Spring Cleaning Your Life: The 5 Energy Drains to Audit Now

Spring cleaning most often brings to mind ideas about ridding of unwanted clutter, organizing closets and drawers, and freshening up spaces with new paint and decor.

And it certainly feels good to enjoy organized and refreshed spaces!

In fact, 73% of people experience mental and physical distress as a result of the overwhelm of cluttered spaces, according to a 2025 study by Nuvance Health.

Chaotic environments like messy desks and cluttered rooms overload your sensory perception, increase cortisol (a stress hormone that causes weight gain, insomnia, fatigue, and more), and contribute to feelings of anxiety and depression.

Certain aspects of life have the same adverse affects on our wellness, yet we rarely consider "spring cleaning" them!

Part of my Power Shift Method™ addresses them, by auditing where we are energized and drained by:

• People

• Thought patterns

• Commitments

• Environments

• Digital noise

Which of these recalls someone or something that adversely affects your mental or physical health?

🤔Is it a person you tolerate out of obligation?

😖Or your annoyance with yourself for your people-pleasing tendencies?

😪Perhaps you're the person who has trouble saying "no" when asked to do something.

😬Or maybe you feel anxious or uncomfortable in certain situations.

😠Or the news and social media cause anger or hopelessness to rise up within you.

Most people avoid or excuse the truth about whatever or whoever it is that drains their energy and time, primarily out of some sense of obligation or fear of consequence for noncompliance. Yet, the biggest power shift you can ever make is to apply your energy and time to that which energizes you instead.

Directing your mental and physical energy towards fulfilling and productive tasks:

💗Reduces stress

💗Maximizes productivity

💗Boosts creativity

💗Enhances mood and mental wellness

💗Increases confidence

💗Improves sleep

So, let's approach this time and energy cleanup in a way that everyone can enact right now to up level your life:

✨Select just one person, thought, habit, commitment, place, or thing to eliminate.

✨Select a different, person, thought, habit, commitment, place, or thing to reduce.

(Go with the first one that comes to mind in each category, as it will likely be the one that affects you the most.)

➡️Now, decline engagement with the person, place, or thing you have chosen to eliminate, as well as the one you've chosen to reduce.

Simply communicate, "It's no longer good for me to (insert whatever it is that you are choosing to eliminate or reduce). I appreciate your understanding."

Stop there.

You do not owe any long, drawn-out explanation; and, in most cases, you owe no explanation at all. Explanations only invite debate about your decision and often result in retraction or loosening of the boundary to prevent further conflict.

If there are questions about your decision, select one of these responses:

✅"I’ve realized this situation isn’t aligned with the direction I’m moving in anymore."

This keeps it about you—not them.

✅"I understand you may not agree, but this is what’s right for me.”

Translation: conversation over.

✅"I’m not available to keep explaining this."

That line right there? Power move.

✅"I appreciate what this was, but I need something different now.”

No blame. Still firm.

✅"This no longer works for me."

Let the silence do the rest.

If this hit deeper than you expected, it’s not by accident.

📚Read the first 2 chapters of my best-selling and award-winning debut memoir GASPING FOR AIR and see what happens when you start recognizing the patterns you’ve been living inside of, by providing your email at danasdiaz.com.

For those ready to get precise about what’s actually holding you back.

Take my Free Power Shift Diagnostic™—this isn’t a personality quiz.
It’s a 7-minute breakdown of where you’re operating out of alignment and what it’s costing you in energy, clarity, and momentum.