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

Chances are that if you clicked on this video, you are focused on making your life better and improving upon who you were yesterday. And if you're like me, it is easy to think that the first step to achieving this is to add more to your already busy schedule. However, what has actually improved my life the most has been focusing my energy, first of all, on taking things away to give me the oxygen to focus on what matters most.

The experience reminds me of this Bruce Lee quote: “It is not the daily increase, but daily decrease. Hack away at the unessential. ” It points to the fact that one of the fastest ways to advance our life is to simplify it.

Less clutter - physical, mental and digital - paves the way for clearer thinking and intentional living because nobody performs well when pulled in a dozen different directions. If you're new to this channel, welcome. My name is Simon Alexander Ong, the bestselling author of Energize, international keynote speaker, and award winning coach.

And in today's video, I want to share with you 11 things I quit to simplify my life and to enjoy it a lot more. The first thing I quit was overthinking more than necessary. In the early 2000s, designer and engineer Peter Skillman put an experiment out to three groups.

In the first group were kindergarten children. In the second were MBA students, and in the third were CEOs. The challenge was this: in 18 minutes, build a tower using 20 pieces of spaghetti, a yard of string, a yard of tape, and a standard sized marshmallow.

Now, the objective was to get the standard sized marshmallow at the top of the tower. Whoever built the tallest tower with the marshmallow being on top would win. Now, who do you think built the tallest tower?

Was it the kindergarten children? The MBA students? Or the CEOs?

The results were fascinating because the group that won were the kindergarten children. On average, they built the tallest structure with the marshmallow being on top. Now, when you look at this experiment, what it tells us is that the kindergarten children didn't win because they were smarter than the other two groups.

They won because they interacted in a smarter way. While the MBA students and the CEOs were so focused on the planning and the brainstorming and status games: who was in charge? who was going to lead the team?

who was responsible for what part of the experiment? The kindergarten children got stuck into action straight away and they iterated and they got insights at a faster rate than the other two groups. So the lesson from this experiment is that clarity comes from taking action.

The quicker that you can close that gap between idea and execution, the faster the feedback you get and the more progress you make. And when you take action, what happens is that you increase the seeds that you plant. You increase the opportunity to experience lucky moments.

So here's a question for you: How much longer will you avoid doing what you are capable of in order to continue with what you are comfortable doing? The second thing I quit was focusing on things outside of my control. Too many of us attach our emotional well-being to things that are outside of our control.

So, for example, validation from other people, relying on an event happening before we feel a certain emotion. When this happens, you are outsourcing your happiness to someone or something outside of your control. When you focus on what is in your control, however small, you feel more empowered.

And this is why the journey is always better than the destination. In fact, when you discover who you truly are, you become less reliant on external validation for your self-worth. Blaming others is easy.

Taking responsibility is harder. Don't be allergic to personal responsibility, because only when you take full ownership of where you are and where you want to be, can life really begin. The third thing I quit was making my health a side hustle.

When you are healthy, you have lots of hopes and dreams. When you are sick, however, you only have one. To be well again.

This is why I make daily exercise a non-negotiable. And this is how I see it. One hour a day of exercise takes up less than 5% of your time.

When I see it this way, I make sure I put in the reps. I make sure that I make my health a priority. Now, you don't have to put one hour a day for exercise.

It can be less. But the fact is, you have to be consistent with making your health a priority. For consistency always beats intensity.

You may not always want to go out and move your body, but you never regret it after. Because once you finish pushing your body in whatever way works for you, the state your mind is in means that you can handle whatever challenges the day may throw your way. So if your health is important to you, you will make time for it.

If not, eventually you will be faced with no choice but to deal with illness. And that is something that many of us come to regret. We end up wishing that we had prioritized our health.

Realizing that we only have one body. The fourth thing I quit was sleeping late. When I was in college, in the first part of my career in the financial services industry and in the early part of my entrepreneurial journey, I used to sleep until the early hours of the morning, and I noticed that the next day I wasn't functioning to the best of my ability.

You see, the most productive days we experience always begin with getting sufficient rest. In fact, the best caffeine is not coffee but 8 hours of sleep. Think back to the last time you had sufficient sleep.

What happened is that you woke up in the morning with the energy to make the most of your day. The fifth thing I quit was playing small. You see, you have no idea how good you can get.

You can get scary good. Even if you suck right now. And it begins with the stories that you tell yourself.

It begins with being bold and brave with the actions that you take. When Jeff Bezos was working in finance, he was at a point in his life where he was contemplating about starting a company called Amazon. He didn't know which choice to make.

Should he go for the safe one and stay at the company that was paying him well, or should he take a risk and go down the path that was unknown? What he did is he approached this through a framework called Regret Minimization. He fast forwarded to the 80 year old version of himself, and he reflected on whether he would regret not choosing the path of starting this new company.

And the answer was yes, he would regret it. And so he went to work after going through this decision, in his mind, told his boss that he wanted to quit to start Amazon. And the rest, of course, is history.

he didn't follow logic. Instead, he followed this regret minimization framework to see if not taking the opportunity to start a company would be something he would regret. And that's something you can think about, especially if you're going through a dilemma at the moment.

To go with one choice over another. Think forward to the older version of yourself. Would you regret not starting that thing?

