Spring Cleaning Your Mind

It’s that time of year: the sun is shining, the birds are chirping—and the brooms are sweeping. Yes, it’s time for spring cleaning! While you’re removing those dust bunnies and old boxes full of who-knows-why-I-kept-this, here are 10 tips on how to clean out the darker corners of your mind and let in some springtime light.

1) Wipe Away the What-Ifs

“Eliminate all ‘would haves,’ ‘could haves,’ ‘should haves,’ and ‘if onlys.’ What has happened is past and finished. Leave it there. Profound power will come in living and making things right in the present.”

—Patricia T. Holland, “Be Renewed in the Spirit of Your Mind,” 6 September 1988

2) Rearrange Your Priorities 

“This is a time to set your course for life, a time to establish fundamental priorities. . . . Carefully consider your options and make correct choices to establish the proper priorities in this critical phase of your life.”

—Richard G. Scott, “Learning to Succeed in Life,” 15 September 1998

3) Unpack Your Goals

“It is in the mind where the goals to be reached in this life are fostered. . . .

“ . . . The selection of our goals, the methods we use to obtain them, the determination we exert in our plan of action—all are the fruits of a creative mind which is well trained and disciplined.”

—Angel Abrea, “A Creative Mind,” 7 March 1982

4) Throw Out Your Doubt

“After you have invited the Lord to be your partner and dispelled the doubt that can stop your progress, stand aside and allow Him to prepare the way. . . .

“ . . . Do not allow Satan to plant doubts that can foster a change of heart and foil God’s divine plan for you.”

—Lawrence P. Vincent, “Ordinary Lives, Extraordinary Miracles,” 4 November 2003

5) Dust Off Your Determination 

“You cannot today fully imagine what you will accomplish in life. Yet your quiet, uncompromising determination to live a righteous life will couple you with inspiration and power beyond your imagination. . . .

“ . . . For happiness now and throughout your life, resolutely keep your determination to obey the Lord, no matter what pressure you feel to do otherwise.”

—Richard G. Scott, “The Fruits of Obedience,” 3 June 1990

6) Sweep Out the Self-Pity

“There can be no self-pity—and that means no self-pity. Nothing dissipates our strength faster or more quickly drives away those who would truly wish to help us than self-pity.”

—Patricia T. Holland, “Be Renewed in the Spirit of Your Mind,” 6 September 1988

7) Polish Your Talents

 “We should recognize our talents and make up our minds to pay the price necessary to develop them. The price to be paid in developing talents includes, among other things, faith, work, study, persistence, and patience.”

—Franklin D. Richards, “The Purpose of Life,” 7 June 1981

8) File Away Failure 

“Never stop to regret failures or to excuse them. Paul encouraged us to forget our failures and move on when he told the Philippians, ‘This one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before’ (Philippians 3: 13).”

—L. Tom Perry, “Where There Is No Vision,” 25 March 1990

9) Scrub Your Sins

“We need to be careful not to hide our sins without taking care of them, not to ignore the repentance process. . . . Our path to perfection must lie through a series of “small” repentances. . . . So it is a small but significant thing to seek honestly to see our sins and overcome them.”

—Cheryl Brown, “Out of Small Things Proceedeth That Which Is Great,” 11 May 1993

10) Make Space for Optimism

“I come this evening with a plea that we stop seeking out the storms and enjoy more fully the sunlight. I’m suggesting that we accentuate the positive. I’m asking that we look a little deeper for the good, that we still our voices of insult and sarcasm, that we more generously compliment virtue and effort.”

—Gordon B. Hinckley, “The Lord is At the Helm,” 6 March 1994