9 Things I Quit To Simplify My Life | Minimalism, Slow Living, Self Care

For most of my life, I embrace hustle culture. I try to do more. I follow new habits.

But what really changed my life wasn't doing more. It was actually by doing and having less because I realized that I was able to finally take control of my time. I focus on work that move me forward and I find looked after my well-being.

So if you have energy to actually live life. Greek philosopher Epicurus once said, Nothing is enough for the man or woman to whom enough is too little. To live your best life, you need to know what is your enough.

Without that, it would never be enough. So in this video, I want to share with you the ten things that I quit in order to simplify and improve my life for the better. I quit mindlessly scrolling and using my phone to pass time.

I used to waste hours on my phone either when I'm bored or maybe I'm waiting for friends and I would just do a scroll through my social media feed or looking through the different apps almost compulsively because I built into a habit. It's amazing how much time we're wasting by just mindlessly scrolling. And I believe that with minimalism, it's important not only to declutter our physical things, but also just as important to declutter away our digital life as well.

And once I weaned off my phone habit, I realized that I felt a lot less rushed, negative, and distracted. And I start wasting my spare moments by scrolling through on my phone. But instead, I wasn't missing.

Any of the beautiful moments are happening around me. I started being more intentional when I'm with my kids and I end up taking new hobbies like playing tennis or even just water with my daughter now. And so, scrolling mindlessly when waiting for a train or waiting for a friend, I bring a book.

And in those three moments, as I added up every single month, I actually am finishing three or four books a month. Now, I didn't have the time for previously, and it really made me think about how much the little moments that adds up of all those tiny moments in time when we're scrolling through our phones that we use it to do. Things are much more worthwhile in our lives.

I quit living for my future self. For a long time I thought that I'd be happy once I reach my goals, then my life would be better and my ideal life would begin. But life is happening right now, right here, this very moment.

And I realize that this is the life, this life has always been the one I've been waiting for. And I think, yes, we need to do the hard things. We need to plan for the future in order to reach our goals.

But I don't think that we should delay our happiness so much that this elusive future may never come. And it doesn't mean that you can take things easy, right? But you can start feeling guilty for treating yourself better.

Now And I think you can live fully and also ambitiously in the now. It doesn't mean that you're delaying your future by going on that trip of a lifetime or giving yourself that time for intentional rest because your journey, the one thing you're taking on right now, it matters every single day. So start treating yourself better, treating your current self better.

And this way we can all live with intention that we can show up every day to make the most of every moment. I quit saying yes to everything. After I read the book Essentialism by Greg McEwen.

It really inspired me to think about my own people pleasing habit of saying yes constantly all the time. You know that feeling when you know that you packed your calendar to full and you just spread yourself too thin. And that was a period in my time when I felt like I'd lost the focus in my work and life and lost control of my own time and of creating average work.

We all get pulled in so many directions and so focusing on a few important things, we end up being busy for busy sake. Now, I really think so carefully before I say yes to anything. I want to set limits on my own time and energy because life is a constant dance of choices.

What we say yes to that means that something else in our lives has to go. Now, whenever I'm faced with an invitation or an opportunity, I always ask myself this Does this contribute to my projects and also my goals? I quit believing that intelligence and talent are things that we're born with.

Now, if I'm not good at something, I know that I can always learn and improve. With daily practice, I'm getting more understanding of it. I learned video editing to start this YouTube channel.

I learned digital marketing when I was laid twice in the financial crisis, and that's how I eventually got a job at Google. American psychologist Carol Dwight's book Mindset really changed the way I see how I should change my own fixed mindset into a growth mindset. and growth mindset is basically changing your belief to see that your intelligence are things that you can develop and help you, especially when things don't work out in your own life.

for me. I always believe that learning it doesn't stop the minute that you leave your school, but instead we should all embrace learning as a lifelong habit. So instead of thinking someone got ahead because they might be more intelligent or more gifted, think about how you can improve your own knowledge and skills instead.

Because the one thing that really helped me, and I hope that you can remember this too, is failure and setback. It doesn't define you is how you respond to it. That really matters.

This resilience, this way of thinking that you can always get back up and get better will keep you going no matter. How hard things get. Speaking of learning, I want to share a few words by today's video sponsor, Adobe Photoshop.

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I quit hoarding and buying clothes that I don't need. I traded my overflowing and also aspirational wardrobe that was really the result of myself over buying my younger years with a minimal set of essentials I like to wear every single day. You could tell from watching my videos that my style is very simple and usually works a few colors.

Less is definitely more to me because now I wake up in the morning, I feel a lot less stressed knowing exactly why I want to wear and not trying to figure out what else is in my closet. And this is the funny thing, is that when I did a clear out, I didn't realize a person has so many black tops right? I think, unfortunately, in the age that we're living in fast, fashion's cheap clothes really leads us to overconsumption.

