Episode 382 – The Power of Journaling – Clear Your Mind and Find Your Focus

Lesley: Today we're chatting about journaling and how it's way more than capturing your thoughts. It can help you focus, move forward, and declutter your mind, your home, and your life. Our guest is Freddie Titcombe, co-founder of Evolve Journey and creator of the Evolve Journal, A system that combines goal setting, habit tracking, gratitude prompts, and a domino goal. It's all about clearing the mental clutter, structuring your days. Building consistency, all the things that we love here designed to get you closer to your dreams, including your dream of a clutter free home.

Ingrid: Hello and welcome listeners. I'm Ingrid.

Lesley: And I am Lesley. Now, if you are here for the very first time today, or you've been listening in for ages, we want to say a huge thank you we have a little favour to ask.

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Lesley: well, hello Freddie. Nice to see you here on the Declutter Hub Podcast. Welcome.

Freddie Titcombe: Pleasure. Thanks for, thanks for having me. Looking forward to today.

Lesley: I know. I'm really looking forward to it now. All of the things that we're gonna talk about today are things that we do within the declutter. We talk a lot about goal setting and tracking and willpower and consistency and procrastination on all the things that are part of your world. we've never really spoken specifically about journaling.

Now, I know a lot of our members do do journaling. But a lot of them won't. And so I'd love to start by going straight back to basics and go, what is journaling? Tell us.

Freddie Titcombe: Yeah, so journaling comes in. All forms. but simply put, it's basically the act of putting pen to paper, right? And you are reflecting, writing down your, your thoughts, your intended actions, your. Your experiences, often writing about your, your goals, and really capturing almost the texture of your mind in any given moment.

And there's many forms really. So you might have, free form journaling, so that could be literally a blank page and a pen. Or quite often for people, it's like the notes section on their iPhone. I don't recommend that because you're in the digital, ecosystem with all the pings, dings and distractions.

So for me, one of the advantages of journaling is that you are sort of going. Away from digital manual and you can't really be interacted and, disrupted. and then, yeah, the, the type of journaling that I am a bigger fan, fan of and have spent the sort of like last year, five years working on and, and helping people with is more of a guided system.

So, prompts that help you to make the, the journaling habit. Consistent. and it's less daunting than a, than a blank page. And then that's all, all sorts of things. So gratitude, productivity. Habit tracking, and then deeper reflections. and then people basically put pen, pen to paper each each day in an ideal world.

and then it's one of those keystone habits that seems to create a lot more consistency in people's lives because the knock on effect of writing these things down causes a lot more positive actions.

Lesley: I think there's really something about just taking a moment isn't there to reflect and to think. 'cause we can just go about our daily lives, don't we? We keep on going and going and going, but just the act of actually writing it down makes you stop and think and reflect and, and I think that's what's important.

And if you can get that into your daily life or weekly life or whatever that might be, then it's gonna start to force that habit. It just, I think it just allows you to kind of. slow down a little bit and that's really, really important, particularly in the modern world. Now, we're gonna talk a little bit later about the specifics of your journal because you kindly sent me a copy of it.

Absolutely. Love. Some of the things in there really heavily relates to a lot of the stuff that we've got going on in the Declutter Hub membership particularly as well. And so we're gonna talk about that a little bit later. But I know what the sort of keytones of your, the sort of back. Bone. The foundation really of the journal is about your four pillars, framework, isn't

Freddie Titcombe: Whatever.

Lesley: So do you wanna talk a little bit about those four pillars and, and what they are, just so that people are aware?

Freddie Titcombe: Sure. So when we started to look at putting in basically any form of goal setting, so a change in state from where you are today and a, a journey that you are, you're going on, that that naturally for us sort of started to make us think about. Happiness and the effect on happiness that us pursuing goals would have.

So quite often you, you might have a, a goal related to wealth, for example. and that could have a. A negative impact on some of your relationships or the, the, the way you spend your free time. So we, we started to think around how can we pursue goals in, in a balanced way, and. A very long story short, we, we arrived at the, the four Pillars of Happiness, and partly why we did this is because of hedonic adaptation, so that.

