“This is the essence of simplicity… to live with full awareness and with passion.” – Janet Luhrs, The Simple Living Guide
We read about simplifying our lives and decluttering and we get inspired to clean out a closet or the junk drawer in the kitchen or, if we’re feeling especially motivated, the garage. We feel great for a few days and feel the relief that the extra space and organization brings. Then we go out and start buying new things to fill the space that we cleared. A year later we have more stuff than when we started.
We read about people who have increased the ease in their lives by simplifying their homes and their days. We make a mental note to implement one or two of the things they’ve done. Then we don’t make any changes.
We wonder why our lives are stressful and filled with busy-ness.
Intentional Living
Simple living involves much more than keeping our closets and drawers clean. It’s a way of thinking and being. It’s a way of life that we choose for reasons that are important to us.
Simple living means stripping our lives down to the essentials, our core values. Most people have never taken the time to identify their core values much less reorganize their lives around them.
Normally, we live our lives doing what we think we’re supposed to do, buying the things we’re supposed to have in order to fit in with the groups with which we want to be identified. We’re following the herd without thinking about what we really want. And we wonder why we’re not happy.
Take a moment to look around your home, consider who you spend time with, how you spend your time and how you spend your money. All of this reflects your values whether you’ve thought about your values or not. Are these the values that you’re proud of or that you want to pass onto your children? If not, what needs to change?
All of our choices all day, every day are based on our values.
As you decide how you’ll spend every minute of your day and night, think about your top values. Are your actions honoring them?
Notice Your Choices
In order to live a simpler life, we need to identify what isn’t supporting our values and let it go. Some things may be hassles that we can easily say goodbye to. Other things may feel like obligations that we have to maintain to make others happy.
The important part is slowing down to notice all the little choices we make all day, every day.
If your family is one of your top values, can your family feel that? Have you asked them? How do you treat them? How much time do you spend with them? How focused is that time?
If you value your health, do you think about how everything you put in your mouth will affect you? Do you listen to your body and give it the exercise and nourishment it needs? Or are you too busy to think about it and follow your same daily habits that allow you to feel “good enough” instead of “great?”
Every time you spend money realize that you’re exchanging your life energy for something. How will that something give you energy in return? Does it provide a short term fix or does it support your values and the simpler lifestyle you’re working toward?
A New Way To Live
Living a simpler life changes our mindset, how we see ourselves and how we see the world. It’s a hell of a lot more than keeping our desks and closets clean. It’s intentional living – making conscious choices about what to include and what to keep out based on our highest values.
By slowing down and focusing on our values, we have the time and space to enjoy more and express gratitude. It allows us the space to get out of our crazy, self-focused world and open ourselves more fully to other people and experiences. We allow ourselves to feel content with what we have and how the world is. It allows us to experience a fuller, happier life.
Less is more.
Simple Steps
- Write down your three highest values. What are the three most important things you want your life to revolve around?
- Examine your life as it is. Write out everything you do each day, who you spend time with, how you spend your money, where you live and anything else you can think of. How does it support your values? How does it run counter to those values?
- Go through everything you wrote and cross out what doesn’t support your values and what you wouldn’t want in your happier life. Drop the guilt and obligations and focus on what makes you happy.
- Write what you would like to add to your life to more fully support your values. Where will these fit into your new life? This exercise might be easier if you do it on a computer so you can easily move things around.
- Identify one small thing you can do to move yourself closer to your happier, simpler life. Change your diet one meal at a time. Bow out of a group that’s no longer serving you. Start walking more. Spend less time with people who suck your energy. Clean out a cluttered area in your life – physically or emotionally.
- Each time you make a change toward your new life, stop and reflect on how you feel. Is it helping or do you need to change it a bit?
- Every day make a choice to live closer to your new life. Continue to develop a new habit (no more than one a month to make sure they stick). Take an action that supports your values. Do something like this every day and make sure you’re slowing down to notice how it feels. All these little things will add up quickly when you stick with the process.
Simple living doesn’t mean that you have to follow all the recommendations of a minimalist or live on a lower income or give away all your stuff. Simple living means living your life as authentically and consciously as you possibly can. It means taking full responsibility for your own happiness. No one is going to do it for you and others might make it hard. This is your life. Make it happen.
What will be different about your life tomorrow?
