A starting point for a year of less in order to gain more

Fog over mountains with the text A starting point for a year of less in order to gain more

We all go through natural phases where life feels more or less intense and more or less overwhelming. Currently, I am in a phase of overwhelm, and I have been for a couple of months. And, life for the last six years or so has felt overwhelming more often than not. Don't get me wrong -- there have been periods where life has felt terrific and balanced, but not as often as I would like . . . not often enough for me to feel like I am thriving.

This past weekend, I had a friendship come to an end in an extraordinarily emotionally painful manner. I will admit, I made some mistakes and said some things to the other person that I shouldn't have, but it was a mutually destructive situation. I wish the other person a healthy, happy, joy filled life and I will miss them, but the experience prompted me to look inward and to examine how I've been living life, what I have been prioritizing, and what I might want to do differently in the future. 

As of today, I've decided to embark on an adventure of saying NO and doing LESS in an effort to gain MORE out of life. This is not the opposite of screenwriter and television producer Shonda Rhimes's book Year of Yes in which she took a year to say YES to almost all invitations and experiences that came her way. Rather, I am saying NO to the excesses of life and NO to situations that seem to keep coming up over and over in my life and that aren't serving me well. 

By doing LESS in certain areas of life, I hope to open space and energy to do MORE in other areas and in healthier ways. I'm starting a week before Thanksgiving 2023 in the USA, and I plan to use November and December as a time to reflect on the last few years, to practice saying no and to minimize things that have been harmful or hurtful in my life (including things I do or don't do myself!), and examining what I want more of in life. I'll be using this time to also design some tools to help me succeed in this journey -- some may show up in my Etsy shop as PDF printables for you to use, too. 

Hopefully, by January 1st, I'll have started forming some new, healthier habits to heal my state of overwhelm and bring my mind, body, and spirit back into alignment with my vision for my life. In turn, this should open up MORE positive, affirming, and balanced opportunities for my life. I hope it will also translate into being a better friend, colleague, and mother.

I am usually terrible at 30 day, year long, and other time based challenges, so we will see how this goes!

This blog will be pretty basic without fancy pictures and lots of gadgets and links all over the place. If I mention books, songs, films, or products that are related to this experiment, I will note links at the END of blog posts. (Edited to add: I tried writing posts without links in certain places, and it just wasn't working for me. Sometimes I want to share something and it seems weird to make you scroll to the bottom of the post to find it.)

~ Malea

Mentioned in this post:
Links may be affiliate in nature and I may receive a commission or reward if you purchase through these links. Books will be linked via both Bookshop.org and Amazon, when possible:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The down side of getting a lot done

Image
This past weekend, I wrote THIS post and THIS post about getting a lot done and invited you to work on your own tasks as well. Sometimes, I'm able to be extremely productive over a couple of days with minimal negative impact on the days that follow. Other times, not so much. This is one of those other times.  Today, I had a list of tasks I wanted to accomplish before work, during my breaks and lunch, and after work. Instead of doing any of them, I just barely managed to take care of my dog and a dog that I was babysitting today. And, I just barely got through my day regular work day.  I woke up feeling absolutely drained--possibly from excessive bad dreams driven by the current news cycle mixed with warmer than usual weather--and slept in until I absolutely had to get up in order to take my dog to go potty and to be back at my desk on time for work. I didn't do anything on either of my breaks or my lunch other than the bare minimum which included taking my dog and her doggie...
Read more

Get Things Done With Me--Session 2: Setting measurable goals and actually accomplishing them

Image
I recently wrote THIS blog post about getting lots of little tasks done around my home. The key is that each task was *small* and *defined*. As much as a good friend and I want to say we will clean and organize our ENTIRE homes, we both find that to be overwhelming. Even saying, "I'm going to clean my living room" is frequently too much! So, what do we do instead?  We create small and measurable goals that are easy to accomplish. And, we do that over and over throughout the day. You could argue that we are simply making to do lists, but I think that over simplifies things. We don't make a complete list of everything we plan to accomplish for the day as that can feel overwhelming. Instead, we list out just a handful of tiny tasks and micro-goals, accomplish those, and then repeat the process. When I wrote the post linked above (and linked  here ), I did set a larger goal, but I broke it down into micro-goals. The larger goal was to clean up the living room, dining are...
Read more

Get things done with me

Image
I love the idea of a weekly or monthly reset, but they don't work when everything feels chaotic all the time.  Due to some chronic health issues, I've not been keeping up on a lot around my home for months. Thus, piles have grown here and there. Dustbunnies have also grown here and there. No surface is clear or clean. My home is stressing me out right now. This is not how I want to live. I've started some new meds recently, and while there are some unpleasant side effects, overall, I do feel about 80% of normal. My energy is improving, as are my strength and overall stamina. So, today seemed like a good day to get lots of little things done.  If you've been feeling stuck and need a body double, then feel free to work alongside the tasks I list in this post!  My first step to any project that could be overwhelming is to text one of my dearest friends with my thoughts ("I don't want to do this. I hate this. Why is everything so messy all the time?"). Then, I...
Read more