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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A Little Change Makes a Big Investment

As I wander through life there are many interesting conversations to overhear and participate in. One that's caught my attention lately is how hard change is. You can resist change and stay stuck in your situation, or you can grow through change and create a different reality.

There's no denying that change is hard, at first. The benefit of sticking with the effort to make a change is that you emerge a better person. The effort you put in is rewarded by the results you get. The path along the way can be a bit messy, even disappointing some days, but you still owe it to yourself to persevere. And you learn and grow from even the messy stuff in the middle.

Another objection to some making change is that it feel like deprivation. You gotta change that mindset. If doing things that are hard creates a feeling of deprivation, not a feeling of challenge and growth, you owe it to yourself to switch your thinking. Growth isn't a sacrifice. When you lose bad habits you are growing. You lose a bad habit by replacing it with a good habit. When you change from a bad habit to a good habit, you haven't lost a thing, you haven't sacrificed anything - you have grown and improved. There's no deprivation in growth.

In my observations and experience, deciding to change some aspect of your life - diet, physique, addiction, meditation practice... any habit you perform - is energizing. That decision is taking the first step. Taking action is the next step, and subsequent steps, until you reach your goal. That's how change is accomplished, one decision and step at a time.

Each step along the way is a chance to learn. You learn about yourself and the world. Exciting! Empowering. That's part of an Energize Me attitude. That's part of the growth that keeps life interesting and valuable.

Are you tired of at least some aspects of your life? What are you doing about it? Action versus non-action is the difference between someone living up to their potential and someone stuck in the past.

Maybe you don't strive to grow and change because it feels like too much work. That's one of the comments I hear. Consider this: you are working toward the wrong goal, you aren't passionate about the change you are avoiding. That is stressful. Altering your attitude or goal will turn hard work into passion.

Another possibility is that you haven't found the right attitude about the change you want, or are told you must make. Can you wrap your head around the idea of accepting that the change is important and taking the first step, even if it's a little one? Can you tiptoe into the change? Some people prefer jumping in with both feet - or diving in head first. Regardless, you have to move toward your goal or your desired change won't happen. What's your style?

A friend of mine has learned to live his life like a video game or movie script. By turning a challenge into a game goal - complete with points, levels, and rewards - he has been living the life of his dreams for over six years now. Now that's energizing! That's the path to success for him, and lots of his tribe.

The reality, is by taking on change you are investing in yourself. You invest in yourself in other ways, like education, saving for a goal, health, or the friends you keep; why not invest in yourself when it comes to your habits and attitudes?

You'll find your life more satisfying and gratifying as you accept that change can be hard, but that you can make it easier. You'll be energized by the action you take with that first step. You'll live a better life.

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6 Great Ways to Stick to Your Daily Routine

Are you the type of person that struggles to grasp the concept of routine? Here’s everything you need to know.

In the movie Groundhog Day (if you haven’t seen this yet, then go do that right away!), Phil (the protagonist) finds that he is in a sort of a time warp, living the same day over and over again. There’s a scene in which Phil talks to a local at the bar.

Phil: What would you do if you were stuck in one place, and every day was exactly the same, and nothing you did mattered?

Ralph: That about sums it up for me.

In a way, even though Ralph wasn’t literally living the same day over and over again (like Phil was), he was still doing the same things over and over, day in and day out. Ralph was stuck in routines that didn’t matter.

Having a Daily Routine

My younger self hated routine. I hated discipline and I didn’t understand the reason why rules existed or why they were being imposed on me. Admittedly, in retrospect, they were in part being imposed because of some tyrannical desire of the enforcer.

But, a tiny part of me knew that there was also the possibility that routine exists because it instills in you, some kind of responsibility. But, no, it wasn’t for me. I detested routine so vehemently and I hid that fact so cleverly.

Then I grew up. Being an adult is tough. It’s tough because you don’t have a routine being imposed on you anymore, unless you’re well, in prison, in which case you don’t really have a choice. But otherwise, you are free to do exactly as you please.

People will tell you to break out of routine and do exciting things that challenge you. And while this may sound good, it is not necessarily always a good thing.


The Disadvantage of Routines

Routine makes you forget why you are doing what you do. “Practice” might make perfect what I can tell you (from personal experience), it also makes for a loss of passion.

And this can be incredibly harmful, both personally and professionally (We talked about this in Dealing with disillusionment in tech).


The Advantages of Routines

The trouble with growing up, as I soon discovered, was that I had gotten so accustomed to sticking to a routine that I didn’t know what it was like to work without one. This is a problem creatives face almost every day.

Creativity isn’t supposed to be work and creatives are generally not too happy with sticking to a schedule. Often, it actually becomes difficult to channel creativity, which is inherently spontaneous, into work, which is almost everything but.


Working for a software firm now, I often like to relate the process of software development to the process of writing a story.

It’s almost like magic, when all the different pieces finally fall together and you have a finished product that you can be proud of.

This is why it requires just as much creativity and out-of-the-box thinking as say, a designing/writing job, if one has to be a truly accomplished programmer.
6 Great Ways to Stick to Your Daily Routine

Now coming to the crux of why you need routine, I will sum it up in the following words – Being creative and innovative is not sufficient. You also need to get things done.

Here are 6 great ways to set a good routine and stick to it.


1) Define Your Routine

And in order to get things done, you need to have a process. Every individual would do well to develop a process that works well for them.

If you’re a leader, instill that sense of process in your team members. A good routine could well be the difference between simply talking about things, and actually getting out there and accomplishing them.


2) Have A Cheat Day

What I’m trying to say is: don’t stick to your routine. I probably sound like I’m contradicting myself here but I’m not. Once you have found a process that works for you, make sure you set aside a day of the week on which you don’t stick to your routine.

Put aside that one day to do things differently or do different things. You never know! You might find a new way to do things. You might even find something, to work on, that you had never really considered significant before.


3) Have A Pre-Routine
Before you actually start your routine, do something that doesn’t challenge you much. For me, the beginning of the day is when I read up on the latest articles or any news bits in tech that I might have missed.

It takes little to no effort to get started on this, but because I have mentally included it to be part of my routine, I can be prepared for what I have to do next.

4) Don’t Play the Blame-Game

Procrastination is our worst enemy. I have spent ages procrastinating, when I should have been working, and eventually blaming someone else for my lack of results. Having a routine makes you aware of what you didn’t get done, and consequently puts the ownership of your work entirely in your hands.

I’ve found that it’s easier for me to assess my performance if I have set aside some benchmarks for what I expect of myself.

No one else can do that for you. Make yourself accountable for your work.


5) Calendars and To-do Lists

Use a to-do list for one-off activities and schedule your recurring activities on Google Calendars. The best part about Calendars are the pop-ups and notifications that make sure you don’t forget to get something done.

When you’re reminded/told to do something, there’s a greater chance that you’ll actually do it.


6) Eliminate Hindrances

A new routine is difficult to stick to and often you’ll find yourself faced with distractions that can lead you astray. What you can do is examine your routine and identify those exact moments where you feel like things are going south.

Once you pay more attention to the difficult bits, it makes it easier for you to stick to a routine as a whole.



To sum up, routine is an important part being able to consistently put all your effort and focus on your dreams. Which is why adopting the habit of a good daily routine is something you definitely need to do. As you get into that habit, you’ll find it harder to get out of.

Here’s a recap on 6 great ways to stick to your daily routine:
Define your routine
Have a cheat day
Have a pre-routine
Don’t play the blame game
Calendars and to-do lists
Eliminate hindrances



Thanks for reading, don’t forget to comment below with your thoughts!

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