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Category: happiness

An Introduction to Simplifying Your Life

Published 07/25/2014

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I realized I have not written an actual post on simplifying, yet it is one of the main practical tasks of meaningful living and becoming a happier person. I know there are probably some skeptical people out there, since we live in such a consumerist society where we are taught that more is better.

It makes me kind of sad that we are pressured to keep up with the Joneses. This causes a stressful life, where we compare ourselves to the success of others and the material possessions or status they have achieved. Life is not about that, at least in my perspective. I’d rather know that I lived my life meaningfully, that I gave back, inspired people, focused on my passions, my friends and family, and didn’t stress myself worrying about having the latest and greatest. That’s just exhausting and a waste of precious time and energy.

I can’t even begin to tell you the mental shift you get when you start to focus on what really matters.

Call it minimalism/simplicity/essentialism, they all boil down to the same thing: Figure out what is the most important to you, and get rid of everything else.

All of that extra “stuff” is just a distraction to living the life that we want. And I don’t even mean the physical stuff, but other areas as well can be simplified:

  • Material things: getting rid of the material possessions that don’t serve us
  • Time commitments: only saying yes to things that bring us value
  • Debt: spending less money on things allows us to save more money
  • Our computers: clearing out all of the junk files and pointless emails. Unsubscribing from junk mail.
  • Clothing and shoe collections: only keeping what is used most frequently
  • Food quality: choosing to eat healthy foods only, cutting out the bad chemicals such as caffeine, alcohol, sugar, processed foods
  • Time spent online: spending less time wasting our hours away surfing the internet (I am very guilty of this one as I’m a self-help and bloggoholic haha)
  • Negative self-talk: learning to control our thoughts and not allowing negativity in
  • Distractions/vices: getting rid of any habit that is not good for us
  • Bad people: cutting our ties from those who are bad for our souls and our growth

And the benefits!

  • Less stuff to clean (yay!)
  • Less stress
  • Save more money
  • More time to do what we love and what is important
  • Less worry about our possessions, they don’t own us
  • More freedom
  • More environmentally friendly and less consumption
  • Less focus on the superficial
  • More confidence
  • Less fear of failure
  • Having high quality things
  • More happiness!
  • More time to focus on health, precious people, and our passions
  • No more keeping up with the Joneses
  • Time slows down and being more present
  • Inner peace and a zen state of mind

But it’s one of those things, it doesn’t really sink in until you try it for yourself. The idea that we can let go of constantly wanting things is so liberating, you’ll never go back.

Let me know if you already live like this. I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below or send me an email at lessoftheexcess at gmail dot com.

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The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari

Published 07/04/2014

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“The secret of happiness is simple: find out what you truly love to do and then direct all of your energy toward doing it. Once you do this, abundance flows into your life and all your desires are filled with ease and grace.” – The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari

I just finished this amazing book, The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari by Robin Sharma. It’s about a very successful lawyer, who one day gets a stroke, which makes him question the meaning of life. He goes away for a while and tours the East, meeting some Sages along the way, who provide him with the wisdom on living a meaningful life.

If you are looking to live a life with more purpose, joy, peace and happiness, I highly recommend this read. It is really inspiring and is a really great guide to get you to a place of self-actualization whether you’re just beginning your journey or still learning. It focuses on the topics of mastering your mind, following your purpose, self-mastery and enlightenment through the body, mind, and soul, living with discipline, respecting your time, being selfless and embracing the present. Furthermore, it talks about the importance of solitude, physicality, live nourishment, abundant knowledge, personal reflection, early awakening, music, spoken word, congruent character and my favourite, simplicity!

Basically, our minds filter our world, and we can live in any world that we want. I’m going to write a post about filtering, aka the law of attraction, aka priming, aka prayer, aka the universe, aka whatever you want to call it. Yep.

You can Purchase the book here and help out the lessoftheexcess website! Let me know if you’ve read this book. I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below or send me an email at lessoftheexcess at gmail dot com.

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Mastering the Art of Letting Go

Published 05/07/2014

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“The root of all of our problems is our inability to let go.” – Leo Babauta

I apologize for being a bit MIA this week, I’ve been busy from day until night everyday with interviews, teaching and consulting work, but I’ve been aching to get back at my blog! Today, I bring to you a free gift, an e-book created by the talented writer and minimalist, Leo Babauta, who is also someone I look up to and is a huge source of inspiration in starting my blog.

