Today’s prompt: What’s the thing you most want to achieve next year? How do you imagine you’ll feel when you get it? Free? Happy? Complete? Blissful? Write that feeling down. Then, brainstorm 10 things you can do, or 10 new thoughts you can think, in order to experience that feeling today.
I’m starting to feel like I’m repeating myself too much on these prompts, and I’ve missed a good number of them. What do I want to achieve? Isn’t that what I already talked about when I said what I want to try?
That’s okay. I know I sound like it sometimes, but I really don’t have a one track mind. I can sustain more than one goal in my head at a time. In fact, I usually have a few too many going on. I’m just balking because I’m currently trying to figure out how to keep life a little simpler. I don’t want to come up with any extra goals. I hope to discard a few. Hey…maybe that’s it. Maybe keeping it simple is what I hope to achieve. If so, once I’ve done this, what I hope to feel is relaxed. I’m looking to unload some stress.
How can I do this?
1. Eat mostly simple meals of fresh vegetables. I want to eat healthy without having to make a production out of mealtimes.
2. Go on a cash-only financial diet. I need to curb impulse purchases. Even small random spending adds up. I think if I make myself pay cash (not debit or check, but actual cash), I’ll pay more attention to how much everything costs.
3. Turn down excess work. This is truly a goal of mine, but I don’t even know where to begin. I need the money, you see.
4. Haul off excess stuff. Seriously. I have a hard time keeping up with housework. I keep thinking if I get rid of enough stuff it will all be easier.
5. Acquire skills, not possessions. I don’t need a big screen TV. I could use some photo editing skills, though. I can develop those for far less expense that any TV I might pick out. And if I’m busy learning I won’t have time for TV anyway.
6. Invest in experiences, not accomplishments. One you reach a certain point where you have your job and your house and your professional validations, achievements are somewhat overrated. The pursuit of achievement has future ulcer written all over it. I don’t have anything much to prove right now. I want to accomplish things. Sure, I do. I just want to do so on my own terms without the stress normally associated with the drive to success. Forget constant meetings. I want to go hiking instead.
7. Trim excess bills. See #3. If I could cut out some bills, maybe I could cut out some work.
8. Walk. Snap. Smile. Yeah, the camera had to show up somewhere in this post. If, as per #7, I cancel my gym membership, I’ll need to seek exercise in the form of outdoor activities. While I’m skipping meetings and hiking, I’ll also be saving money by traveling on foot power. While I’m at it, I might as well take a few pictures. They relax me.
9. Embrace technology silences. I am saturated with technology. I work in front of a computer all day and blog in the evenings. I don’t want to give up the blog, and I don’t see my work habits changing any time soon either, but I need some time every day cut off from the matrix. Walk. Snap. Smile. Plus…Sit. Think. Breathe.
10. Practice collaborative consumption. That’s just a fancy term for trade and share that I heard recently. I think it is a grand idea. I pay way too much to have HBO only because I want to watch True Blood that only comes on for a few months out of the year. I have a friend doing the same thing. Why couldn’t we both cancel our extra channels and then go together to purchase the season of True Blood? We’d pay a fraction of what we pay now, and when we were done with it, we could probably sell it on EBay. You can’t say that for your HBO subscription.
This is just a random sampling. I could go on, but I was only asked for 10 ideas, and I could really use some technology silence now. Goodnight, all.
