Have you ever watched a dog run about madly in a field full of rabbits? First he charges after one which disappears down a hole. Another one appears to the left and he is off after that one. Then another pops up to the right and he swerves to chase that one.
And so on. The dog never catches a rabbit. He ends up exhausted and rabbit-less. Trying to chase all the rabbits means he gets none.
Before I started simplifying my life, I was like the dog chasing rabbits. I had a million plans, a long list of priorities (a contradiction in terms!) and charged around from one to the next. I was happy and energised by this but ultimately dissatisfied as I never really completed anything. And of course as I got older, it got harder to keep running about, the rabbits were harder to catch.
So what did I do?
I started to simplify my life. I wrote two lists: a bucket list of things I wanted to do before I died and another one of the things I enjoyed.
I then limited myself to three things in each list. As I cut stuff out, I realised that some things could go together. For example, on my bucket list I had a lot of places I wanted to visit. I turned this into a single statement: Visit every country before I die.
I did the same for the other list. By limiting myself to three things, I had to choose what gave me the most pleasure.
My bucket list became:
- Visit every country in the world
- Set up a business that has a positive benefit for people
- Publish a range of creative writing
My pleasure list became:
- Jazz
- Poetry
- Guitar
With these two simple lists I then re-designed my life. Basically, if something wasn't contributing to these two lists then it was just a rabbit, not worth chasing so I ignored it.
The impact was amazing. Not only did i simplify my life, but I also had much more time for the things that really counted and got a richer, deeper experience.
Your small improvement for today is to cut the number of rabbits from you life and simplify it with these two priority lists.