Would you regret not taking that first step? Making that ask? Uploading that story?

Sharing that idea? If so, that is your answer: to do it. Because very often we regret not the things that we did, but the things that we did not do.

So what are you waiting for? Life is too short and too precious to not pursue something that makes you feel alive. Stop playing small.

Be bold. Be brave and play big. Because when you look back later in life, that future self is going to thank the you of today.

They are going to thank the you of today because you focused your energy and time towards what matters most for you. The sixth thing that I quit was being around people, places and things that drained my energy. Energy is infectious.

If you spend time around things that are negative in no time, you're going to feel negative as well. If you spend time around things that are positive in no time, you will be positive as well. You don't have time to be around people who will pull you down.

You don't have time to be doing things that are not aligned to where you want to be. Sit down now and write down a list of the things that give you energy and the things that drain you of energy and notice which list you are currently spending most of your time focused on. If it's on the list of things that are draining you of energy, what can you do now to stop doing some of those things, or at least doing less of them so that more of your time is focused on the things that give you energy?

The seventh thing I quit was consuming more than I create. It is very easy to consume information in today's world, from reading books to scrolling through social media, watching videos on YouTube and listening to podcasts. Now, if you are consuming the right information, what matters next is not the amount you consume, but how much of that information you are putting into action.

What you are doing with that knowledge. If you are consuming more than you create, you're not really going to see the benefit of that information. You need to flip the focus so that you are creating far more than you consume because that's where the magic happens.

The magic happens when you put those ideas you have into motion. What happens is that when you create more than you consume, you not only are able to have a greater impact in the world, but you are also able to develop your personal brand. And your personal brand is all about the value that you have to offer to the world.

In fact, I'm a big believer that our value is determined by how much more we have given to the world than we have taken from it and giving to the world is all about your ability to create something of value. What can you create today that will add value to someone's life? The eighth thing I quit was comparing myself to others.

Comparisonitis, if you will. Now it is so easy to compare ourself to others. From the moment you turn on your phone, you're already bombarded by what other people are sharing in what looks like their best lives.

We compare our daily life - what people don't actually see - to other people’s highlight reel. If you are going to look to others, what you should do instead is to look to them for inspiration. Get curious instead of jealous and try to understand what are they doing that has helped them succeed?

And what are they doing that has helped them to get to where they are in their journey? Because when you get curious you begin to learn. And when you learn, you get insights.

And from those insights, you can put things in action to help you build momentum. So look to others for inspiration, not comparison and it it'll be far more productive for helping you make progress. The ninth thing that I quit was seeing constraints as bad.

Now, in your life, you're going to be faced with a number of constraints from time to time in both your personal and professional lives. But your interpretation of those constraints will determine the action you take. In this mythical story about Ernest Hemingway, for example, he was asked to write a six word story that would move an audience emotionally.

Six words was his constraint, and he came up with the following six word story: for sale - baby shoes never worn. That story engaged the audience. And it showed that with constraints, it can actually breed creativity and superpowers.

When our daughter was born, the constraint we now had was that we had to drop her off a nursery and pick her up each day. Suddenly we had a lot less time to get things done. However, it made us more productive than ever because with limited time You're focused on understanding what your priorities are and disregarding the things that don't really matter in the grand scheme of things.

The tenth thing that I quit was the busyness trap because I came to understand that it's important to not confuse being busy with being productive. Or as Denzel Washington would say, “Don't mistake movement for progress because you can be running in place a lot, but not actually moving anywhere. ” And the reason that it was important to quit the busyness trap is because many live this tragic scenario of living as if we are never going to die and then dying, having never really lived.

We work so hard so often and so long that we forget to actually make a life. We are living for a future that may or may not happen instead of enjoying the present, which is all we actually have. And so when you think about your days and weeks ahead, understand that work and rest are partners of the same team.

If you work to the exclusion of rest, then you will eventually burn out. If you rest to the exclusion of work, you get nothing done. And when you do work, make sure you’re focused on working with intention, focusing on the things that will actually move the needle so that you're not just busy for busy sake, remember, don't confuse busy with being productive.

The eleventh thing that I quit was living a cluttered life. And so what I did instead was focus on streamlining everything around me from having a simpler environment, less decisions to make every day, and a phone that only had the apps that I was using on a regular basis. Because when you’re living a simpler life that is clutter free, what happens is that you are able to think clearer.

You're able to focus on the task at hand and not be distracted by all the noise around you When you live a simpler, more minimal life, you're able to get more done, and that's what helps to skyrocket your productivity. example of this was having a simpler wardrobe, less clothes to choose from. If you look at the videos I’ve shot here on YouTube, you'll notice I wear the same t shirt and trousers.

This took away the decision each morning of deciding what to wear. Now that I eliminated that decision, I could focus my energy on decisions that would have greater impact on my day ahead. So those are the 11 things that I quit to simplify my life and I want you to know that this process does not happen overnight.

It is not a one time event. It is a journey. And as you begin to do less of or even eliminate some of these burdens, what happens is that you create space for living with more joy, freedom and fulfillment.

And isn't that a life that we all want? It begins with removing things from your life so that you have the space to add the things that matter and to focus on creating a life that you can be proud of. As always I would love to learn from you as well let me know in the comments below what things you have quit that have not only simplified your life but have made it better as a result.

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