The Ultimate Life Hack for (nearly) everything you want, consists of only two words: letting go.
So, what do you want to improve at?
Productivity
Simplicity
Finance
Happiness
Weight Loss
These two words, if practiced and lived, can be the key to all the self-improvement in your life:
Letting Go – The Ultimate Productivity Hack
By letting go of trying to do everything, or be updated about everything, you can focus on just what’s important. This simple focus can make you incredibly effective, and you’ll accomplish more.
„Doing nothing is sometimes one of the highest of the duties of man.“ – G.K. Chesterton
5 Ideas to Increase Productivity by Letting Go
Let’s look at a few more examples of how letting go of all that we want to do allows us to be more focused and effective, and accomplish more:
- If we pick just three things on our to-do list that are important and let go of the rest (for now), we can focus on the important things.
- If we let go of needing to stay current on everything, that will allow us to be less distracted by the news and social media and messages and emails. We can then just focus on what’s important.
- If we let go of needing to say yes to every request, we will free up a lot of our time, and instead focus on what’s most important.
- If we let go of our urges to be entertained and distracted, we’ll free up time to focus on the important.
- Attachments are getting in the way of our meaningful contributions to the world. Letting go is the answer.
Read: 23 EASY HABITS TO IMPROVE FOCUS + GET SHIT DONE
Action Items
- Prioritize your goals.
- Only work on 3-5 goals at the same time.
- Always know your next step for each goal.
- Limit your email time to 30 min / day.
- Limit your news intake to 15 min daily.
- Prioritize your to-do list and start with the most important task every day.
Letting Go – The Ultimate Simplicity Hack
Our lives get filled with clutter and complexity when we constantly want to add things. By letting go of what we want to have, and some of what we already, we can simplify, declutter, create space, let go of complexity.
This past week, I started decluttering different areas of my life. I had to let go of a lot of hopes and dreams, because the reality is, I am not going to have time to do everything. That means I can let go of books, hobby equipment, and all kinds of other clutter that represented my aspirations.
Holding on to how we think our lives should be … stands in the way of simplicity. This attachment clutters our lives, both with physical clutter and with days filled with complexity.
Instead, we can let go of some of these aspirations, and focus on the truly meaningful ones.
The clutter is flowing out my door, as I practice letting go.
Action Items
- Make a plan for decluttering your life. You can get a TK kondo-list (?).
- Decide on a regular time slot – e.g. 2 hours every sunday or 15 min. every day at 6 pm – for decluttering.
- Prioritize your list.
Habits to Implement
- Work through your TK list in your prioritized order – in your assigned time-slot every day or week.
- Find one item per week to get rid of.
- Make a list of 10 things, you’d like to have, and why you don’t really need it.
- Make a list of 10 things, responsibilities etc. that make your life complicated, without adding value. Then add the first step, you’d need to take to get rid of each one.
Letting Go – The Ultimate Finance Hack
Our finances would be much better if we didn’t spend so much. Of course, you could argue that we could just earn more, which is true. But spending less AND earning more is better than all of that! Anyway. Letting go of things we want to spend on is the key to better finances.
„When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be. When I let go of what I have, I receive what I need.“ – Tao Te Ching
Recently I took a close look at my finances and identified areas where we could trim down – especially business-wise. It was a long-overdue look at our spending, after years of letting things creep higher and higher. I’m so happy I did it, but it meant letting go of things we have gotten used to.
ALSO READ: BECOME A BILLIONAIRE BY DOING WHAT THE RICHEST PEOPLE DO EVERY DAY
Now, I’m putting things on wishlists. And for my wishlist, I’m practicing changing the heading of that list from “wishlist” to “letting go of list”. I visualize all of these fantasies I had of buying the “perfect” anything and letting them go into the breeze. It’s both frustrating and freeing.
Letting go isn’t easy. But if you do, your finances can become so much healthier.
Action Steps
- List 10 things that you wanted to buy, but are now happy, that you didn’t.
- Start a wishlist. Whenever you want to buy something, put it on there with a date. See if you still want to buy it one month later. If you do – and it won’t break the bank – you’re allowed to buy it.
- Set up a finance tracker or get mine. TK include link
- Set up a budget: How much can and do you want to spend in each category?
- Make a list of your income streams. You probably only have one. So this should be easy.
- Make a list of 10 ideas, how you could make additional money starting today.
- Make a list of 10 income streams, you’d like to have 5 years from now. Also add the next step for each one and bring them into the order of which ones you want to add first, second etc.
- Make a list of 10 things, you could sell online today.
Habits to Implement
- Whenever you want to buy something aside from the essentials, add it to your wish list.
- Write down your income and expenses every day.
- Every month, go through your income and expenses and see, what you can do better next month.
- Each month, write a list of 10 ways you could improve your income in the next month.
Letting Go – The Ultimate Happiness Hack
When we are frustrated with someone, disappointed with ourselves, unhappy with our situation, angry at something in the past … what is standing in the way of our happiness?
