Welcome to The Simplifier, brought to you by…

Contents:

1. A Note From Shawn
2. Our Featured Quote
3. Article: Clearing Your Way to a Brighter Flame
4. Your Simplification Tip
5. In the News
6. Featured at ProjectSimplify.com
7. Keep Smiling

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1. A Note From Shawn

This week feels like the calm before the storm. Next week I’ll be going to the Bay Area for final preparations of the BIG day. A week from Saturday, my one and only sister and her beau will tie the knot in front of friends and family from all over the country. I look forward to her wedding—a joyous celebration of love and life, a representation of all the trials successfully passed and celebrations anticipated. Plus, the dining, drinking, and dancing afterwards is a blast!

I don’t think we, as a culture, celebrate enough. We accomplish something, big or small, and all too often, unceremoniously check it off the list and jump into the next thing. Let’s celebrate more! This is such an easy way to weave more joy into our lives. I’m not talking about some big drawn-out public affair, though those do have their place. I’m talking about, for example, finishing this edition of the newsletter, going outside on this gorgeous day, doing a hop, skip, jump, and a twirl, reaching my arms up to the apple tree laden with fruit, smiling big, and exclaiming, “Yes! Good job!” I might even throw in some dark chocolate infused with mint for an extra yee-haw.

A toast to more celebration!

Enjoy,

Shawn Tuttle

Head Simplifier
Project Simplify
Co-editor, The Simplifier

 

 

2. Our Featured Quote

“Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal.”

-Hannah More 

3. Article: Clearing Your Way to a Brighter Flame 

By Shawn Tuttle

(Ed. note: This article is part of a series. The previous article (“Getting Started with the 5 Core Concepts”) appeared in The Simplifier #39.)

Are you caught up in so much busyness that you don’t have time to make progress on your goals? The more commitments and stuff in your life, the more there is to manage. It’s easy to bring something into your life without thinking about how much time and energy it will take to deal with down the road. Even something as simple as signing up for a magazine subscription means that you’ll later need to deal with the magazines coming into your house (not to mention renewal notices, invoices…you get the idea.)

I’ve been amazed at the insistence of clients to hang on to clutter and packed schedules, despite a desire to simplify. They think they can do it all. They insist on believing that if they try harder, they will somehow figure out how to do everything easily. This approach hasn’t worked in the past—why would it work in the future?

I think they really want the mythical, magical Simplify Pill, popular with alchemists of days gone by. I’m afraid to say, that pill has been discontinued. (It was found to be addictive.) We humans living in the material world have to deal with the various “stuff” In our lives, one way or another.

When you engage in the same actions, you will produce the same results. Your life is the way it is because of decisions, habits, and actions in the past. If you want to simplify your life, something’s got to give, something’s got to change. It’s up to you to do the work of clearing the obstacles in your way.

But it doesn’t have to be that hard. There is a way to minimize time spent managing your stuff, so you can do what you love! 

Expand your flame by clearing the playing field
Earlier in this series, I invited you to identify heartfelt, specific goals. (See “Creating Meaningful Goals”, The Simplifier #38.) The focusing power of goal setting gives you another benefit, in addition to understanding where you are going—the brightness of the goal sheds light on the obstacles in your way.

Obstacles are entities (generally: physical stuff, commitments, thoughts, habits, or relationships) that do not contribute to making progress on your journey. Instead, they demand your time and energy without giving anything back; they are energy drains. The more time and energy sucked down the drain, the less you have for your dreams and goals. Simple as that. The faster you clear the energy drains from your life, the faster you make progress towards your goal.     

Clearing is a huge part of simplifying. How many things are in your life is only a small part of this discussion. Your focus should primarily be on the quality of the things in your life.

How do you identify the obstacles that are ready to be cleared? By…

…Observing your relationship with your things
What in your environment makes your energy drop every time you look at it or think about it? What consistently takes up your space while contributing nothing to you? Our things either support us or they take from us. Attuning yourself to this difference and setting the dial to “support” will help you remove or let go of things.

…Evaluating your commitments 
Are there any responsibilities that you shouldn’t have taken on? Ones that have run their course in your life? Any that you feel negatively towards? When you identify commitments to disengage from, do so conscientiously and with adequate communication with the others involved. Responsibilities that you don’t enjoy and that bring you down are net-negatives. Ditch them.

…Identifying self-defeating thought patterns
Do you catch yourself saying:
-“I can’t (fill in the blank)” or “I’ll never be able to_____”
-“I feel guilty when I work on my stuff”
-“I’m not good enough to____”
-“I don’t have enough experience to ___”
-“If I do this ____ (goal) then that (something negative) will happen”
Since these thoughts, upon reflection, are often irrational or downright contradictory,  they can often be eradicated by vigilance. When you hear your mind start playing one of these self-defeating thoughts, press stop and replace with a positive visualization.  (See the Visualization section in my previous article for more on this.)

