All About The Joy
All About The Joy is a weekly hang-out with friends in the neighborhood! We share insight, advice, funny-isms and we choose to always try and find the positive, the silver lining, the "light" in all of it. AATJ comes from the simple concept that at the end of the day we all want to have more JOY than not. So, this is a cool place to unwind, have a laugh and share some time with friends!
All About The Joy
Small Habits, Big Wins: Organization Tips That Actually Work
Have you ever felt inadequate because your approach to organization doesn't match someone else's perfectly color-coded calendar? You're not alone—and you're not doing anything wrong.
Carmen opens up about her own highly organized tendencies while emphasizing a revolutionary idea: your authentic self is the perfect foundation for any positive change. Whether you make your bed daily or embrace a more spontaneous approach to life, your unique methods aren't flawed—they're simply yours. The key to meaningful change isn't in dramatic transformations but in small, sustainable adjustments that honor who you truly are.
Drawing from personal experiences—from her dancing career to her journey quitting smoking—Carmen shares practical wisdom about incremental change. Rather than setting ourselves up for failure with overwhelming goals, she suggests simple strategies: park farther from store entrances, take stairs instead of elevators when possible, or commit to just three days of a new habit. These minor adjustments don't disrupt your life but gradually build toward lasting improvements. The timeline for habit formation varies widely between individuals, so patience and persistence matter more than speed.
Most importantly, remember that you are "uniquely brilliant" exactly as you are. Everyone struggles with something, and the path to improvement isn't about fixing perceived flaws but enhancing your existing gifts. As Carmen beautifully reminds us, "You're not here by mistake. You're here on purpose." From this foundation of self-acceptance, every small step forward becomes a celebration rather than an obligation. Join us live on Friday nights at 6pm Pacific/9pm Eastern, and don't miss our Sunday interviews and discussions!
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Music By Geovane Bruno, Moments, 3481
Editing by Team A-J
Host, Carmen Lezeth
DISCLAIMER: As always, please do your own research and understand that the opinions in this podcast and livestream are meant for entertainment purposes only. States and other areas may have different rules and regulations governing certain aspects discussed in this podcast. Nothing in our podcast or livestream is meant to be medical or legal advice. Please use common sense, and when in doubt, ask a professional for advice, assistance, help and guidance.
Hi everyone, welcome to All About the Joy. This is Carmen Talk. A few weeks ago we went through kind of a mailbag and I was telling Rick and Cynthia kind of a mailbag and I was telling Rick and Cynthia some of the things that people were asking questions about or commenting. And I do get quite a bit of mail. Some of it is not good when I say mail I mean emails but some of it is actually asking questions and although I try to answer them, what I realize is maybe some of this information is something that might help other people. So one of the questions and I'm just going to do this in little bits because I think it might be helpful, and if it's not, that's okay too but in this episode what I want to talk about is how do you become more organized? Look it, I'm going to say this and I'm going to say it from like the bottom of my heart I am overly organized. I have a calendar which is color-coded and is pretty much detailed throughout the day, and if somebody were to look at that they'd be like oh my God, carmen is crazy, which is kind of true, but it is who I am.
Carmen Lezeth:I have always been very organized. I am one of those people that, since I was a little kid, I make my bed every single day. Even to this day, even if no one is going to be coming into my home, my apartment is always in perfect condition. It's always perfectly organized. The reason why I'm stressing this so much is because there are bad parts to that too. Although I do like spontaneity, I'm not really someone who, like I, don't really love it is what my point is. I mean, I can be spontaneous, but I really do have things really organized. So the reason why I'm sharing this with all of you is just because you're not organized like somebody else, or just because you're not like someone else doesn't mean the way in which you do things is bad. Does that make sense? So if you don't make your bed every day and you don't have a color-coded calendar that has every single minute of your day outlined, that's okay. There is nothing wrong for you being your absolute best, being your authentic self. So don't get it twisted right. Don't get it confused that somehow, because you don't do something the way someone else does it, you're doing it wrong. Actually, I would say that's not the problem at all.