Simply put means that when you experience something really positive, you will have an increase in happiness, but you will return to baseline. The same with something negative. So there's a, there's a study that they did with people who won, the lottery and then also people that were, had amputations.

Of course, those are very two different ends of the spectrum. One very high, one very low. And these people, despite the highs and the lows, returned back to a baseline level of happiness. So the question for us then was, okay, so how do we raise that baseline level of happiness knowing that we are, despite whatever we do, going to return back to that baseline.

So that's where the four pillars of happiness come in, and they are health. Wealth, relationships, and freedom. And basically if you are seriously deficient in any of those areas, it's highly likely that your baseline level of happiness, the, the average level of happiness that you return to on, on a given.

Day is gonna be limited and and lower. So if you think about someone now, and, and you probably will think of examples of people who are seriously deficient in one of those areas and you can see the stress and the unhappiness on them. and then it's kind of a fun game of. Whack-a-mole. So you turn your attention to whatever the blocker is, you remove it.

So it might be that you're getting terrible sleep, which is affecting your health, energy, your mood, and affecting. Then how you show up in your relationships and everything's out of whack. You remove that blocker, you sleep better. and then on onto the next, almost, And it stops us from sort of, chasing goals that are very ambitious, but to the detriment of our overall life.

Lesley: I love the idea of, you know, everyone having a kind of a level, I suppose is what you're saying of, of where people are in their, you know, health, wealth, whatever, trying to raise that. So for some of these things, presumably if people feel like they're genuinely happy or got as much money as they want or whatever that, that might be, and I know it's not as as simple a context of having enough money, but. That you are trying to raise that over time. So there's gonna be temporary raises and then, but there's gonna be a more permanent trajectory upwards. Is that what you're saying?

Freddie Titcombe: Yeah, exactly. And the, the research on happiness is interesting because there's, there's partly, a. Genetic element and, and you'll probably think of people now, you're like, wow, that person is just always happy despite whatever's going on around them. They just seem to just be a cheery, happy-go-lucky person.

So part part of that is genetics, and then there's another part. Which is interesting because it's within our control. That is a skill that you can work on. So one of the people I've met lives in the same city as me. Bruce Hood, he works at the, the Bristol University and does a course on, on happiness with students.

and they have lots of protocols that they go through, with students. One of them is. Reflection and a regular journaling habit. and they can see in the data that when they're practicing these things that proactively work on the skills of, of happiness, then happiness is improved, improves, and they're able to raise that baseline level of happiness, but often.

People let those habits slip so the students are surveyed after they've been consistent, and then they survey the ones that, stopped all of the protocols, stopped the journaling, and then the ones that keep kept consistent with it and the data shows that. That baseline level of happiness returns back.

So it shows that it's an ongoing process to maintain something that's within your control, to raise, a baseline level of happiness, and then deal with the, the ups and downs of life that, natural and, and, and make the journey fun in and of itself.

Lesley: I mean, I think I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm persuaded already that I need to, improve my baseline of some of these things as well. And so it's just getting there, isn't it? And how we get there and how we make these consistent improvements for improvements every day or every month or whatever that might be. And I love that you. allows you then this journaling and the way that you certainly, work within your journal allows you to see that imbalance across all the different areas and work on little ones that are gonna then impact the other. So that's what you're saying. So basically by working on one that's more deficient than presumably it's gonna have a very positive impact on the other ones. So. Let's talk a little bit about consistency, 'cause consistency. Consistency is something that we bang on about the dec tub a lot. Of course, you know, these small wins, you know, do, do a little bit every day because it really does improve and we see that over time. So the same, the similar types of things, you know, you are looking at in an overall way, and then drilling down on certain goals.

Obviously we're. Typically in the kind of decluttering space where the, the big picture goal then for most people is that they want to have a decluttered home, but you've gotta break it down to get to that goal, long term. And so we're all about these, this consistency in these small wins. why do you think then that willpower is not enough to get you through?

Freddie Titcombe: Yeah, it's a, it's an interesting question. You can, there's different types of fuel source, right? There's, there's like the anger, there's the fear, there's the, I'm not good enough. There's the, the sheer motivation because you've got the shiny end goal with decluttering. It might be that you look at this office that you can't sit down on your office chair, you can't do work.

