Back to Your Essentials
As we focus on the core value of simplicity this month, we’re not here to help you Home Edit your kitchen, create your perfect capsule wardrobe, or clear out your garage (although wouldn’t that be so nice?!) We’re more interested in decluttering your mind and heart so you can reconnect with what matters most to you.
The Minimalist Movement did wonders for decluttering our lives, and now it’s time to get back to your essentials in an effort to embrace simplicity across the inner domain of your life.
One of our favorite leadership resources, Holstee, shares that “simplicity helps us optimize. In a world of overstimulation and frenzied consumption it encourages us to live with more intention. Simplicity frees us from clutter so we can concentrate on what is essential for a good life.”
With this fresh view of simplicity, we invite you to refocus on what is essential to your life fulfillment. Let’s explore three practical avenues together and see what we can transform this month!
Prioritize the Essentials
If you were to list out ALL the things you try and accomplish in one day, what would you write down? Leo Babauta identifies that “the problem isn’t that we have too little time – we all get the same amount of time each day and each week. It’s the exact right amount of time, because it’s all there is. Actually the real problem is that we want to do too much in the time we have.”
When you try to accomplish everything, you’ll often find yourself frustrated, frazzled, and unfocused.
Whatever we say “yes” to also carries a suitcase of corresponding “nos.” Sometimes the luggage is oversized and just too heavy to carry! Since our lives do not have unlimited overhead bin space, learning how to be intentional and decisive in what we commit to is key.
First, decide what is most important to start with – your essentials – so you can get clear about what you really need and want to accomplish.
Take a moment and write down the top three areas that you MUST invest in now. These are your essentials, like your health, family, work, or faith practices.
Now determine one way you can make each of these areas more of a priority in this season of life. Here’s one example:
Quiet Your Inner Chatter
As curious, creative beings, we are constantly comparing, evaluating, ruminating, and reflecting. Notice what your inner critic keeps repeating and invite her to take a much-needed break. Quiet the noise inside your head so you can re-ground in your essentials.
In Greg McKeown’s groundbreaking book, Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less, he asks “What if we stopped celebrating being busy as a measurement of importance? What if instead we celebrated how much time we had spent listening, pondering, meditating, and enjoying time with the most important people in our lives?”
It’s time to trade in your Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) for the healthy and celebratory Joy of Missing Out (JOMO). When you are intentional in what you choose to do (and not do), you release regrets and embrace more space to daydream, ponder, wonder, and create.
Do Less, Better
“Just do less.” We’ve all heard this piece of age-old advice (and maybe even tried to follow it). To some, this feels impossible, while to others, it’s freeing.
How can we do less without sacrificing our own personal standard of excellence and quality?
Rather than simply cutting things out, one way to do less is to keep track of the things you intentionally already have chosen NOT to do because they aren’t essential and won’t serve you. Notice the areas you tend to say “yes” to when a “no” or a “not this time” serve you better in this season.
Greg McKeown shares “only once you give yourself the permission to stop trying to do it all, to stop saying yes to everyone, can you make your highest contribution towards the things that really matter.”
Starting today, make a list of the commitments you say “no” to or items you choose not to purchase for the next 30 days. Then at the end of each week, review this list and consider how much more time, money, and life satisfaction you have as a result of these thoughtful decisions to do less better.
