Do You Want To Abandon Your Life And Start Over?
Do you look around and just feel overwhelmed by all your stuff and responsibilities and commitment and just want to abandon it all and go on holiday or even buy a van, change your name and never look back?
Do you ever look at some of the things that surround you and feel guilty and overwhelmed? Do you feel like that about the things you do with your time? Like you don’t want to examine them too closely, because thinking about it feels bad?
You’re not supposed to feel like that. You’re not supposed to want a holiday from your life. Avoiding most aspects of your life because they hurt to think about is not healthy and it shouldn’t be normal.
It doesn’t have to be normal.
What Don’t You Want?
Now you’ve done a few exercises examining all the wonderful things you do want in your life, it should be clearer to you what doesn’t fit. What you no longer need or have time for.
Now is the time to clean out your closet of all the bad decisions and dead fashions that aren’t you anymore (and limit what you bring back in! Clothes waste is a massive issue.), clean out the gadgets and appliances that don’t work or that you never use, either take all the clean laundry off the exercise equipment and move it somewhere you will use it, or sell it. All that junk in your garage you haven’t been able to get to, let alone use in three years? Do you even know what it is? Can it really be that important? Read ‘The Magic Art of Tidying Up’ by Marie Kondo and purge all of that useless shit.
What about the time wasters? The websites and apps you would prefer not to go on, but always end up at? Delete them. Use browsers apps to block or limit them. You can set up blockers so you can only access facebook or twitter for a set amount of time each day. Do it. Free yourself.
What about the people? Who have you decided to take a break from? Who stresses you out? Regardless of how much you love them, who would you be happier without?
What about those niggling things you’ve been meaning to do that just sit around unfinished. They’re not negative, exactly, they’re not hurting you, but when you remember them, they give you a negative feeling. Frustration, guilt, etc. Maybe some things you have been meaning to donate or sell? Little household repairs and chores that have been waiting for months? The random detritus that slips between the cracks of day to day life?
What about the bad things that are a part of good things? Like, maybe you love your job, but you wish you had a shorter commute? Maybe you love the suburb you live in, but wish you had a garden instead of just a balcony.
What tasks do you wish you could outsource? What tasks do you wish you could find a more efficient way of getting done?
What about things in YOU you don’t want? Mental and physical health issues? Feelings, behaviors, attitudes, beliefs, negative thought patterns, bad habits, etc. Do you want to be less angry? Snap at the kids less? Get fitter? Do something about your dry skin? Get rid of your boring haircut? Stop feeling like you have no idea what you’re doing when putting on make up? Stop procrastinating? Let go of those off-putting thoughts that stop you finishing your novel?
Now you’ve had some time to think about it, its time to make a list.
Exercise: The Do Not Want Pile:
Open up a word document (or Scrivener, or whatever you prefer, but its better to do this computer than on paper) and start writing a list. List all the things that are currently in your life that you don’t want.
You might want to break it into categories:
- Self/Personal/Internal
- Objects/Things/Possessions
- Tasks/Responsibilities
- Unfinished Jobs/Repairs
- People
- Time Wasters
- Miscellaneous
Under those headings, put in every single thing you can think of. Everything you would wish away, if there were no consequences. Everything you could fix, heal, mend, remove, cleanse and complete.
Once you have listed every single thing there is that makes your life hard, unpleasant or difficult, you are going to go through and look at each item. You are going to come up with a question that will help you come up with a strategy to fix this problem once and for all.
Some things will be easy. Lets say you have a huge collection of clothes you don’t want, or that don’t fit you anymore. Your question might be: “How can I get rid of all these unwanted clothes?”
The answer is probably pretty straight forward. You sort out the ones you don’t want, then sell or donate them. You could probably do it all in a single afternoon.
Sometimes, you might have to get creative. Maybe you hate your commute and you think: ‘I can’t do anything about that, I love my job, I can’t quit.’
However you could move house if you are renting. You could stay with the same company, but move to a closer branch, you could find a way you can work some days from home, you could car pool with others, so at least you aren’t always the one driving, you could catch public transport, so you can read, write or play video games during the commute. You could start using the time you commute by listening to audio books or using dictation to write a novel, and that alone might turn it from something you hate into something you look forward to.
The right question can make a world of difference to the answer, and thus, the solution. Get creative, go through you list. If you can’t find an answer that solves or at least improves the problem, ASK A DIFFERENT QUESTION. Keep asking questions until you find the right question. The right question will give you the right answer.
When you have gone through the entire list, and you have questions and solutions or improvements to every single problem, you come to the third part of the exercise.
You need to plan how you are going to start to IMPLEMENT all those great ideas.
Hopefully some of them (like clothes sorting and small home repairs) you can implement very quickly and easily. You might want to aim to do one a day, for a few weeks, until all the easy stuff is done. It will give you a great sense of achievement and make a huge difference in your day to day living.
Some things might be huge and require months of work and planning, but they will be worth it in the long run: moving house, for example. Or finding a new job. Or any other big life changing changes that will have a huge impact on your long term health and happiness.
Many things will require sustained effort to have their desired benefits. EG: new exercise or eating plans, changes to behavior and personal development. That’s okay. Small steps every day will add up over the long term and you will be so happy you started taking those steps toward the life you want.
However you can’t make those changes without a plan. You wouldn’t just buy a block of land and start building, would you? No, you’d design the house first! Get council approval. Buy all the supplies you needed. Get insurance.
The more you prepared and set up plans to deal with problems, the less likely you are to fail. So plan. Organize. Then have a wonderful life.
Moving Forward
Next week is the final post in this series! I really hope it has made some small difference to your life. I have loved writing it. Its very long though, so I am also excited to finish it and move on to new topics!
So tune in next week for our summaries and goodbyes to the Happiness Series.
Jake, In Summary:
This making a list of things that make me unhappy and making solutions has been something I have done for years. I call it the ‘Things Stressing Jake List’ and I like to check in on it once a month or so. I delete the things I have fixed, and I add new problems as the arise or as I become aware of them.
For me, one of the really therapeutic parts is knowing ALL my problems are written down, and there are solutions ready. I don’t have to keep thinking about them, the computer will remember them for me.
This lets me focus on one thing at a time, and greatly improves my quality of life.
I hope it does the same for you, let me know. I’m always happy to hear from you!
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