So the, the motivation is I'm gonna have that room clear and then I'm gonna have like. Peace and quiet to myself while I work at my office, which I've not had in, in years. And then, yeah, willpower almost comes in at that like final push almost of like, I'm just gonna white knuckle it and, you know, have the, the, the consistency.

Baked into myself, but it it, it's difficult to, to use that as your, as your only fuel source. So I think it's, it's about a combination of those things that I spoke about and having the motivation, the bigger why behind what you are, what you're doing, and having willpower as, as a fallback. and then.

Having systems that make you more consistent, make almost the, the positive action that you're after part of your routine. It's a habit. It's it's instinct that you are operating on. You're not having to think. So for example, if you're looking at the decluttering, piece, and that's someone's goal without a regular practice such as.

Journaling or, or being in a community of people that give accountability, it'd be quite easy for, excuses to build up in your head and, and things not not to be done. Whereas if you've got something in your environment that is triggering you to then. Take the action. So for, for us and some of the, members that are working on decluttering in our, acade Online Academy, that that first trigger point of their day is that they've got their journal on their bedside table, and then the first small action is.

Digging into the journal and then setting their intentions for the day and holding themselves accountable, and then getting a positive feedback loop when they tick off the action. releasing the dopamine, giving themselves a re reward, and then also having that sort of reflection to yourself and saying, Yeah, maybe I am actually a bit tired today and maybe I do need to focus on what is most important and what is the most high leverage, or maybe I just need to do a minimum viable effort for the day so that I can keep mo momentum and keep consistent. So maybe I'm not gonna do a whole, box of stuff.

Maybe it's just gonna be one thing that I'm gonna sort out. And you know what? I've kept the habit that I'm on, on this journey. Today and I feel good about myself regardless of the fact that, it could have been more, but yeah, it could have been a lot less. And then missing twice is almost your new habit of missing.

So you, you, you'll getting to a place where you're actually getting quite, quite far away from that, that goal, when you sort of miss twice. So yeah, big fan, fan of the, the minimum viable effort. And yeah, I hope that answers your question about will willpower. I appreciate I sort of jumped around.

Lesley: yeah, no, it's all right. No, it's great. minimum viable effort. I love that term actually. And it, it's, it's interesting 'cause I think it's recognizing that, isn't it, Freddie? You know, so. you can, you know, I'm sure you live in a world where people are beating themselves up all the time about not being good enough or not doing enough or all of those kind of things.

And I'm just fresh off, one of our success sessions. So we do for what we call success sessions in a week in the membership, which is just a. Focus time like a body double in session where people turn up and work together. And it's just always so interesting 'cause we ask people at the beginning what they wanna achieve and you know, just a couple of minutes what they, what they have achieved.

And the messaging that always comes out was, I would've never done that thing if I had not come to this. And so the structure is the thing that's. Forcing them to do difficult things. And so, you know, it's recognizing what you need for, for to, to kind of turn the dial a little bit, isn't it? So, yeah, it, it is structure and accountability.

You know, all, you know, all the things that you've mentioned. They're different for different people. So some people need a community of people. Some people need a timer, some people need to write it down. Some people need a list, you know, some people need somebody to work with. There's different things that are gonna make different people tick.

And it's all about. That self-awareness, which I guess is where your journal comes in, where your academy comes in. we're gonna pop to a break, Freddie and I wanna know a little bit about, a little bit more about you, 'cause you've got an interesting backstory to this. So it's not just you in the evolve, and journal and all of the infrastructure. you, you do this with your brother. So I wanna know a little bit more about that and I wanna know a little bit more about the Evolve Journal specifically. So we'll go to a break now and we'll pop back in a minute and find out a little bit more about Freddie.

So welcome back everybody. We are here talking to Freddie Titcombe from Evolve All about journaling, which is really interesting and, and how it all fits in within your decluttering journey. but before we dig into the evolve journal, which Freddie, is the co-founder of, I wanna talk about your, your journey then. 'cause this is an interesting one 'cause you do this with your brother, which is lovely. Is it lovely? I dunno, is it lovely? I'm an only child so I dunno, but I imagine that it's lovely right?