The e-book is called The One Skill: How Mastering the Art of Letting Go Will Change Your Life. The title sort of explains it, but basically it’s based on the Zen idea of letting go, and when we can master this we can reduce our stress, procrastinate less, improve our relationships, increase our ability to deal with change, learn to change difficult habits, and become more present in our lives.

The biggest thing I took away from this book was the idea that our expectations or fantasies are based on ideals, and when we have certain ideals about the way a situation or a person should be, we set ourselves up for disappointment, stress and anxiety. This causes fear, fear of things not turning out the way they should. But when we can just learn to let go of these ideals, the fear disappears, and we become more present, happy and productive.

But, you don’t have to take my word for it, take a look for yourself and see. It’s a pretty easy read and the benefits are huge.

Pick up this FREE e-book here and check out Leo Babauta’s amazing blog at zenhabits.net. I promise you won’t be disappointed!

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this e-book if you read it! Let me know in the comments below or send me an email at lessoftheexcess at gmail dot com.

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My Story Page Updated

Published 04/22/2014

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I have finally updated My Story page, for anyone who is interested!

A good friend of mine always used to say, “It’s the journey that counts, not the destination.”

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Breaking Free From Vices

Published 04/21/2014

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“The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.” – Joseph Campbell

Today’s blog post was triggered by an interesting and challenging experience I recently had and I felt like I wanted to share my insights with you. I was faced with a situation where in the past I would have gone to one of my vices in order to cover up fear and emotion, but I was able to push through it in order in order to gain a richer and more meaningful experience. I’m using this as a metaphor for this blog post on how we use things, or clutter, or bad habits in order to cover up something that is underneath.

Do you have any vices?

Any bad habits, negative character traits or reactions that are unhealthy for you? Shopping? Drug use? Alcohol? Dating? Sex? Over-eating? Gambling? Even habits like watching too much television or YouTube when you could be focusing on something more meaningful or productive? We do them because we think they will make us feel better, and they do but only for a brief moment. Just as soon as it started, the happiness goes away and we’re left with an empty feeling at the pit of our stomach and we need to fill up the hole with more of these vices again. And the cycle continues.

These vices are all forms of distractions keeping us away from a more focused, happy, authentic and meaningful life.

What we really need to do is get to the source of what is really upsetting us and leaving us feeling empty or afraid. What are we trying to run away from within ourselves? And what are the triggers? It is usually an emotional issue that we are trying to avoid and only when we come to grips with what we’re emotionally avoiding can we have the blissful and meaningful life we want (and deserve). We won’t need to turn to our vices to make us feel better.

Think about the life you want to live. Refer to this blog post to help you.

How to recognize when you are using vices as forms of distractions and get focused:

1. Become aware of your negative habits, write them down if you need to. It might be difficult to recognize when something is bad for you if it feels good. But if you are constantly feeling frustrated that things are not going the way you want them to in your life, (and it is happening over and over again), it is a good sign something needs to change. The first step is awareness.

2. Notice when you feel the need to act on your vice. How are you feeling at this very moment. Are you bored? Lonely? Depressed? Scared?

3. Face your issue head on. Stop for a moment, don’t head for the nearest shopping mall or alcoholic drink. Instead take some time to sit and do nothing and just feel your emotions. Nothing bad will happen to you.

When we are able to be comfortable with being alone with ourselves, we learn more about who we are. And to know ourselves brings us closer to authenticity and true happiness. It takes courage, but it is necessary if we want to have the life we want. When we can do this, we won’t need all of the old vices that we are used to going to. Also, don’t be afraid to talk openly and honestly if your issue involves other people, because the results may surprise you.

From my personal experience, when I made the conscious decision to fight against my go-to vice, I was finally free, like a ton of bricks had been lifted off my shoulders. I  was free from being “stuck” in an old habit and being miserable and unhappy with the end results. I knew I had to stay focused on my life vision if I wanted to be happier. I grew so much from this and I want to make sure I am continuously growing and learning from these types of experiences and moments for the rest of my life. It’s basically ‘unlinking’ old associations, and creating new and more positive ones. Nothing could be better!

“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” – Albert Einstein

What are some of your vices? Do you notice when they come up? Let me know in the comments below or send me an email at lessoftheexcess at gmail dot com.

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