And unfortunately, they waste your money and also your closet space. There are lots of clothes like that and thinking that one day I'll get a chance to wear just that one day. But the reality is, if you haven't touched it in the last two years, you probably won't be wearing it ever again.

And by simplifying my style, I now focus on having simple but multi-purpose, high quality items. I buy less, but now I get to wear them and love them more. I quit complaining about things that's out of my control.

I went from someone who complained all the time to someone who would decide to make a change instead, because dwelling on the things that we complain about will only just zap our energy and doesn't change anything. So instead, I focus on thinking about creating solutions, using what's available in front of me. When I struggle to live paycheck to paycheck, I decided to set up a realistic budget that I can actually stick to and cut out of spending from things I don't need.

When I got sick and was unhealthy. I decided to embrace a better lifestyle, manage my stress and sleep better. So I started working out.

I changed my diet and I became more energized to be able to use that energy on things that move my life forward. So you see, by focusing on what you can control, you're more likely to acknowledge your achievements and celebrate your small wins every step of the way and not bogged down by all this negativity and worry. You focused your energy on what really matters instead.

I quit starting my day with no plan and direction. when you have a plan. You get up in the morning.

You know exactly what to do and how to do it. And there'll be no more waste of time and energy. I felt a lot less stress when I started waking up with a plan that I made the night before.

It's nothing fancy. I didn't go over the board every night planning these things out. It's literally just a very short list of things I want to prioritize first thing in the morning.

And these are things that I want to get done. The first. And you find that in the morning, you start tackling the hardest thing on your list first.

And I feel great once you're done with them. But one thing for me that I always believed in is that a plan is not locked in forever. Things will happen and life will get in the way.

And that's okay. I quit an unrealistic, tidy home. For a long time and whenever we have friends and family come over, you might do the same.

I literally run around, make sure there are no dishes, unwashed, no surface on wipes, and then tidying up my daughter's room again to make sure no one steps in the legal break in pain. If you happen to you. What?

I mean, and I feel that I'm usually exhausted by the time our friends and family actually do come over. And there's been so many times where I feel like I'm so tired, I couldn't fully enjoy the experience. And eventually it really made me wonder what is wrong with us showing the real version of ourselves and how we live.

So what if we made mac and cheese from the cupboards? Or let's say the living room? We have small kids with toys all over the sofa on the floor without the kitchen, had bread crumbs over the counter.

I think we myself, definitely a big part of this became so obsessed with showing this version of perfection It's almost as if our home wasn't lived in by real people. Instead, it's when those showrooms that you see on Instagram Instagram but really start to fall in love with this concept that our life is a beautiful mess and it's time that we stop worrying for people to judge us for it. Our homes, Your home.

Where my home is all full of loving memories of people that live there. You may be very clean, or maybe not at all, or somewhere in between. And we all have different standards, right?

But what's important is that we are enjoying our experience of living there. And I think our friends and family, whoever come over to visit, will feel the same to. I quit expecting others to make me happy.

I think this has really changed my relationship, especially with my husband, Simon In any friendship or romantic relationships, I found it so liberating. I stop expecting others to read my mind or waiting for them to become perfect. It's a bit like building your house on shifting sand on this unstable foundation.

When you start a relationship this way, whether it's friendship, romantically, it really leads to unrealistic expectations. I think it also gives control over to emotions, which oftentimes we can't control by expecting others to make me happy. It led to resentment against others and actually neglecting my own self-worth and self-care.

In my experience, real relationship takes work. We had to work on communication, having honest, open conversations with each other about expectations. At the end of day, what I see is that we're all flawed human living, imperfect lives, And I think real happiness comes within ourselves.

while others in our lives can definitely contribute to our happiness, we shouldn't expect them to do so. So I hope that this video made you reflect on some of the things that you may also want to quit in your life. And I'd love to know more about them, so please do show me in the comments section if you like, this video emails like these ones here.

Thank you so much for watching. Let's see the next video. I quit overeating and junk food.

This was a really hard one for me. I grew up in a family that loves food. And my mom, she's known for her famous dumplings that she makes by hand.

And my parents always encouraged us as kids to eat as much as possible. So I never really understood the idea of portions. And this really carried into my adulthood.

I didn't realize at the time, but I was over eating on top of the stress and everything else I was going through. In my twenties, I just loved the convenience of junk food. It's literally everywhere that you see, and it's so easy to get.

And when I'm running around and short on time, these are usually the first things I would go to. But over time I realized that this really puts my digestive system under pressure. Also, if you combine that with eating lots of junk food, has all these unhealthy and sugars.

It just basically made me crave it so much more. I eventually made this conscious change into 80 plant based diet. Even though I still sell everything, I'm a flexitarian and like to joke about it, but it really made a huge difference in my overall energy levels, my sleep and how I feel.

It's just something that I would never look back on. To live your best life, you need to know what is your enough. Without that, it would never be enough.