Longevity

One way to think about "what to do with your life" is to figure out a few simple guiding principles to help you make decisions. For example, in one blog post, I talked about being kind to future you, so when faced with a decision, you would choose the path that would make life easier/better for yourself in the future. Today I want to share the idea of "longevity." What skills will allow you to keep your options open as you grow older? Does it mean you get a college degree? Or does it mean that you set the foundation for starting your own business? Or if you are older, does it mean you get certified in another field? Longevity is an individual decision, and thinking about your options with this lens can be helpful.

Quotable Quotes: Ralph Nader

I'm not sure where I first heard this quote by Ralph Nader: "There can be no daily democracy without daily citizenship." 

Daily citizenship is not so easy to fit into daily life, so that gives pause as to where democracy will evolve.

Check It Off Challenge

I wanted to share the concept of a "Check it off challenge" which comes from my favorite organizing website Simplify 101. I couldn't find the original blog post, but I did find this Facebook post which describes the idea: "Do you feel overwhelmed by your to-do list? If so, join Simplify 101's Check-It-Off Challenge. All that’s involved is creating a list of 30 tasks that have been hanging out on your to-do list for a little too long and committing to getting them done in the next 30 days." I also found this Pinterest post that has a picture of Aby's list.

When Aby first posted about this in 2019, I jumped at the idea - and I still have my list which ran from February 1-28, 2019. What I love about this concept is making the list is very liberating because all the "to do's" are in one place. Then, you can decide if you even want to do the item and if you don't, no big deal - you can easily eliminate it without guilt. There is also less "mind clutter" because everything is on paper to remind you.

Also, in the spirit of "things don't have to be perfect," notice that I've posted this idea not on the 1st of the month!

Favorite Things: Simplify 101

Many years ago (September 2009, if memory serves), I discovered the online organizing destination Simplify101. It was an amazing space where I took online classes - back then, they were asynchronous written lessons, some with video content - and the best part was the online community forum where we could discuss our organizing challenges. I made friends from around the world, and lucky me, made a friend from a neighboring town! Although Aby doesn't run real-time classes anymore, she still offers asynchronous classes on her website. I've taken all these classes when they were originally offered, and they have helped me so much (no more "junk drawer"). I think the biggest takeaway (see yesterday's blog post) is that keeping an organized home is an ongoing process.

An organized home

I've made some progress over the years in creating an organized home. For example, there is no longer a "junk drawer" in our house - that's basically the catch all cabinet drawer that holds stuff that has no home. I've also succeeded in decluttering toys and clothes the kids have outgrown. However, I still struggle with paper and other "stuff" that ends up in piles around the house. Recently, I started a youth life coaching program, and as part of the training, each student coaches and is coached by another student, and we each choose real life issues that we want to work on. I was definitely "ready, willing and able" to engage, and I chose creating an organized home as my project. I am really looking forward to it. My first homework was to recycle piles of old newspapers - you know, the ones you think you'll read, but you never will! I got rid of them all. One step at a time!

Here's Exactly What To Do

I found Mel Robbins' new Audible podcast "Here's Exactly What To Do" and am enjoying it. I know there was a time in my life when I didn't want anyone to tell me what to do. But some times, it can be liberating when there is someone telling you "here's exactly what to do" because then you don't have to do any thinking, and you can just follow instructions. So far I've listened to episode 1: get and stay motivated (hint: there's no such thing as motivation, because basically you will never feel like it, so figure out a way to be kind to your future self and do it anyway) and episode 5: how to stop worrying (hint: ask yourself, what if it all works out?). There are 14 episodes and I'm looking forward to listening to them all.

One Step at a Time

In yesterday's blog post of approaching unknowns "one step at a time," I mentioned it in the context of unpredictable events. Today I wanted to extend this idea as good advice for all aspects of life - from the mundane to the extreme.

How you think affects how you feel which then affects how you behave. So if you start to have catastrophic thoughts (everything is going wrong! I'll never figure it out, it's too overwhelming), these thoughts likely will make you feel stressed or anxious which in turn might make you behave in an unproductive manner (substance abuse to dull the feelings, overeating, not eating, etc). 

Therefore, I offer the idea of "one step at a time" as a way to stop catastrophic thinking before it starts. It's an idea that modern cognitive behavioral therapy uses a lot, and is also present in the ancient Stoic philosophy and idea of "Dichotomy of Control." It's not easy to embrace these ideas, but they are quite powerful and helpful if you try.

What is your metric of success?

What do you want from life? Who do you want to be / grow into? How will you know when you have achieved your definition of "success"?

I think this idea of envisioning what your life will look like, how you will feel, who/what surrounds you, is a useful technique for first figuring out what you think you want, and then using this vision to figure out a path to make this dream a reality.

For me, I want calmness and happiness, and I also like predictability (some might call this boring-ness). However, many of us realize that life is actually very unpredictable. So in those times, I think it's important to take the unknowns one step at a time, and not think too far in advance because that becomes overwhelming, which then becomes paralyzing.