John Pawson, a well-known British architect designer who has made his minimalist style a philosophy of life, believes that (text quote): Simplicity is ultimately very difficult to achieve. Rest in mindfulness, thoughtfulness, knowledge, and patience.
The important thing is to become aware of your own reality and to judge it well, or to welcome it and accept it as it is. The term consciousness derives from the Latin conscientia, therefore to become aware leads to awareness of oneself. Indeed, if we cultivate it, we move away from the past and the future to fully experience the present moment. In a way, it comes down to learning to behave like children. When we are children, it is difficult to understand the concept of the past and the future. It is difficult to understand what yesterday and tomorrow mean. And that is of little practical importance. As we grow older, we learn to use these time values only when we really need them and therefore, we become aware of our actions and try to avoid mechanical behaviors. All of this suggests that before acting, we must ask ourselves exactly what we want to do and what we want to achieve according to the progressiveness that starts from motivation, goes through intention and achieves the goal.
Here are some “tips” that can be helpful in simplifying our way of life.
Accept who we are
The moment we accept who we are psychologically and physically, our life becomes very easy. In fact, we don’t question everything and we don’t care about others and we dare more. Because accepting yourself is understanding your own resources and limits by learning to do things for yourself and not for others. It takes a lot of patience. It is advisable to write down the things that make you proud as it can be a good start. Let’s make a list of what makes us proud.
Knowing how to love yourself
Knowing how to love yourself is to go beyond self-acceptance. It means accepting your choices, your body, and your actions. When we love ourselves, we easily accept our actions and thoughts without being influenced by others. A piece of advice could be to make a list of things that satisfy us in everyday life on the one hand and on the other hand a list of our flaws and accept them and then make them a force.
Listen to your own rhythm
Human beings are cyclical in nature, that is to say exposed and subjected to the natural elements, to the passing of time, to the seasons. We all know there are times when we are more or less productive. If we are aware and lucid about these differences, we can more easily adapt to them. Listening to our rhythm allows us to anticipate the times when we are most tired. It is very important to get as much rest as possible and learn to listen to your body.
Clean the head
When you feel like everything is complicated, it’s time to clean up your head a bit and let go of the supposed mental rumination. Our brain is absolutely not made to store, but to create. It is therefore a question of getting rid of all the ideas that pollute the brain. A good tip, which sometimes becomes a useful remedy, is to make a list of everything you need and want to do.
Know how to say no
Sometimes our life is difficult because we have too much to deal with. It happens when we don’t know how to let go of an overly intense social life or when we cannot let go of other solicitations that come from friends, relatives and colleagues, thus risking social burnout. At this point, it is important to know how to say no. Being unmotivated doesn’t affect a good relationship at all.
Reduce stress
We know that stress has somewhat negative implications for our behavior and our sleep. Reducing daily stress by trying to lead a healthy, easy, relaxed lifestyle is definitely essential. So, you have to learn simple but basic breathing exercises, or play sports and try to reduce emotions.
Have free time
Even if today, it becomes a privilege to be able to devote part of your time to yourself, it is certainly an aspect that should not be underestimated: devoting yourself to your leisure activities allows us to satisfy our needs and escape after a hard day’s work. We are not talking here about free time to walk with friends or family, but of a qualitatively intense moment for oneself. It will definitely help you feel better.
Lighten the daily routine
It is absolutely important to focus on the main things to do and leave out the superfluous. It then becomes important to try to write down the priorities in order to lighten the mind and be able to concentrate on the first things: this will still make us feel better.
Separate from the superfluous
We have to get rid of anything we don’t need or no longer use. Let’s focus on the essentials. Let’s take a look at the items and see if they can still be useful or not. Let us ask ourselves what brings us luck and what brings us joy.
This way you will only keep the essentials and free your head from all other thoughts.
Play sports
Sports activity has many physical and mental benefits: stress reduction by 80%, increased self-esteem and improved mental state. The important thing is to be determined and motivated by trying to meet the deadlines set. It is advisable to define the period of the day and the weekly frequency of the engagement.
To this, we can add:
– Avoid feeling remorse or accepting regret for those who have been and are no longer.
– Allow time for meditation using good breathing.
– Learn to forgive by trying to behave more and more correctly.
– Always trust your intuition.
– Be more optimistic and avoid toxic people.
Here are some tips from Psycho Pratique magazine tailored to my style.
