The Ticket to a Simpler Life

Do you dream of leading a simpler life? Are you worn out, frustrated, or unhappy with where you live or what you do? I've talked about living in paradise before, but I wanted to share a few more thoughts on the subject.

There isn't anything wrong with having a "paradise dream" (dreams are encouraged!), but if we live our lives waiting until we can move on to greener pastures, we'll miss out on what life has to offer right now.

We all have ideas on what we think a simpler life means. Some of us think retiring and moving to the woods is the ticket. Others want to move to somewhere tropical. Most of the time retiring and moving are key components for what we think is a happier, stress-reduced life.

Oh, the error of our ways...

The thing is, simplifying life doesn't have to mean moving to the middle of nowhere. Oftentimes, doing just that actually complicates things a bit. Just think about all the things you have to do to survive if you take off and move into the woods. If you don't have electricity, you have to get firewood (even if you live in the south - doesn't it get chilly there, too?). If you don't have a job or a ton of money in savings, you can't just buy the wood. That means you have to gather and cut the wood yourself. What it takes to live off the land and survive is a lot more than one would expect. And in many cases, it's a full-time job.

Our ideas of a simpler life aren't always accurate. We think if we can just move into the woods, life will be simpler. Or we think if we can just quit our jobs, life will be simpler. Sometimes it really is simpler, especially if there is drama in the workplace, but what are we going to do after that? How are we going to pay the bills?

Even if we live off the grid and grow our own food, we still have expenses. Whether we like it or not, we still need an income or a major reserve of funds to get by. It isn't as easy as one might think.

Also, in our world today, we have become spoiled with technology. We can whip out our smartphones and find out just about any information we need or want. We can order products, even food, online and have it delivered to our front door. We can watch movies online and dial a phone number simply by speaking a few words into the phone.

Many of us aren't ready to say goodbye to the internet. And if we want high-speed internet (trust me, satellite internet doesn't cut it), well, we'll need to be in a location where the service is available.

See, we have these grand ideas that if we take off into the woods, life will get easier. But the issue comes when our true calling doesn't actually support our dreams of living in the woods. In that case, moving to the woods makes our lives much harder. Internet will be slower, if it works at all, and getting supplies will take longer.

What I'm trying to get across is this: it doesn't matter where we live. We can still find ways to simplify our lives without taking off and saying goodbye to the world.

Many of us think if we just move to somewhere tropical, life will be easy. But does it align with our calling? If it does, great! If not, moving to that paradise location will make our lives miserable. We can have the best view in the world, but if it makes doing our work more difficult, we may find ourselves frustrated.

So, what are some ways we can make the most of where we are right now?

Remember our goals. 

Remember our purpose (we weren't meant to be hermits). 

Work toward our dreams. 

Focus on positive things and limit the complaints. 

Recognize the blessings. 

Learn from all experiences. 

Remember that life is a journey. 

Find an activity to enjoy. 

Believe that paradise can be achieved right now. 

Listen to the things that God is placing on our hearts.

The grass on our side can be just as green as it appears on the other side. It just takes a little work to see things clearly. It isn't about the location or the work; it's about the journey and what we can learn each step of the way.

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Surrounding Yourself With The Right Company Is Vital To Your Success

You'll eventually become some individuals who surround you that's something I learned painfully costly way.

Everybody features a story and so they all contain pros and cons choices through which we take pride in and decisions we regret making. This is often difficult remembrances that people must live, but ultimately, it comes down lower towards the lessons we could glean from them.

We are all reflections of the people we keep in our lives and interact with on a daily basis. Their actions and behaviors all resonate and subconsciously influence our everyday choices.

Associate with people who make you feel happy

It's so crucial that you have those who satisfy you. Those who lead you to laugh and who enable you to whenever you require assistance - those who genuinely care. Individuals are the type who're worth keeping within your existence everyone else is just passing through.

Your atmosphere shapes who you are and who you will become. You're in general control of your existence as well as the products that you employ, why not filter the negative surroundings and place yourself in a positive and fascinating atmosphere, the one that suits your needs?

The most effective example is to look at most likely the very best figures nowadays. How come you think the elite make an effort to place themselves in environments full of like-minded individuals?

Surprisingly, the very best and efficient people have weakness that are similar to yours. Surrounding themselves as well as other individuals, who're round the same path or who had been through similar journeys, enables them to educate to learn more about themselves.

Connecting yourself with individuals who're round the journey to produce modifications in their lives and yours, rather than individuals that aren't in any great position or aren't developing a difference, is crucial to grow as a person.

