Moving homes is generally a pretty big deal.

Especially if you’ve spent years, or maybe even your entire life, in one location. Your entire life goes through a process of upheaval. And you experience some pretty substantial disorientation that requires some new focus.

Of course, that’s only to speak of the fact of moving in and of itself. Having to deal with the logistics is likely to be another immense headache all on its own. Using the services of interstate removalists who can handle the transport of your belongings from end-to-end can certainly introduce a bit of peace of mind and stability to the process. But you’re still going to have to spend a good chunk of time dealing with boxes.

But a home move isn’t just a period of upheaval. It’s a period of immense opportunity, too. Specifically, it’s an opportunity to recalibrate your focus on what’s important in life, and to zone back in on the essentials. Instead of allowing yourself to be heavily distracted by all the ephemeral stuff that doesn’t really matter.

Get the most out of your move instead of just viewing it as a great pain in the neck and crisis-in-progress. Here are some mindset shifts you can make to re-focus on the essentials in your life.

Take the move as an opportunity to leave all the clutter and empty belongings behind.

Often, we trap ourselves in the endless mass of clutter that we all tend to accumulate in our homes.

For those among us who already have hoarder-tendencies, this clutter can really come to seem like a totally insurmountable problem. Feeling as though you’re trapped in a chaotic and cluttered environment, and that you don’t have the ability to change things or to take control of the situation? It can be terribly harmful to your drive, optimism, and clarity of focus in life, in general.

A move represents an absolutely golden opportunity for getting rid of all this clutter. You can reduce your belongings down to only the stuff that really matters to you. And judging by the immense popularity in recent years of the trend of minimalism, and more recently, the prevalence of Japanese de-cluttering expert Marie Kondo, there are clearly many people out there who are desperate to ditch the mess.

When you move, you have to go through your belongings anyway, even if only to re-pack them for the trip. This will be time-consuming, and it will be irritating, but it needs to get done. So get the most out of it, and ask yourself some questions with every item you handle:

“Is this useful to me? Does this have sentimental value to me?”

If the answer to both of those questions is “no”, get rid of it. You’ll feel like your entire life get a little bit lighter and more breezy as a result.

Take the move as an opportunity to leave behind destructive lifestyle patterns.

Maybe these were reinforced by your previous environment or maybe by the people in it.

Unfortunately, many people fall into self-destructive lifestyle patterns. These habits can absolutely devastate their well being, and their ability to live focused, productive, and happy lives.

Famously, anti-addiction experts advise substance addicts to remove themselves from the contexts which trigger the use of those substances. Otherwise they’ll be at constant risk of relapse. A common technique is to move to a different location, and deliberately fall out of touch with “friends” who reinforce the addiction and pressure the individual to indulge in the behavior.

However, this doesn’t just apply to substance addictions, but to negative behavioral patterns and behavioral addictions, too. In Adam Alter’s book “Irresistible”, Alter cites the example of a young man who was so addicted to an online video game that it absolutely ruined his life.

He went through a rehab program, only to fall back into the game upon returning home. For him, a bit part of the solution was moving away and disconnecting from his old gaming friends.

Struggling with certain destructive behaviors and lifestyle patterns?

Has it taken a real toll on your ability to live a powerful, productive, and joyful life? Your move can be the perfect opportunity for a fresh start here.

Just be sure not to dive back into those habits upon arriving at your new home. Treat the move as a major life way point. Set your goals for the next few years in line with the move itself.

There’s a saying that people in life-planning and productivity circles often use, which is that “if you don’t know where you want to go, you’ll never get there.”

The point of this saying is to underline the importance of goal setting, and to make it clear that, in order to have happy, fulfilling, and productive lives, we all need to develop a fairly clear sense of where we want to be down the line.

Many of us get so chronically distracted and caught up in the minutiae of day to day life, that we never do really get our thoughts clear on the direction we’re heading in. As a consequence, we fail to set effective goals.

Treat your move as a golden opportunity to set goals and re-calibrate your intentional life-direction for the next few years.

A home move can be an excellent opportunity for achieving this, not least of all because it serves as an inherently and incredibly meaningful life way point, in and of itself. Something like New Years, but bigger and more significant.

So, take advantage of the great psychological power of your move. Accompany it with clear goals for your future. Focus!