get out of your comfort zone: hyper-simplify
As a hockey coach, I tell my players that they have to push themselves out of their comfort zone during practice if they expect to improve. For a hockey player, this might mean doing the drills a little bit faster or passing a little bit harder than what feels “right.” When a hockey player pushes himself out of his comfort zone, his new “regular” speed becomes a little bit faster and he becomes a better athlete. The idea of stepping outside of our comfort zone can be applied to many different aspects of our lives, simplifying being one of them. Simplifying some aspects of our lives can be very easy; it’s our comfort zone. For example, it’s not hard for me to clean out my closet and keep a minimal wardrobe. I also am not very challenged by cleaning out my desk and keeping it neat and organized. I’m not saying these are not important aspects of my life to think about, I’m just saying that it doesn’t challenge me to do these things. My comfort zone is what doesn’t require much thought or effort for me to accomplish.
In order to push ourselves out of our comfort zones when it comes to simplifying our lives, why not try a short burst of “hyper-simplification?” Hyper-simplification is taking some aspect of our life that we really can’t imagine changing, and simplifying it for a short amount of time. One good example would be to eliminate television for a set period of time. For some people, eliminating television from their life would definitely be a step toward simplification but they can’t even fathom doing it. Doing a short burst of hyper-simplification can be a really beneficial way to see if you could gain anything from simplifying a certain part of your life that otherwise you wouldn’t think needs any attention. In the television example, maybe you won’t turn it on for a week. At the end of that week, you can evaluate how the burst of hyper-simplification went. Even if you don’t continue to go television-less after your week of experimentation, maybe when you reintroduce it to your life it will be in a more moderate manner. Hyper-simplifying is not meant to remove or simplify parts of your life permanently (although you may decide to stick with it). The whole point is to push yourself out of your comfort zone for a little while in order to help you decide what is really important in your life.
The places in your life that you can not imagine simplifying the most are where you would probably stand to gain the most from a burst of hyper-simplification. For me, my biggest time sink and life-complicator is the internet. Even though I do spend some productive time on the web, too much of my free time is spent doing nothing in particular, basically wasting time. Getting out of my comfort zone would be to spend a few days completely disconnected from the internet to help regain some focus in my life.
Where could you gain from a burst of hyper-simplifcation?
Photo by Wade S.
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