Heroines or notable figures that individuals need to become don't always have to be well-known. It might be your nearest friend or somebody you know - somebody to help you and encourage you to definitely help you to be the person you have to be and who is able to guide you through the journey.

Our egos possess an inclination to trick us we regularly choose to neglect our weaknesses and set them aside. Rather, accept them and use them as leverage to acquire where you have to be.

Talk to like-minded individuals.

If you want to get wealthy, have those who share your objectives or who have formerly achieved them. Desire to start your individual company?

Start networking with established entrepreneurs - those who share the identical dreams, or individuals who've already done your work.

Let existence eliminate individuals from your existence who you wouldn't like around. Don't have the toxicity and negativity of those who don't increase the need for your existence people who've no prosperous impact on your life only would love you to stay around to fulfill their requirements. Have the innovators, the thinkers as well as the listeners individuals who desire to set an alteration by leaving a footprint inside their existence and yours, individuals who are ready to help others before helping themselves. Focus on their tales - you will probably study a factor or even more.

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Moving Beyond Your Comfort Zone

Many professionals have attained a high level of competence in their particular fields. They have learned a lot in their careers and they have a good sense of what works and what doesn't. Some individuals have become so good at what they do that they can successfully perform their jobs "with their eyes closed." These people are operating within their comfort zones.

While operating within your comfort zone is safe, it does not give you the opportunity to grow in your career. You may be good at what you do, but if you continue to do things in the same way, your job may have a tendency to be boring. It may no longer offer you a challenge. Only by trying new things can you get your creative juices flowing and experience the thrill of reaching new heights of achievement.

Trying new things does entail some risks. When you try something new you may experience a sense of discomfort. This comes from not being completely sure of what will lead to success. You will also very likely make mistakes along the way -- sometimes many mistakes. However, most of us don't like to make mistakes. We may be concerned about reactions from others. When we have achieved a level of competence in our jobs, we enjoy admiration from others. But as we make mistakes during the process of learning something new, we run the risk of looking foolish to others and feeling embarrassed.

The way to deal with this inevitable part of the learning process is to look at mistakes as feedback. They are letting you know when you need to use a different strategy to accomplish something. They are learning guideposts, which let you know what you should continue doing and what you should change. Extraordinarily successful people in every field have made lots of mistakes -- that's how they became extraordinary. And if someone is "kind enough" to bring to your attention that you've made a mistake say, "I know. Isn't it great? Now I don't have to do it again." It will totally change that individual's reaction to the situation.

Trying new things does offer wonderful payoffs. When you try something new and you persist at it, you usually become very good at it. In addition to having acquired a new skill, you can then experience the exhilaration of having faced a challenge and succeeding.

So make a commitment to move beyond your comfort zone. Only by doing so can you move closer to becoming the best you can possibly be.

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6 Simple Soul & Mind Nourishing Activities We Often Forget About

“Affirmations are our mental vitamins, providing the supplementary positive thoughts we need to balance the barrage of negative events and thoughts we experience daily.” – Tia Walker

Are you spending more time taking care of others or yourself?

Know that either extreme is making you lose your power to build and sustain a happy life.

If you lose yourself in caring for others, you might end up merely existing and not living. Plus, those people you care for, become dependent and get lost in life as well. If you get too much self-involved and self-centred, you end up alone.

6 Soul & Mind Nourishing Activities

Therefore, find your balance between giving and taking; between offering your time and energy to others and yourself; between caring for other and caring for yourself.

Because most people tend to lose themselves in satisfying, mainly other people’s needs and wants, here are 6 things to nourish your mind and soul:


1. Time For Yourself

If you are the carer (as a parent, a spouse, an employer, for example), which un-avertable you are no matter what you do for a living, looking after people by choice or occupation, you might be one of those people that feel guilty and selfish to take time for yourself.

Are you?

Listen, it is admirable what you are doing, and I bow to you; yet, at the same time, I want to ask you: for how long do you think you can keep it up if you don’t take care of yourself as well? If you don’t take some time for yourself too?

An overworked, tired and unhappy carer has an adverse impact on those for which is caring. Is it not? A child can’t be happy and grow harmoniously raised by an unhappy parent. An employee can’t be productive led by a stressed and overwhelmed boss.

Can they?

Therefore, occasionally be selfish and take time for yourself. Put your fear and anxieties aside and let the Earth spin around without your help and attention. Remember that, in that circumstance being selfish is an act of self-preservation and, ultimately altruism.