Freddie Titcombe: Yeah. Yeah, it is lovely. we, we stopped fighting when we both got so big that it was causing serious harm. And then ever since then, it's been, been very chill. So, it's, it's served a great purpose of keeping us close and connected and it's, it's awesome to share a growth journey with someone that you grew up with, your brother, and gives us a good reason to be chatting every day, which is cool.

Lesley: So when did you start doing this and thinking about it? 'cause it's an unusual thing, both young guys. Presumably you've been doing this quite a while, so what suddenly made you want to move into this kind of space together?

Freddie Titcombe: Yeah, it was, it was 2019 and a little thing COVID was, was about, and all of a sudden we weren't able to see each other, which, which sucked. So not wanting to basically just. Sit there and do nothing within our control to try and, make a dent in the, in the world. We were like, let's, let's go into business.

It'd be cool. We can like keep in contact. I was working in e-commerce logistics at the time. He was working in e-commerce marketing, so we were like, right, let's do it. E-commerce business. The first, yeah. Ideas, iterations of that were like crass money making schemes. And they, yeah, they, they just really weren't us.

It's not something that, we were gonna be lit up enough to, to pursue. 'cause you know, growing business is really hard. I'm not saying that everyone needs to follow their passions in business, but for us, we wanted to do something that would, Make a meaningful difference to not just our ourselves through the growth journey of the business, but for for other people.

and during this process, we basically had both independently started journaling, and realized how effective it was and that then. Over time became the thing. And especially when we noticed that out there on the market, there really wasn't anything that spoke to us. the only options were sort of cringy, airy, fairy, sort of repetitive journals that we felt didn't actually put much care and attention to it.

They were very, That's the way of saying it. They were, they were quite isolated in their approach. So it would be like three things I'm grateful for every single day and then that's it. And we thought, we could come up with an approach that is more holistic, so takes into consideration that, that happiness piece that we spoke about earlier.

but then also the mindset and the philosophy around. Enjoying life and going on a, on a self-improvement journey. So really taking that, that balanced approach to help people enjoy the journey for, to want for more, but to also appreciate what they've got, which is. a little bit of paradoxical at times.

so this, these, this stuff just comes with a crazy amount of nuance. So, yeah, since since 2019, we've just been learning from our customers. Been lucky enough to sell thousands of journals and, and have lots of people join our, our. Community of journalists and learn from their feedback and continuously improve.

And, yeah, I think at the time of recording we're, yeah, one month away from like the latest version of the journal coming out, which, we're really excited about.

Lesley: Well, I mean, as I say, I received a copy. I absolutely love it. It's my daughter's birthday coming up, so she's getting a copy of it. She will absolutely love it. so yeah, it's exciting. So I wanna talk a little bit more, 'cause I, I've, I've looked at it. I'm not a journaler, but I'm hoping to be. So shall I wait till 2026?

What do you think? Tell me, something that we should

Freddie Titcombe: Absolutely not. No. No. Absolutely not. While I love that, we've become the, the most popular thing in, in January when everyone's doing their goal setting, that is great, but. What is a continuous frustration for us is that people, put things off. It'll be, oh, well, I'll start next quarter, or, oh, no, yeah, next month, clean break, and then it comes around and then nothing happens.

So the best, the best time to start is. 10 31 on a Tuesday, because that's right. Do you know what I mean? It just, make a start and then you'll be able to take advantage of that incremental gains that we spoke about earlier, that compounding, that getting 1% better each day, that doing, doing, an action that's that's positive, that's helping your, your future self.

And then by January 1st, if you start now, you'll be thankful of all the progress you made.

Lesley: You speaking my language, Fred, because it's exactly the same in the decluttering world. 'cause everyone's gonna wait now and go, oh, you know, I'll just have a little breather until January, then I'll start again. And we're like, no, do it now. Carry on and carry on. Or start today, start on the 14th of December.

That's also fine as well. Do you know what I mean? So, but anyway, I digress. Let. Talk about some of the journal features, 'cause it really has been, there's a lot of thought and care going into this journal. As you say, you've allowed for nuance, you've allowed for flexibility. You've not gone through it for a rigid format, which I absolutely love and there's lots of different things in there for different people. But I wanna start with, you know, something that you call the domino goal, which we would typically call the big picture goal. in our world, that's the terminology that we use. Talk a little bit about how you get to your domino goal.

