The 3 Versions Of You To Avoid When Sorting Out Your Home (So It Doesn’t Feel ‘Off’).

If your home feels ‘off’ but you’re not sure why, then the answer is that it’s been set up for a wrong version of you. This article looks at the 3 main versions that it could be, why this happens in the first place, and what you can do about it.

It’s a Sunday afternoon and you’ve just done a quick home reset ready for the coming week.

Everything’s been put back where it should be, things have been straightened up, and the main areas have been given a quick clean.

You definitely deserve a sit down after all that hard work and a chill out before the week starts again.

But yet, when you DO try and relax, you find yourself looking around the room, and have that feeling that it’s ‘off’ in some way.

You can’t put your finger on it – because on the surface it looks pretty good. It looks like it should. You’ve tidied up, nothing’s really wrong – and yet it’s not quite ‘right’.

Sound familiar?

You’re not alone.

It’s a common feeling I hear about time and again.

So, if you’ve ever stood in a room you’ve lived in for years and felt that specific, hard-to-name sense of distance from it, you’ll be very pleased to know that the problem almost certainly isn’t your home itself or the way you’ve tidied it.

The actual issue is usually which version of you it’s been set up for.

You see – alongside the one and only version that’s going to truly feel right for you (hint: The YOU-NOW Home™), there are three main versions of yourself that may be at play.

And if your home feels ‘off’ – even when it’s clean and tidy – you may well have set it up for one of those 3 instead of the one that would work best.

But don’t worry – once you know what version you’ve been working with, you can do something about it – and get that home that actually feels ‘right’ – asap!

Version 1 – Future-You – The ‘Aspirational Home’

This is the home that’s been built around the person you’re planning to become. The version of you that you’re aiming for.

The signs in your home will be things like:

• The craft area with all the kit – for all those things you’re going to learn to do.
• The dedicated home office with a proper filing system – where you can see yourself sitting to do all your work every day.
• The kitchen with the full set of cookware, tools and gadgets ready for all those gorgeous meals you’re going to start to do each day.
• The meditation corner for your quiet mornings where you can ease into the day.
• The reading nook for cosy Sundays and early evenings – so you can curl up and lose yourself in the stories.

Now don’t get me wrong, none of this future-you thinking is wrong. Having aspirations and goals is fantastic, it’s what drives us after all.

The problem is that all these things aren’t being used right now. You’ve set your home up for this version of you and are sort of a guest waiting to live in it properly.

Because although you want to end up being that person – your needs right now are different from those of future-you.

And when a home has been set up for someone who doesn’t exist yet, the person who does exist ends up making do in the gaps.

• You don’t use the home office, because you really prefer to work on the kitchen table.
• You’re on the sofa every evening watching TV and/or scrolling social media – that reading nook never gets a second glance. It’s actually just making you feel bad for not using it.

Real life keeps quietly overwriting the plan.

What To Do About It:

The fact is that although we have ideas of what we want our future self to look like, we don’t know for certain that’s where we’ll be.

Even the most certain future can change course with the slightest alteration to the present day.

So the best thing to do is to start small, change habits slowly and test out what you think you want before committing to it as the solution.

Set things up for the present version of you – your ‘You-Now Home™’. That’s the only sure way for it to feel right.

Tweak as life changes, bit by bit – and you may well end up in the place you thought – loving your reading nook because you started a reading habit along the way. But for now, your space should make your daily CURRENT life work well.

Future you will get her turn…

Future-you will have her own ideas about how your home should work. Set it up for the person walking through the door today.

Version 2 – Past-You – The ‘Inherited’ Home

This version is really sneaky, because it usually happens gradually and without you having really decided anything specific.

You see, at some point in the past you will have set your home up to work for you.

Maybe when you moved in. Maybe after a big sort-out a few years back. Maybe it just evolved, layer upon layer, over several key life seasons.

And then you stopped.

So, since that point, although your life has continued to change (as it always does), your home hasn’t changed with it.

• The children who needed a playroom are teenagers who now really need a family room for when friends come over.
• The commute that meant you left at seven and got back at seven every week day has been replaced by working from home three days a week – but you haven’t got anywhere that works for you to work when you’re at home.
• You don’t go to the gym anymore – but are trying to work out at home in the living room and the furniture has to be moved around every time you get started.

Over time your hobbies, needs, and routines have all shifted. But your home is still dressed for the version of your life that existed when you last properly set it up – your past-you.

In fact – your home feels slightly ‘off’ in much the same way you’d feel if you’d inherited your childhood home. Familiar, comforting – but not really ‘you’ (hence the ‘INHERITED’ home) it’s just that you’ve inherited from a previous version of yourself rather than a family member.

It’s stuck in a moment in time that doesn’t exist anymore.

And as a result, things at home just feel harder, everything needs slightly more effort than it once did – and you keep having to try and make yourself fit IT rather than making it fit you.

The inherited home is particularly common in houses where those that live in it have been in particularly busy times of life where tweaking things has been way down on the priorities and so has slid.

Maybe illness, a family emergency, a really hard time at work, a new baby etc… – they can all take us out of the norm for a time.

So now it’s time to reclaim it and tweak for our current needs. It may only be a few little things that are throwing things off kilter – or it may be bigger stuff – so the only way is to take a really good look at where you have to work harder than you used to – and then make it simple again.

You deserve it!

Your home can’t support the life you’re living today if it’s still set up for the one you were living three years ago.

Related – 7 Signs Your Home Is Still Set Up for the Person You Used to Be

Version 3 – Someone Else’s Idea Of You – The ‘Should’ Home.

The ‘should’ home is one that’s been set up around what you think your home is supposed to look like.

It’s been shaped by other people’s homes, other people’s systems, Pinterest boards, the way your mum did it, the way the interiors magazines say it should work – etc…

For example:

• The post should be filed in a proper system.
• The cleaning supplies should live under the sink.
• The dining room should be used for entertaining and eating every day.
• Rooms should look a certain way – style and layout.
• The spare room should be a guest room, not a dressing room / home office / general overflow space.

And there’s nothing fundamentally wrong with any of those influences – until they start overriding what actually works for you.

Because what if:

• The post system that works for everyone else creates more friction for you, not less?
• You genuinely enjoy eating at the kitchen island and the dining table works better as a work space?
• The guest room gets used six times a year but a dressing room would get used every single day?

A home built on ‘should’ always feels like you’re living in someone else’s house.

Because in a way, you are.

So what can you do about this one?

Be honest with yourself as to what you’re trying to fit into that doesn’t feel right. Understand that there are no hard and fast rules to follow – it’s your home and you can be unapologetically you in it.

Have some fun – and your home will start to feel right before you know it!

So if you find yourself staring at clear surfaces, straightened cushions, rooms that are perfectly presentable – but STILL feeling like it’s not working – then stop and think.

Think about the current version of you.

She is the only one who actually lives here, and so she is the one that you need to set it up for.

Ask yourself what You need, right now – and tweak accordingly.

One thing at a time, even if the tweaks are small – once things start being set up for that version of you it all makes a huge impact on how your home feels.

And going back to that Sunday afternoon? You’ll actually sit down after the weekly reset – and be able to relax properly, because it feels right. It’s built for YOU.

Bliss.

Read Next -> The Goldilocks Home: How To Find Your ‘Just Right’