When you care for others, you are like a machine that needs maintenance, oiling, and rest, to work properly.

Concern yourself less about what people may say about you and stay focused on the result you want: offering valuable, meaningful, and sustainable care, service, leadership, help, and whatever else you have to give.



2. The Courage to Say NO

As a child, I’ve struggled because not my parents, nor the other adults around knew how to be assertive, how to put their foot down and then help me to move forward.

I had to, consistently, second guess my behavior, lose valuable time in finding by myself what is expected from me and what are the rules of living in the society.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m not complaining, I’m just saying that there are better ways to grow, improve and learn, other than the hard way.

Pay attention, being assertive is not just a way to let people know what you want, but is a duty as well. Overcome your fear of saying No!

Overcome your negative preconceptions (if you have) about being an assertive person and put your foot down, say “no” when you need to and say “yes” only when is the right thing to do.


3. Listen to Your Inner Voice

Life has this habit of going on with you or without you. Don’t let it slip away without having any say about it. Listen to your inner voice and allow yourself guided by your wisdom.

If you are one of these people, always on the run, always doing something important, always using your time to build something concrete, tangible, most likely you know what I’m referring to when I say;


“LIFE HAS THIS HABIT OF GOING ON WITH YOU OR WITHOUT YOU.”

You know that you’re going through motions without listening to your inner voice for days on end or even months and years.


Note that your inner voice is not the same thing with self-talk. Your inner voice is telling you what you need (mind, soul, and body), what make you sad, what is hurting you, what is helpful, how to protect yourself; It comes from your deeper self, the wisest part of you.

On the other hand, self-talk (internal dialogue) is the way you represent how you see the world and yourself and it comes from learning, experience, and beliefs.

Listen to your inner voice; it has many things to tell you if you are willing to hear it out.


4. Respect

How much thought and attention do you put into the words you’re saying to others? I guess, a lot! Do you have the same consideration towards yourself?

Self-respect starts with valuing who you are and it is manifested, the most, by the way, you talk to yourself and about yourself. And, then, it is what you do with and what you put into your perfect vehicle: your body!

And, the last one, but as important as the other two, self-respect is how you speak to and about people because what you say about others is more a reflection of who you are and less who they are. Is it not?


5. Compassion

In a society that you are encouraged more and more to strive and focus mainly on achievement, career and success, how many of us feel content and satisfied with who they are, how they look, how much they accomplish?

The standards are so high and still going up and up that almost no human can keep up. No wonder so many people have low self-esteem and confidence issues.

How about setting your own standards? How about taking, periodically, breaks to recharge and refresh? Moments to re-evaluate the validity of what is expected of you? Yet, even better! what if you add to those moments and breaks, a bit of self-compassion?

Self-compassion is food for your mind and soul. It allows you to understand that whatever you do when you’re doing it, you believe to be the best action.

Judging your former self with the knowledge you have today is unfair. Is it not? Aren’t you more knowledgeable, wiser, more skilled, more aware of things than ten years ago? You, definitely, are! You are much better even compared to yesterday.

Give yourself compassion and believe that you are doing the best you know how in each moment of your life. If that is not enough for the society and your environment, that what could be, if any?


6. Connection

Success and accomplishment is a sad place to be in if you have no one to share them with. A big mansion means nothing for your level of happiness and contentment if you spend your days alone in it.

Aren’t being happy and healthy, feeling safe and free, what you want the most in life?
Being alone in the big mansion is a self-made prison; eating by yourself is a health hazard; walking alone through the vicissitudes of life can become a safety issue quickly.


THESE ARE JUST A FEW EXAMPLES OF HOW YOUR BIGGEST DESIRES IN LIFE CAN GET LOST AND DISSIPATE BEHIND SMOKING MIRRORS WHEN YOU HAVE NO MEANINGFUL CONNECTION TO OTHER PEOPLE.

Next time when you see people that prefer to stay in unhealthy and unhappy relationships, don’t ask yourself why are they doing it because loneliness is a bigger load to bear than hardship alongside to others.

That being said, choose this better option: gather around you people that you enjoy spending time with; people that love, appreciate, value, and accept you as you are.

Stay connected, reach out, build long-lasting and meaningful relationships and feel happy, healthy, safe and free no matter if you live in a mansion or a shack.


Summary

Time for yourself
The courage to say NO
Listen to your inner voice
Respect
Compassion
Connection
What other mind nourishing activities do you partake in? Leave a comment below.

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