Freddie Titcombe: Yeah, sure. So the, the domino goal is, is the main mission. So it's the, the one goal that you're focusing on that will be building towards your, your ideal vision of the future. so it, you might have a very specific five-year goal, or you might have a vague understanding of. This is the kind of life that I want to be living.

I want to have peace of mind. I wanna spend time with friends. I want to still be doing all of this fun stuff that I'm doing at the moment. and. You might have a domino goal that builds towards that. So, by knocking out down that domino goal, it's the, the first in a, in a chain and you're working towards that, that ideal future.

and basically how we get to it is done in the beginning of the, the journal. So we go through a series of exercises. Before we arrive at that, that domino goal. Part of that is, mapping out your ideal life five years from now, six months from now, writing a

Lesley: a.

Freddie Titcombe: bucket list as well, which is something that most people know the term, but very few people have actually sat down and set a timer for 15 minutes and just.

Written down everything that comes to mind without stopping. and then this gives you an idea of the things that light you up that you're excited about, that if you do, we will create memory dividends in your life and build experiences. and we also do something a little bit different with that in the journal, in that it's a, Time bucket list. So each of the actions go into, say, the next five years or the next 10 years. and that's to, to make sure that if it's important in your, bucket list, you, you mentioned one when we were, when we were starting of you going on holiday. maybe you wanna do that in the next five years because you're not gonna enjoy the, the hike that you would go on there if you do it in the next 20 years.

As a, as a, an example. And then one final exercise that we do as well before we get to the domino goal is, an exercise from Tim Ferris called, fear Setting, which is basically, Eliminating all of the reasons why you shouldn't take, action, and come into to a rational decision whether you should proceed or not.

So you would build out like the worst case scenario of, pursuing the goal and you would create a, a plan to mitigate. any of the bad stuff that could happen, and then see the cost of inaction and then it, it helps you to, to take action. So all of that is in the discovery course in the beginning of the journal, and you'll come, come away with that reflection with your, your main domino goal, and then that's something that you'll work on, with the daily system within the journal, each day.

Taking small, consistent action to, to get you closer to achieving that domino goal. Hopefully by the end of the six months or if not sooner.

Lesley: A couple of things I absolutely love in that actually it's, it is interesting 'cause over, over, you know, it was older people as we think about things. So a bucket list back in the day, as I say, used to be kind of a list of things that you wanted to do before you died. Basically. That was like what the, the co. It was things that were way off ahead that you thought, oh, that, that would be really nice to do that. Whereas now, you know, I've got younger kids and everything like that, and I see that, oh, that's on my bucket list, which is kind of just like, well, it's not really a bucket list, is it? 'cause you're gonna do it in the next year.

But I love the idea of then. Now a bucket list quite right. So, 'cause why would we wait for 20, 30 years to do these things? We need to be executing on these things already and we need to try and put the steps in place to make sure that they happen. So I prefer the modern day version of a bucket list than the older one. even though it takes some of us a little bit longer to kind of catch up with that. But yeah, I think it's, it's interesting. And also the idea that you go through that fear setting exercise to make that a reality because it will be those fears that are stopping people from executing on that bucket list item that they want to do, whatever that is, whether it's a holiday and there are millions of different bucket list type items, right? So I think that's a very, very important step. And so it's good that you cover that to get there. 'cause otherwise it's just an arbitrary list of wishes. A list of wishes is never gonna get anything without some action and some sort of backup to that. Is it So really, really good. So you've got this sort of domino, big picture goal, whatever, and then we need to go, it is about breaking it down into these smaller steps.

So then you go into the sort of more daily part of the journal. And one of the things that I loved about it actually was the fact that you don't go for a sort of day. It is daily, but it's not, if you skip days, it's fine. Right.

Freddie Titcombe: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. So each page is, is undated and, you know, real, real life happens and, and actually sometimes, it's best not to be journaling and to, to have a little break like you might be on holiday. And you don't necessarily need to be writing anything down about being productive. Yes. You might wanna write down almost like a, like a diary entry to capture all the things you're grateful for and the, the highlight of the day to, to capture those.

