productive action on your decor.
Tell me in the comments: Do you have a hard time finally decorating your space because you it just makes you anxious? It seems like such a huge undertaking that it kind of makes you not even want to bother?
And if you struggle with your interior styling and you find motivational inspirational videos like this helpful, then subscribe to my channel and hit the bell to be notified when a new episode goes up every week. Because this kind of stuff is what I'm all about.
1. Take small actions every day.
Don't put pressure on yourself to get everything done all at once. Let me tell you, that's not gonna happen. There's no way you're gonna get everything done in a day a week or a month. Just release yourself from that expectation. There's only so much one person can do and afford.
You're not on an HGTV show where you're gonna experience a big life-changing reveal from Chip and Joanna after a couple weeks.
So take small actions and celebrate those actions.
Organize your desk one day and have that be your one small action for the day. If you naturally feel fired up from organizing your desk, then continue on organizing other pieces of your space. Keep going until you feel like stopping. But start with the intention of just taking one small action and when you feel like stopping, stop. Don't beat yourself up for wanting to stop.
Then do another small action the next day. Browse Society6 for a new piece of artwork or go to the Target home decor section. Maybe you'll find something that inspires you so much that it gives you a clearer vision of what you want the rest of your apartment to look like.
Inspiration is like a domino effect in that way. Don't underestimate the power of simply seeking inspiration without expecting results.
And the best way to get inspired is to take action. And the best way to take action without being crippled with anxiety over it is to take small action.
And after one small action, you may get motivated to do a bunch of small actions in one day, and that would be great! But my point here is to just not put pressure on yourself and don't beat yourself up for moving slowly.
Anxiety will try to beat you up and convince you that you're not doing enough. Don't listen to it.
2. Start with a clean slate.
When you decide that you're ready to decorate your apartment, I recommend prioritizing decluttering and cleaning as your first series of those small actions that you take.
Trying to decorate around clutter is only going to keep you stuck in your anxiety. You won't be able to see the potential in your space, for one thing, and you'll get discouraged every time you try to get inspired.
Clutter is the killer of inspiration and the BFF of anxiety.
If you live in a small apartment and you need storage ideas, check out this video in which I talk about the storage solutions that I've been using for 12 years of small space living. That will give you some ideas on what you can do with the clutter that you want to keep.
However you do it, getting rid of clutter is the most important first step that you can take prior to decorating.
Think about what clutter does not just to your physical space but to your mental space as well. How are you supposed to feel creative and confident in your style choices when your mind is cluttered?
You need to get rid of all the obstacles that stand in your way of getting in the headspace that you need to be in to get creative. And that first obstacle for most people is clutter. Declutter your space and you'll feel a huge weight lifted.
Physically decluttering your space will make room for the pretty things and mentally decluttering will free up the space in your mind for creativity.
3. Identify your “why”.
Why decorate your apartment? Why put the effort in? Why spend all the money?
As you get into the thick of decorating, it's very easy to lose sight of why you're doing this in the first place. Losing touch with your “why” will kill your momentum and cause you to just throw up your hands and say “why bother?”
Your anxiety will start tricking you into believing that this is pointless. It'll manipulate you and make you think that you're not capable of creating a beautiful space, that you don't have “the eye”.
Your anxiety will convince you that there's no reward at the end of this. But let me tell you, there is a reward. Your anxiety is wrong. You are capable of this.
The whole mission of Moda Misfit is to get you to realize that everyone has style, including you. You may feel like you don't fit into the world of stylish living, but you do.
Style is where the misfits fit. The things that make you a misfit are the things that make you stylish. Because they're the things that make you interesting.
So let go of that limiting belief and trust that you are just as worthy of a beautiful home as anyone who lives in those pretty places that you see on Pinterest.
And cling to your “why”. Everyone has their own version as to why they decorate, but if you deal with anxiety, I know you. I know you because I am you. Anxiety and I are very well acquainted.
And as someone who deals with - and is medicated for - anxiety, I can tell you that one of the main ways that I cope with my anxiety is knowing that I get to come home to a beautiful apartment every day.
I walk into this studio after a long day, and I'm overcome with a sense of well-being and belonging that my anxiety doesn't stand a chance against
So decorating your apartment may be causing you anxiety right now, but the payoff is something that will help you deal with your anxiety in the long run.
All you can do in the meantime is take small actions, work with a clean slate, and cling to your “why”. Keep going forward with these three things in mind and trust me, all this effort you're putting in will be well worth it.
For more decor motivation and small space living inspo (and plenty of cat stuff), follow me on Instagram @moda.misfit and be sure to subscribe and hit the bell to be notified when a new episode goes up every week!