Each of these methods hone in on distractions fighting for your attention.  Imagine yourself as a flame that expands or diminishes. The things that support you expand the glow of your flame. The things that drain you diminish your flame.

Now you have the tools to identify the obstacles in the way of your goal. The intention is to select the ones that are ready to be cleared and not get carried away with everything you’d like to fix in your life. Grab your handy 5 Core Concepts worksheet (click here to download) and write them in the area labeled “Clear”.

Removing those limiting forces can be challenging—but overcoming challenges is not only rewarding, it also frees up precious time and energy for your journey’s momentum. Opportunities previously hidden by the shadows of obstacles will be revealed. As you clear the playing field, stay on track with continued, daily visualization of your heartfelt goal. Let the process be easy—it’s part of the journey!

In the next article we’ll present the magical Progress Pill—just kidding, that pill was discontinued for throwing people into shock. ;-) But seriously folks, we’ll start laying out the plans to make measurable progress towards your goal. See you then!

—

Shawn Tuttle is founder of Project Simplify.

4. Your Simplification Tip

Getting rid of stuff

When it comes to getting rid of things around the house, this tip can help you from falling down the slippery slope of indecision. The essence is: keep the things that support the person you want to be.

People have some catchy ways of remembering this:
If you don’t love it, need it, or use it—get rid of it!
If you haven’t used it in a year— it’s outta here.

You may want to adopt one as a mantra.

Personally, I ask myself, “Does this support the person I am becoming?” with each item in question. If not, gone!
I no longer need to do full-scale purges, but I do keep a “to thrift store” bag in my closet for random items I come across that fail the supportiveness test.

Keep your surroundings active and lively, making sure that you love what you have!

 

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5. In the News

In the News is compiled by The Simplifier co-editor Lance Brown.

More happiness, less stuff (The Edmond Sun - OK)
URL: http://tinyurl.com/2rq9xa             
Voluntary simplicity - “bucking the trend of consumerism and making an effort to live mindfully, both materially and mentally.”

Book review: Time Power by Brian Tracy (Zen Personal Finance)
URL: http://tinyurl.com/32a9g2          
A “zen personal finance” blogger reviews and gives an overview of one guide to time management.

Monday Momentum: The Best Way to Begin Your Week! (American Chronicle)
URL: http://tinyurl.com/38nrcy             
“Monday Momentum” has got to be better than whatever special Monday effect I was experiencing this week. Call it “Monday HazeShock”. I don’t recommend it…but this “momentum” thing might work!

If you know of something in the news that should be featured here, let us know!

 

6. Featured at ProjectSimplify.com

Our “Hire Project Simplify” page

While this newsletter is free (and generally ad-free), Project Simplify also provides a number of services for paying clients. In fact, it’s those paying clients that allow us to provide a free newsletter like this one. (Shhh…don’t tell them that. We don’t want them to resent you. ;-))

Now (stick with us here), if you can forget the fact that we just asked you to keep a secret from yourself, we’d like to invite you to check out our Services page, more commonly called “Hire Project Simplify”. Perhaps you might like to become a paying client yourself, thus subsidizing your own free newsletter subscription. That way you would avoid having to resent yourself for getting free benefits at the expense of the folks who help us pay the bills (i.e., you). Then your only remaining issue would be the fact that you’re keeping secrets from yourself.

Confused? Perfect. Now grab your checkbook, and click on over to our menu of simplifying delights. Quick, before the dizzies wear off! ;-)

(next issue: you’re getting sleepy, verrry sleeepy…)

 

 

7. Keep Smiling

…everyone else is doing it!

If everyone was going to jump off the Empire State Building, would you do it?

We all learned from our childhood that the correct answer to this question is supposed to be “No.” But what if the question started with, “If everyone was smiling, …”?

Sociologists would say that if everyone was smiling, there’s a pretty good chance that you would end up smiling too. And luckily, in this day and age, we have things like Google Images to provide us with plenty of fodder with which to test that theory.

Google has gathered “about 180,000″ smiling faces images for you to feed off of—now, or whenever you need a little positive peer pressure.

Check ‘em out…and if you feel the corners of your mouth starting to respond, don’t resist! Sometimes it’s OK to go with the crowd. (We won’t tell your parents.)

 

 

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Thanks for reading!

Publication Information
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The Simplifier is published by:
Project Simplify
P.O. Box 597
Nevada City, CA 95959
phone: 530.205.5775
web: www.projectsimplify.com
e-mail: (newsletter@projectsimplify.com) newsletter (at) projectsimplify (dot) com