Memories and to really exaggerate all the, all the good feelings. But absolutely, like personally, if I'm on holiday, I, I don't bring my journal, but what I do is I make sure that that journal is so smack bang in my face when I get home that I'm straight back into that habit of, of journaling. and then, yeah, so quite often you can, you can miss a day here or there, and then the, the great thing is that you can just pick it back up, where you're left off.

Lesley: I think that's really important. 'cause again, you know, we're, we're definitely in a community where people are constantly berating themselves for, for not being good enough in certain things. Whether that's decluttering, whether that's managing life, all of those kind of things. And so to give yourself that little bit of breathing space is so important for that thought.

'cause otherwise you'll just give up. And so it's important to allow that flexibility to happen. And if you've got a journal that's like, oh, well I didn't do that for a couple of days, and so. Like, what's the point kind of thing. Really, really important now, within the daily sections, within the daily sort of element to the, the journal. You know, there's things in the, there's, you've got like seven or eight different types of things that people will reflect on on a daily, weekly, monthly basis. me your two favorites. Have you got two favorites that you think are real game changers in the journal?

Freddie Titcombe: Yeah, my two, two favorites and big hitters are, firstly why I'm smiling. So that's our approach to, to gratitude. So instead of. Give me three things you're grateful for, or what am I grateful for in that like re repetition there, we kind of reframed it into why I am smiling. So it's, it's even in your darkest hour and you can have like the worst day and then you force yourself to find something to, to smile about.

So it as. As animal creatures, we sort of evolved to be pessimistic and you were rewarded for, being very cynical of things that Russell in the, in the bush. being complacent and being like, it's just the wind. that. Didn't pay off back, back in the, the very early days of human existence. So, that still carries with us to, to today and people have this natural lean towards pessimism.

So having why I'm smiling and having that daily consistent practice. Almost like, you know, you would physically train your body, your, your, you're training your, your mind, your brain and reconditioning it to be more optimistic, to focus on the things that you have rather than the things that you lack.

So just for your felt experience day to day. Why I'm smiling, has got to be one. And then the other one I would say is Eat the Frog. so that is just such a powerful, productivity, method. It really helps you to focus in on, like the 80 20, the PR principle. So you're focusing on the thing that is the most high leverage.

So it comes from. A quote from, mark Twain, where it's basically like, if your job is to, to eat a frog, make sure you, you eat the biggest one first, the ugliest one first, whatever. So it's taking a look at your day, either reflecting in the evening and looking to tomorrow or first thing in the morning and saying, you know, what is.

The thing that is gonna have the highest impact for me, that if I just do that alone today, then the day is a success. And quite often what people use that section for is something where there's a bit of an ugly task, where there's a bit of friction and resistance to work towards the task, but it needs to be done.

So they'll put that as they eat the frog, and then they'll feel really good about themselves for completing that. And essentially it means that. Again, if you do just that and that thing alone in, in the day, then you know you're moving, making progress. And the nice thing is that you can link that up to, to your, your bigger goal.

So the, the domino that you are working on, you can have a frog that directly links towards that, and then each day you're chipping away at your, at your goal.

Lesley: Yeah. And it, and it is just that, that allowing yourself, that chance to think about what those things might be, I think, isn't it? You know, you talk about the what's my, why I am smiling, which I love. Of course. And we do something in the Facebook group. We've got quite a big Facebook group, Freddie, and, we do something called Thankful Thursday. so we only do it once a week. And, and it's something that I really love reading every week. 'cause the, the answers are so different. So we might get 20 or 30 people talking in the Facebook group about what they're thankful for. And it's so diverse from something really simple to something way more complex.

You know what I mean? And it's just that reflection, as you say, to move towards a more optimist, optimistic way of thinking. we need. To be reminded to do that, we need to be reminded that there are good things going on as like, you know, life's tough out there at the moment and it's just like, yeah, what is good about today?

Actually there was something good about today and that's what that was. And so I think that's absolutely fantastic and there are so many more things in there. Obviously you've got your task list, your habit trackers, questions, all, you know, what you're thinking about today. Highlights, all of those kind of things.