“The truth is, unless you let go, unless you forgive yourself, unless you forgive the situation, unless you realize that the situation is over, you cannot move forward.”
― Steve Maraboli, Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience
ALSO READ: 101 Ways to have fun with your family for cheap
We could blame the other person, or ourselves, or our situation, or the thing in the past … but actually, the thing preventing our happiness is being stuck on an idea or expectation.
We could let go of how we want others to be, how we want our lives to be, how we want ourselves to be … and find contentment in the way things are.
This is hard for people to accept — because they aren’t good at letting go yet.
Action Steps
- Write down 10 things that you expect of other people.
- Make a list of 10 things, you expect from yourself.
- For every item, write down, how letting go of those expectations would make you happier.
Habits to Implement
- Whenever you feel let down or have a fight with someone, analyze the reasons for it. Was it because of unrealistic expectations you had?
- Once a week, revisit your list of expectations, you have of yourself and others. Examine, how well you did at not caring about those things anymore.
Letting Go – The Ultimate Weight Loss Hack
Eat less, by slowly reducing portion sizes and eating more vegetables and beans (low in calories, high in bulk). This is a simple recipe for weight loss (I would add strength training and other exercises, but let’s keep things simple), but what stands in our way of eating less? Wanting to eat pleasurable foods, junk foods, comfort foods, bigger portions. If we let go of these wants, we could eat less. Yes, it’s possible (I’ve done it many times).
If you have seen me recently (propably on Insta, because I don’t leave the house), you might not expect me to struggle with my weight.
ALSO READ: 5 FUN & CHEAP HOME WORKOUTS TO TRY THIS HOLIDAY SEASON
But as a matter of fact, I have a history of weight loss and weight gain that was extremely unhealthy and utterly unneccessary.
And I know, that many of you struggle with their weight, too. The internet is full of crazy diets and tips and tricks on how to eat less, how to be healthier, how to loose weight etc. It’s overwhelming.
Everybody starts out with great intentions and everything’s working just fine, until the next holiday comes around, or a vacation, or a family gathering, or a really delicious pizza.
It’s hard dealing with the urge to eat these delicious comfort foods. The trick is, to see the urge and let go.
Loosen my grip on these tastes, and let them blow into the wind.
Also, plan for some splurge. I don’t think, that cutting your favorite food out of your meal plan is the solution to loosing weight.
Plan to eat a pizza on friday and allow yourself to enjoy it without thinking about calories.
Letting go will help you open yourself up to enjoy the yumminess of the food you already planned to have and let go of temporary temptations.
Weight loss is that simple if you practice letting go.
Action Steps
- IF you want to loose weight, set a SMART goal of how much you want to loose and until when.
- Set intentions for what you will and won’t do to loose this weight, e.g. work out twice a week for 1 hour at the gym.
Habits to Implement
- Make a meal plan for the week every monday. Plan for some of your favorite meals.
- Track your food.
- Track your workouts.
- Track your weight.
The Process of Letting Go
What does it mean when I suggest that we let go? It means that we are attached to something (we all are, most of the time), and to let it go means to loosen that attachment.
It’s opening up of our grip and letting the cherry blossoms blow in the wind as they will, out of our grasp.
When you are angry at someone, you are unhappy with how they acted. You believe they should have acted some other way. The should have acted is what you’re holding onto. If you didn’t have the should so firmly attached in your mind, you wouldn’t be angry.
So the answer is letting go of the should.
The answer is to loosen the tight grip on the way you think things should be. And let the should blow away in the wind. Because in reality, we have no control over the should of reality. We can’t make other people act the way we’d like them to because they’re not puppets. We can’t even make ourselves act the way we want, much of the time.
We don’t control the should, and so letting go of our tight grasp of them, loosening up and learning to accept the uncontrollable nature of life, leads to many benefits. Let’s look at some of them below.
Getting Good at Letting Go
So it’s all easy and breezy, right? Not so fast. Letting go is the ultimate hack, but in truth, it’s hard as hell.
We don’t want to let go. You might already have had that reaction to some of the things I’ve written: “But I like my (insert the thing you’re attached to here)! Why should I let go of it?”
Because of your attachment.
If you get in the habit of letting yourself hold on to all your attachments, you’re going to develop many difficulties in life. Maybe you already are dealing with those difficulties. Practicing letting go is a way to greater happiness, health, and focus.
So practice. In small doses, try noticing your attachment, and letting go of it, just for a few minutes.
Try letting go of your distractions and need to be updated for one hour. See what that’s like.
Try letting go of your electronics for two hours. What can you open up to instead?
Try letting go of your usual comforts, for one day. What deliciousness can you experience instead?
Try letting go of the things you want to buy, for one week (no buying anything but necessities like soap and toilet paper). What is that like?
Practice letting go, just for a little bit. Every day.
This daily practice is how you master it. And that’s mastering life.