Carmen Lezeth:I'm going to give you some tips on how to maybe incorporate things into your life that you're not doing right now. That will be easy for you, but what I really want to stress and what's really important, is authenticity and that who you are is perfect, exactly the way you are. What we all want to do is just get better, right? I want to be better about being more spontaneous. I want to be better about maybe not having to make my bed every morning because, you know, I don't know. See, I still don't think there's a reason not to do that, because you know I don't know, see, I still don't think there's a reason not to do that. But I'm just saying we all can improve, but within our own way in which we do things, not to change who we are, but to make ourselves better human beings, which I think, kind of, is the point right. So here's the thing, the way you can incorporate.
Carmen Lezeth:So this specific email that somebody sent me was they want to start working out and they know that in the past I've done marathons and 10Ks and mud runs, and after I couldn't dance for a long time once I realized that my dancing quote unquote career was over. I had to make some changes and one of those changes was I ended up going to college, even though I never had any intention of going to college or even thought about it. But you know that was the trajectory and I had hurt my hip and it got really bad. And so when I went to college, I met someone on campus and she used to run all the time and she was like, carmen, you could do it. And you know I couldn't run at all, but I, oh, it always stayed in the back of my head so I would do these long walks and little by little, I started running.
Carmen Lezeth:So my working out situation, the reason why I got so into working out on a regular basis was because I had always worked out as a kid. Whether I was dancing, you know, whether I was performing in Color Garden Drum Corps, whether I was, you know, part of Batutera or whatever it is like, whatever we want to talk about, I was always doing something that was about movement and body and whatever. So the idea that I would ever stop, that is really, really hard. The idea that I would ever stop, that is really, really hard. And I gravitated towards running, not because I love it, but because it was a way in which I could keep working out. Okay, so I, how do you get into exercising if you haven't been doing it, if you weren't brought up as a dancer or an athletic person? How do you do that? Because we all want to be healthy. Right, it's a tough one. Here's what I would suggest. Number one not everyone needs to be a runner and, like I just mentioned, I hated running. I still hate running.
Carmen Lezeth:So think about what it is you want to do. There are so many different ways in which you can work out if that's your goal, but this is really about incorporating anything you want to start doing in your life. So this is the way you do it. You don't turn around and start color coding your calendar and doing every single day of how you're going to spend your minute, because you will fail. I promise you. You will fail because we can't change the trajectory of who we are quickly.
Carmen Lezeth:It takes time, and I think there's some statistic, and I'm not sure how actual this is, but there's something about it taking 21 days for you to develop a habit. So, if it takes 21 days for you to develop a habit, what I would say is because I don't know if that's really true, I don't know if it takes me 21 days. It might actually take me longer. On some things it might take like, for example, I used to smoke, which I know people find that to be weird but it did not take me 21 days to stop smoking. It took me not being around people who smoked and it, you know, it was me moving. I didn't move to California because I wanted to stop smoking, but the fact that I moved here and didn't know anybody was really helpful because all the people I hung around with so that wasn't 21 days right To break a habit, to develop a new habit, because I like to see the positives, not the negatives right. So what I would say is, regardless of whatever that statistic is because you are a unique individual it might take you three days, it might just take you three days, it might take you two months, it doesn't matter. It's all about the intention and the try, and every time you fail, you've got to get right back up. So that's the trick Doesn't matter how many times you fail, as long as you keep getting up and starting over again and I'm saying that more for me than any of you right now, but that is really true. Okay, so here's what you do If you want to start working out and you don't have time.
Carmen Lezeth:Because here's the thing People think about exercising it's like I have to drive to the gym, so I have to get my bag together, I have to drive to the gym, I have to be at the gym for at least an hour, get on the treadmill, do weights blah, blah, blah, whatever. Take the yoga class blah, blah, blah, whatever. And then I have to get back in my car, go back home, get dressed and go to work. That's a lot of time. That's a lot of time, and I have to tell you it's not necessary. It's not necessary, not at the beginning of this process at all. You want to get to the place where you're so excited to go to the gym and spend all that time that you do it not because you have to, but because it's become part of your ethos, right, it becomes part of who you is and who you are. So what? I would say? The way to start this really simple incorporate it into your everyday life already, where you're only adjusting a few minutes of things a day. So this is how I would tell you to start.