There's so much in the journal. Absolutely love it. But our podcast is coming for close Freddie. We could talk about journaling all day. 'cause it's just, I just find it such a positive thing and I, you know, I really would encourage anybody within our communities to really think about, you know, looking at Freddie's Journal, look at journaling in general, you know, just. Think about taking a moment to ponder about your life, where it is today, what you're grateful for, where you want to get, get to within, as Freddie said, within the next month, within the next year, within five years, 10 years, 20 years, whatever that might be, allow yourself that time to ponder. That's what this is all about.

And it's so important to give yourself that positive frame, frame of mind and that to take you forward in your decluttering journey. And in other areas of your life, and we all know that, declutter in your home allows space for all these other things. You know, we're talking about health and wealth and happiness and all those kind of things of freedom, you know. We need a decluttered home to allow for those things to happen. The space opens up. We've seen it so many times. We are not here to just let you declutter your home and put stuff in a BIM bag and cart it out. We're here 'cause we want you to enjoy the things that life can offer you. And if you feel consumed by your home, then that's very, very difficult to do sometimes. So we would urge you to take a moment to do that reflection 'cause that will be a positive step in your decluttering journey. Just wanted to say that bit Freddie, before we go on. So, One of the other things, just before we go actually, is that we, for anybody that doesn't know in the MD called hub membership, we've always done goal setting, right?

Which is, we've always, every month we've asked people to write down their goals and things like that, and we just decided, you know, some of it was chatting to you Friday. Some of these other things that we were like, we need to do more goal setting. We need to bring that to life a little bit more with the community that we've got in there. So we are introducing in 2026. I know we shouldn't wait until 2026, Fred, but we're busy and we, we are gonna wait until 2026. Maybe we should start it in December. we're gonna do live sessions every month called Monthly Momentum Sessions where we will goal set. Reflect together and plan, which will be absolutely fantastic.

We're very excited to bring that in.

So we will pop all of the links into the show notes. If you want an easy link to remember, it's declutterhub.com/evolve and that will take you to their, their main website where you can find everything. So do take a look at that. And I just wanted to finish really Freddie by saying, you know, it's, so nice to have these conversations with, with all the business owners who are in this kind of space of. But trying to help people to improve their lives. How lucky are we to be part of people's journeys of change? You know, every day. You know, and it sometimes it's hard. We talk about e-commerce and we we're worried about, I'm sure you've been knee deep in worrying about the design of your journal and getting it to print and all that kind of jazz, and all the things that you have to do every day. Sometimes, you know, you just get one email in about how something has changed based on something that we have done, something we have said some, something that we have encouraged them to do and we really are lucky to be in this space, aren't we? Of self-improvement and really trying to make a difference to people's lives.

Do you feel that as well,

Freddie Titcombe: Yeah, exactly. Those are, those are some of the highlights, that, that we experience in the business. It would be that, that message saying that they, they're literally writing this message looking at a tower of other journals that they bought, and they are just gathering dust, and this is the first time, and they're writing this message as they've completed six months every day without missing a day.

And you're like. Those messages just do really, really light you up and like you say, it is a, a hard. Journey growing, a business and it's sort of like to, to get to one success, you, you need to like churn through 99 failures, which can be, brutal. But it's the, those successes, those wins, those, yeah.

Interactions with people in the community, letting, letting us know that what we're doing is, is having a positive impact on them that keep us, keep us going.

Lesley: That's definitely our version of what, why I'm smiling today, I think, isn't it Freddie? So

Freddie Titcombe: Mm-hmm.

Lesley: we wanna thank Freddie for being here. It's, it is so interesting to listen to his journey, to listen about his journal, his journey, and his journal. interesting to learn about how journaling can really have an impact on, on life. So why don't you this weekend, just have a think about it and go. one section. You'll pick one thing Why I'm smiling. There's a great example of that. Think about yourself. Why are you smiling today? Write it down. Go to our thankful Thursday thread next Thursday and go, why am I smiling? And share that with us.

'cause it's really important to see what other people are smiling about as these, these reminders of what's good about wife in amongst all of the hard stuff that we have to endure. So thank you so much everybody for listening. We're really grateful for be for You Being here. We will see you all this time next week.

Thanks very much, Freddie, and see you all listeners