What are some ways to simplify your life and attract better opportunities?
Simplifying is one of the best attraction techniques out there.
When we eliminate the complexities of life, the constant rushing around and busyness, then we can see what is really important and design our lives around it. When we create space in our lives, we attract all sorts of wonderful opportunities.
I recently whipped out Elaine St. James’ book, Living the Simple Life, and was stunned when I read the tip about getting off automatic pilot. How had I missed this? I quote her here:
One of the things that made it possible for me to keep going at high speed until I simplified my life was an innate ability to race through my day on automatic pilot. I think this is true for a lot of us.
She points out that we’re used to rolling out of bed in the morning, dashing through the shower, eating breakfast while reading the paper, packing the kids off to school, driving to work on automatic while thinking about everything else, going through our work day, etc. Then back home again we fall into an evening routine, dinner, clean up, television, all on automatic.
And, while weekends might present some break from the routine, we end up going to the same restaurants, seeing the same people, and going to the same places.
At one point, I realized that I had fallen into the automatic pilot trap.
Even on weekends, my husband and I always went to the same restaurants and ordered the same things. We just didn’t even have the space to think about what else we could try or do, so we fell into a rut. So, how do we simplify our life once we’ve fallen into a rut?
St. James points out that “Living on automatic pilot is often what makes it possible for us to do all the things we feel we have to do. We squeeze into our days new chores or commitments, adding another errand here, another lunch date there, without considering whether we really have the time to do them, let alone the desire.”
Her solution: put some air back in your days so you can take the scenic route to work and enjoy the drive or have a leisurely breakfast with the family instead of a rushed scramble. The key is to eliminate the tasks and activities that you don’t really enjoy and orient your life around your true pleasures.
If we simply run through life on automatic pilot, we aren’t really present and we aren’t really enjoying life.
We are just passing through. In my own life, I’ve noticed that I’m not enjoying our morning routines and in fact, get quite irritable with my daughters. No matter how much time we have, we always seem harried and rushed at the last minute getting the girls to school. And evening meals can be a harrowing experience as well as we seem to rush through our meal so we can clean up and get the kids in the bath and read the bedtime stories. These are the two most precious times of the day and yet, I’m not happy with how we are living them.
I’m going to take one of my organization tips and set up a weekly menu plan so that every night we know what to have for dinner and aren’t frantically scrambling around to create something. This will in turn simplify the shopping and make it really easy for me to stay on budget with food. Instead of going out to dinner with my husband, we recently picked up some Chinese food and ate it on the beach while watching the sun set. It was so romantic (and a lot less expensive)!
This week, simplify a few things so that you have some breathing room in your schedule (try hiding the TV for just one week) and then start to consider how else you might simplify your life.
Are there commitments or time-consuming tasks you can relinquish or delegate?
The more aware and the more sensitive you are, the easier it is to see the opportunities around you and the more irresistibly attractive you will become. In order to be fully present and experience the moment, it helps if you are fully aware of what is happening around you.
There is joy in the subtleties of any given moment.
Most of us have a few vices that distract us from the present. In order to really feel what is going on in our lives, it helps to simplify your life and eliminate a few of the distractions as well as the bad habits that keep us numb or on automatic pilot—the routines that just keep us moving without thinking, feeling or being particularly conscious or aware.
I have posted before about simplifying my own life so that I didn’t have the feeling of rushing around all the time. And that meant getting off automatic pilot. We hid the TV in the spare room for a week to break ourselves of the TV habit and it was amazing how much peace that gave us. I took a number of long hot baths to just sit and think about my life and had time to notice the incredibly beautiful light at that time of the day.
Getting rid of clutter is a very easy way to become clearer mentally as well.
I now know myself well enough to know that I’ll never clean my own desk because I’ll get distracted and start writing something or doing something more interesting. I spent two hours with my assistant and did a big clear-out of the office on Friday. Talk about the magic of attraction…on Monday I got a nice royalty check in the mail! (I knew it was coming but it was three times as much as usual! Coach Yourself to Success is doing really well in Germany!)
If you have a messy desk that you can’t seem to clear, don’t try doing it yourself, get help. In fact, if you are struggling with anything, just get someone to help you and you’ll find it is so much easier. Instead of spending the whole day in misery trying to clean up my desk, I did it in two hours, thanks to my wonderful assistant.
Ask yourself, is there anything that is numbing or diverting you from being fully sensitive to the present moment?
This may include things like caffeine, drugs, alcohol, sugar, television, social media, surfing the net, clutter, running late, or noise.
Cut one thing out this week and replace a self-destructive habit with a good one…like reading books in place of TV or drinking herbal teas instead of coffee, eating fruit instead of sweets or cookies.
Enjoy your new peace of mind and your simple life!
You may also enjoy the article You Can Have Your Ideal Life.
