When was the last time you evaluated or questioned your routines, habits, rituals and productive behaviours?
Today, right now, is the best time to ask yourself essential and crucial life-changing questions about the direction of your life.
Is everything you are doing right now helping you build a better life?
Are your habits still serving you?
Is your mindset about life and living it making life easier or difficult for your present life? Are your beliefs from the past still important for your future self?
You can write down the regular habits and routines in the many areas of your life (career, relationships, personal finance, health and personal growth) and find out which of them are actually helping you achieve your goals.
You can make a list for each area of your life and start crossing off anything that brings out the worst in you.
Prioritize the most important things and experiences in life and get rid of anything you can do without that causes stress.
More often than not, we focus on the many things we want but don’t need and neglect the few but most important things we need for a good life.
For a good life, choose less but better habits
“Creating an essential intent is hard. It takes courage, insight, and foresight to see which activities and efforts will add up to your single highest point of contribution. It takes asking tough questions, making real trade-offs, and exercising serious discipline to cut out the competing priorities that distract us from our true intention.” — Greg McKeown, Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less.
Things like life experiences, time with the people we love, and taking care of our health greatly influence our happiness.
Focusing on the essentials in life means living a life by design, not by default. It means being proactive about our habits and behaviours.
Marcus Aurelius was a Roman emperor from 161 to 180 and a Stoic philosopher. In his famous book, Meditations, Aurelius encourages us to constantly ask ourselves if our present habits and behaviours are essential.
Do my current behaviours and routines spark happiness, joy or satisfaction?
Marcus Aurelius explains in his book, Meditations, “If you seek tranquility, do less. Most of what we say and do is not essential. If you can eliminate it, you’ll have more time, and more tranquility. Ask yourself at every moment, “Is this necessary?”
If you ponder over almost everything you do daily, you can find out what’s eating your time and what’s helping you build a better life.
A simple question can shift your focus to the right and important things in life.
The only way to live intentionally is to align your habits with your values and long-term goals consciously.
What do you really want in life?
Right now is the best time in history to start a life inventory, rethink the many things you do daily, and ask yourself, “Are all these things necessary? Why am I still doing it?
“It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it. Life is long enough, and a sufficiently generous amount has been given to us for the highest achievements if it were all well invested,” Seneca once said.
All of us have an infinite amount of time available to us.
Make time for the essentials for a happy life:
- Do what brings out the very best in you.
- Pursue your curiosities.
- Learn to be more present.
- Give yourself permission to pursue your true north.
- Take care of your health by embracing better habits like walking, spending time in nature and making time for exercises you enjoy.
- Keep company with happy people and spend quality time nurturing your relationships.
A lot of people have what I call the “noisy mind”.
They are constantly thinking about things. They can’t just shut their brains off! Instead, they get distracted and can’t focus on the most important things to them.
Instead, they are more likely to get caught up in the wrong things.
When you are too busy reacting to almost everything, it’s easy to get sucked into a world of distractions.
If you are constantly thinking about things you have to do, things you want to buy, or things you’d change about your life if you had the time and money to do it, you stop living.
You get wrapped up in everything but your present life and lose focus on the essentials. You lose sight of what’s most important to you. You lose sight of what’s most important in your life.
“Happiness can only be found if you can free yourself of all other distractions,” says Saul Bellow.
The good news is it’s not too late to start focusing on the essentials in life.
If you are feeling overwhelmed, burnout or stressed, it’s time for you to take a step back and look at what is truly important in life.
This can help you prioritize your responsibilities and free up time for the most important things.
Focusing on the essentials is one of the best ways to take control of your life.
This way, you’re more likely to succeed, even if you’re going through a rough patch. If you can’t think about anything else, you’re more likely to stay focused on the essentials.
Life is long if you focus on the few things that spark happiness and joy.
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This post was previously published on MEDIUM.COM.
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