Carmen Lezeth:Okay, when you go to the grocery store to buy food, do not park as close as you can to the doors of the grocery store. I know this is going to sound so obvious, but I'm telling you this will help you. Okay, park as far away as possible. No more drive-thrus. If you're going to go to a drive-thru to pick up your coffee no more drive-thrus. You need to park and walk to your Starbucks. Or. I'm not promoting Starbucks. I don't go to Starbucks. I know nothing about Starbucks. I'm just I know people do this. They go through the drive-thru. So, whatever coffee shop you go to, no more of that. You know you park your car and you walk into the area.
Carmen Lezeth:Do little things like that. If you have company parking and it's really close to where you start, parking in the public visitor parking park, somewhere far away before you go into work. If you're going to the doctor's office, all of the places where you can walk more often do that. Here's a big one that I do all the time. I've been doing it forever.
Carmen Lezeth:Do not take escalators anymore. Do not take elevators. Now, don't be ridiculous, I don't want to get the emails. Well, I can't go up 18 flights of stairs or whatever. Okay, no one's saying that. Okay, no one is saying you need to do that, but what you can do is go up four flights of stairs, or three flights of stairs, and then take the elevator from there.
Carmen Lezeth:Right, what you want to start doing is incorporating exercise into your everyday life in minutes, in little minutes, instead of trying to do three hours of a chunk of a day before you go to work or after you go to work. I would say that would be the better way to do it. Let me tell you something I never take an elevator. I mean, again, I live in Los Angeles, so we don't have a lot. I mean we do in downtown LA, but there's not a lot of buildings that are over five or six floors where I live or where I am in. So me walking upstairs is a really good thing and I'll take the elevator down because, you know, going downstairs kind of scares me a bit, especially, you know, if you have knee issues or hip issues, like I do, you want to be careful. But even now when I go to do exercising, I don't run anymore, right, I actually go for a nice walk and then I go up the stairs here in Santa Monica and I go down the stairs or down a ramp and then up the stairs again, and I do them slowly and with intention.
Carmen Lezeth:These are simple ways in which you can start incorporating moments and getting more organized and getting involved with working out a little bit. If you want to try to put time aside for yourself to either work out or have what I call me time, you can do that too. You can do that too. It can be something. Just do one thing and say I'm going to commit to this for the next three days.
Carmen Lezeth:Don't make it a week, don't make it 15 days, and do it like a Friday, saturday and Sunday, when you know you'll be able to accomplish that change in your schedule. Right, turn around and say to yourself okay, I am going to get up, I'm going to have my coffee and then, from 8 to 8.30 or 8 to 8.20, I'm going to take a walk around the block, or from 8 to 8.30, I'm going to walk on my treadmill or whatever it is you have, you know. Or maybe you're going to decide that when you get up from 8 to 8.30, you know, after you have your coffee or whatever, and it's a Saturday morning or whatever you're going to just sit and be, take that time to be all about you and think about what it is you want to do for the rest of the week, intentionally, without your cell phone, without the TV on, without anybody interrupting you. These are the ways in which you can become more quote unquote organized when you start doing things with intention and doing them in little bits and pieces and not trying to change your entire existence because you think somebody else is doing it better than you, because you are so unique. We are all such unique individuals and what we don't realize, what we don't seem to grasp on a regular basis, is everybody is struggling through something. We're all trying to walk through life as best we can, and even if you think I'm doing something better than somebody else's, I'm over here thinking you're doing something better than I'm doing. You know what I mean. We're all trying to be our best selves and you have to be able to sit with that for a minute and understand how uniquely beautiful and amazing and brilliant you are, just to be here. You see what I'm saying. So don't okay. So let's summarize. Let's summarize a little bit. Stop knocking yourself down as if you're not doing something great and brilliant, just by existing because you are, whatever your situation is in your life, that is your journey. That is the journey that you are on. You have choices, whether you believe it or not, you have choices to make in order for your life to be the way in which you want it to be. And the way your life is right now is because you have chosen to be in it. It might be too scary to move on, it might be a responsibility you have that you can't move on, or you can't move through it, but again, it's still a choice. Okay, there are choices and with those choices, within those choices, you can still make the changes you want to make in order to be your best self. Do them incrementally. Do them in tiny, small ways. Don't try to change everything overnight, because I have to tell you ways. Don't try to change everything overnight, because I have to tell you that's how you fail when we try to be somebody we're not.
