It’s healthy to stop every so often and reflect on our life or career, something we don’t do because of a supposed lack of time or our stressful lifestyle. And the more stressful your life is, the more necessary it becomes to stop for a moment and answer a few questions that will help us move forward, probably in a more consistent way.
The idea is to simplify our life, or rather our path through life, to make sure we’re on the right road, with the right people, with the right mindset and, above all, with a clear head, because remember that there’s no point running if you don’t know where you’re going. These are some of the questions we should be able to answer, and then put the answers into practice. Take 20 or 30 minutes; it may well be worth it.
1. Why are you working so hard at this stage of your life?
Unfortunately, many people aren’t working hard at anything; they’re letting time slip by, complaining and waiting for some kind of miracle that will never come. If that’s you, wake up.
Everyone else should identify the reason for the effort they make every day. Are you striving to be more successful, to earn more money, to get promoted, for a new project, for financial independence, to buy a house…?
If you get up early every morning and come home from work exhausted, you’re not always aware of the goal you want to achieve with it. Some people do it only because it’s what they’re supposed to do; they aren’t necessarily living the life they wanted to live, but they’ve got used to that work routine.
Ironically, other people keep stressing themselves out over other goals while neglecting what they already have. They keep thinking that until they reach that goal they can’t be happy, when they already have everything they need to be happy. For example, some parents work 16 hours a day because they don’t want their children to go without anything, but sometimes their children are already going without a parent, which in some cases matters more than the goal they’re chasing.
So analyse carefully why you’re working so hard, and what your priority goals are.
2. What are you clinging to?
We all cling to something in life, from cultural traditions to going to parties thrown by people we don’t even like, internet distractions, circles of friends who do us more harm than good, or a toxic relationship. Bad habits, routines of doubtful use and even beliefs we ought to confront.
Some of the things or people we cling to can cause us bouts of stress or anxiety, and can even sap the willpower we need to get other things done or to fight for our goals.
Spend a few minutes working out what you’re clinging to and what it would be healthier to let go of.
(See: How to be more disciplined at work with 3 simple habits)
3. What can you limit yourself to?
As the old saying goes, “grasp all, lose all”.
Suppose you have 40 things on a plate. Could you really eat all 40? Would you enjoy all forty? What’s more, the more we have to choose from, the harder it is to settle on something in particular. It’s about simplifying.
Warren Buffett‘s advice for this is to write down 25 things you want to achieve in your life, then choose the five most important ones, cross out the other 20 and not think about them again. At least not until you’ve achieved your five priority goals.
Let’s do that with everything. We can’t please everyone, so choose carefully the few people you want to keep happy. Don’t try to learn 10 things at once. Learn one thing perfectly and become an expert in it.
If we simplify in this way, we’ll learn to enjoy things much more, because we’ll limit the tasks we have to do each day, the number of meetings we need, the number of parties and even the number of Facebook friends. Remember that, as a rule, less is more, if the little we keep is of higher quality and we can give it our full attention.
Make this choice now and you’ll have a fuller, less stressful life.
4. Who do you want to spend more time with, and what can you let go?
Friends and loved ones are the best investment of time we can make, though of course not all friends are worth it, and we can’t say yes to every plan our friends suggest.
As we’ve said before, “we are the average of the five people we spend the most time with”. So choose five people you’re going to devote most of your time to. Think about who those people will be, and then find a way to prioritise them so that you limit everything else. It doesn’t matter whether it’s five people or three. Don’t neglect them, and put weekly dates with them in your calendar so that you can never say you don’t see them because you’re short of time.
In the same way, think about what certain people bring to your life. And above all, don’t spend your time on people who don’t want to spend theirs on you, whether we’re talking about friends or a partner.
We’re trying to simplify our life so that we keep what’s worthwhile and get rid of what isn’t.
We should do the same in our professional life.
See also: Why the people you surround yourself with matter so much
Featured image: Dominic Alves, CC BY 2.0, via Flickr.
