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At my core, I have always been the kind of person who wants to do more, achieve more, and experience all that life has to offer. This part of me is driven by a desire to never be bored.
While this is an exciting way to live, and I don’t plan to give it up completely, I’m realizing that it does come with a price. My never-ending quest to “have it all” has, at times, taken a toll on my mental health. Stress builds when I pull myself in too many directions.
In an effort to lead a more balanced life, I have been returning to another lifelong fascination of mine— the desire to live a simple life. I still remember the first time this powerful feeling struck me— I was a teenanger and read a story about the lifestyle of ranchers living in the American West. There was something attractive to me in the simplicity and austerity of their lives and the landscape they lived in.
While I have no plans to move West chasing this old version of the American dream, I am making meaningful changes to simplify my life in the pursuit of a clear and healthy mind. Here are some of the benefits I am enjoying so far:
Less decision fatigue.
In 2008, a team of researchers performed four laboratory studies to measure the effects of decision fatigue on human self-control. You probably won’t be surprised to hear what they learned: the more decisions a person had to make, the less self-control they displayed afterwards.
Making a lot of decisions causes us to feel tired, give up quicker, put off hard things, and give in to temptation at higher rates. Knowing this about our nature, how do we set ourselves up for success? I believe the answer is to shape our lives so that we’re making fewer decisions, and focusing our best energy on the ones that matter most. A simpler life naturally means fewer choices to make and more mental space for everything else.
Greater focus on relationships.
I don’t think many people would argue that there’s a better way to lead a happy and meaningful life than to fill it with good friendships. And yet, somehow, leaving unrushed time for these kinds of relationships to form and flourish doesn’t get the kind of effort it deserves. It’s as if we expect these things to just take care of themselves, like they might have when we were kids and spent all day in school with our peers.
In my experience, intentionally leading a simple life is the best way to carve our time for relationships. As we put less emphasis on productivity and distractions, our brain rewires itself to enjoy the slower pleasures of an unfolding friendship. Need more evidence that this is the way we were designed to live? A 2010 review found a direct correlation between the quality and quantity of relationships and a person’s mental health and physical mortality. We are social beings, made for each other.
A calmer physical environment.
In a unique study from 2010, the way people described their homes in a walking tour correlated with measurable stress levels. People who described their homes as disorganized or cluttered, had cortisol profiles associated with adverse health outcomes. Is this any surprise? Of course not!
Winston Churchill once said “We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us.” And while he was referring to architecture, I think the same principle applies to interior design and the organization of our homes. The fact is, most people feel calmer and more at peace in a clean, clutter-free environment.
Freedom from digital distractions.
Have you ever taken an extended break from your smartphone? If you have, I’m sure you can relate to the feeling of freedom and calm that it brings to your mind. It’s strange that something we choose, and enjoy doing, can so easily have elements of unhealthy addiction.
A simpler life means reducing the clutter that distracts us from our deeper goals. And I know for me, my phone is often a major distraction from the longer-term goals I have for my life. By clearing away space in my day to be free from my phone, I’m actually giving myself the gift of time and the emotional freedom to dream bigger dreams.
Time for passion projects.
In a fascinating research paper, psychologist Mihaly Cziksentmihalyi makes the case that some of our happiest experiences in life come when we lose ourselves in deeply engaging, and personally meaningful work. He calls this exhilarating emotional state “flow.”
When we cut out many of the distractions from our life, we have more time to pursue projects for their own sake, and more opportunity to get lost in our work. Indeed, some of my favorite moments in my day are when I’m writing a blog post and completely lose track of time.
Discovering the Power of Less
If there’s one thing I’ve learned from my on again, off again efforts at living a minimalist lifestyle, it’s that less truly can be more. It’s only in my imagination that chasing everything all at once leads to the kind of satisfaction I so deeply desire. In the real world, it only leads to stress, scattered attention, and abandoned projects.
The road to simplicity is one in which you choose to focus on fewer things, but do them well. The itch to run to something new doesn’t go away, but it does get weaker. And while there is real effort involved in saying no and choosing to pare down your pursuits, the many benefits listed out in this blog post demonstrate that there is something valuable waiting for us on the other side.
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