Carmen Lezeth:And changing something like me quitting smoking, that took time and it took a big change and it took a lot of effort and it took a lot of different things, little bits and pieces. You know it's so funny because I came out here and I remember being like all right, I'm going to quit smoking, I'm just going to do it, and I was like, okay, after this pack of cigarettes I would do that. But I have to say one of the things that was interesting was they didn't have anybody to smoke with, so it wasn't a social thing anymore. Now I also understand that there's also a psychological thing. I started not liking the smell of it because I was near the beach all the time and I loved the smell of the beach and that's a huge change. But it took me quite a while to do it. I went through a whole bunch of iterations of how to quit. Everything takes time. But here's the thing Once you do it incrementally, little by little, like one change I made was I'm not buying any more cigarettes, so I'd have to ask someone, which helped.
Carmen Lezeth:You know what I mean. Like I didn't really want to ask somebody for a cigarette at all, especially because I didn't know many people here, you know. But it also was a social thing, because if you ask somebody for a cigarette then you would talk to them and I honestly didn't want to talk to most people. I mean I did when I came out here, you know, just meeting people and stuff. But my point is, I did it incrementally, little by little, and there were a lot of things that happened along the way that made it easier for me to quit. And then I was done. I was done, it was finished. I didn't even notice because I did it in such small steps and in little, tiny ways, because my goal was to not smoke anymore and I was going to do it in such a way that I would never pick up a cigarette again. And I haven't, and I'm one of those people. I hate the smell of cigarettes.
Carmen Lezeth:So so, be kind to yourself, love who you are. Be a person who understands that you are uniquely, brilliant and authentically who you're supposed to be, even in this moment, no matter what is going on in your life right now, no matter how tragic, how horrible, how sad, no matter what your health issue is, no matter what you think is going on in your life. This is exactly where you're supposed to start from right, here, in this moment and this time. And you got this. You got this. Whatever that next step is for you, you got this Right. And remember you are lovely, you are beautiful, you're supposed to be here. We're excited that you're here, we love that you're here and we're so excited to see who you are in the world, because we're all social beings. We want to know who you are, because you have grace and talent and you have skills and things to teach all of us skills and things to teach all of us.
Carmen Lezeth:No matter if you think you don't, you're not here by mistake. You're here on purpose, and so we all do these little things to tweak who we are, to kind of do the things that we're supposed to be doing. So if your idea of wanting to work out or getting more organized is something that you think is going to make you a better person, then you do that, and you do it incrementally, you do it little by little, you do it in pieces and then it becomes sustainable. So make a commitment for three days, just three days, and see how that works for you. Three days, 15 minutes, making changes while you're walking or going to work or driving or going to certain places, parking farther away, walking along and seeing if that helps.
Carmen Lezeth:If you have like something that measures your steps, you can also use your phone. That might help too, because that might inspire you and this whole idea of having to do 10,000 steps. Get that out of your head. Somebody made that up as a marketing tool. That is not true. If you did more steps today than you did yesterday, that's the goal. You know what I mean? Even if it's two steps more, okay, the goal is to get yourself active and to get yourself to a place. So stop listening to all the noise. Let's get all the noise out of there and let's just be our best selves every single day, doing the best we can in the way in which we can do it. I hope that helps.
Carmen Lezeth:Thanks everyone. I really appreciate you being here. I'm going to have more Carmen Talks and remember, we're always live on Friday Night Lives at 6 pm Pacific, 9 pm Eastern. We're always here on Sundays, usually with a great interview or a topic that we're discussing. We're also going to have Carmen Talks and we're going to be adding another show in the fall. So I'll talk about that later when there's more time. But remember, at the end of the day, it really is all about the joy. Bye everyone, thanks for stopping by. All About the Joy. Be better and stay beautiful folks, have a sweet day.
