Emotional minimalism.

(How to stop caring about what others think)

EFFORTLESS LIFE LETTER 33

reading time - 15 minutes

 

In today’s letter, we are going to discuss

• Why caring about people’s opinions is a complete waste of time and energy
• Why the self-improvement journey is the only way to access the good life
• How anyone (including yourself) can start your self-improvement journey today
• How to order your mind for ultimate peace and maximal progress (through my free course available here).

Let me ask you a question:

 

What does a life on your terms look and feel like?

 

Take a pen and a piece of paper, set a timer for 5 minutes and write everything down that comes to your mind if absolutely anything was possible.

 

If you don’t have 5 minutes to invest in your vision, you actually don’t care about bringing that vision to life in the first place. In this case, feel free to close this letter because you won’t find any value in it.

 

Great. Now look at what you wrote down and let the first objections rise up as you think about why the life you desire can’t be created.

 

• Where do I even start?
• What will people say if I fail?
• How do I know if it will work?
• Am I not too old to change my life around?
• What will my parents think if I change careers?
• What if I am not good at what I would love to do?

 

I feel you. All these thoughts and fears are absolutely justified, given how uncommon and different from the norm the life you dream about is.

 

Your friends and family will most likely not be able to understand and support your vision because they don’t know what you know.

 

No one perceives reality the way you do.

 

You have a unique way of looking at the world through the individual lens of your own experiences, beliefs, decisions, needs, dislikes and desires.

 

This means that each one of us should cater our lives to our own perception of reality and simultaneously allow our lives to evolve and change as we change.

 

It doesn’t take a genius to understand that this is not what you have been encouraged to do in our society.

 

You have been presented with a collection of jobs you can pursue and been told to go for the ones that pay the most based on how well you did in school.

 

So, you did exactly that.

 

Unfortunately, you have been sold a lie.

 

The belief that happiness and success are achieved once you’ve ticked all of society’s expectation boxes:

1. Go to school
2. Get a good job
3. Get married
4. Have a family
5. Retire

If you look around and observe the people who have followed this exact path, you will notice that it doesn’t lead to success or happiness.

 

By 65, most people arrive at the age of retirement completely depleted and used by their jobs, stressed by the daily routine of life and resentful towards their significant other.

 

- Their body is tired and weak.

 

- Their mind is rigid and dull.

 

- Their heart is remorseful and alone.

 

After having served a job for over 40 years, you get paid a small amount of money that you get to spend on the last 15 years of your life when you have the least amount of energy left in your body.

 

Funny how no one grows up dreaming about that kind of life, but everyone ends up living the same existence.

 

 

You care because you don’t know yourself.

 

We all learn from a very early age that we shouldn’t trust ourselves.

• You turn to your parents to learn what is good or bad about you.
• You turn to your teacher to learn what is true or false about the world.
• You turn to your boss to learn what is or isn’t possible for yourself.

You have been conditioned into thinking that you should outsource your ability to think, your beliefs, opinions, needs, desires and potential to the external world instead of searching for an answer within yourself.

 

You care about the opinions of others because everything about you is tied to the external world.

 

It’s the only way you can feel important, it’s the only place you can find validation to reinforce your current level of self-worth.

 

Not only is that dangerous because your self-image is very volatile, but your worth is also at the mercy of every opinion out there.

 

If you get a compliment or positive feedback, you will feel amazing about yourself.

 

If you get critique or negative feedback, you will feel terrible about yourself.

 

Even further, from the morning you wake up to the moment you go to bed, you pour your attention, your efforts and energy into the external world without truly getting anything back.

 

You can waste hours scrolling on Instagram or watching Netflix.

 

You can waste countless moments entertaining unfulfilling relationships.

 

You can waste years working on someone else’s dreams, projects or goals (your bosses, for example) without ever finding the energy to pour into your own goals and dreams.

 

You end up feeling empty inside, hoping that this next holiday, that new partner or big purchase will finally be the answer that will make everything better.

 

It won’t.

 

You care about other people’s opinions because you haven’t found yourself. And you are looking for yourself everywhere but inside of you.

 

Let’s just stop for a second and ask ourselves the following questions:

1. Is anyone around me living the life I’ve described on my piece of paper?                                                                                                    
2. Can anyone around me know who I am better than myself?                 
3. Should anyone have the right to determine whether I am worthy of something or not?

If your answer is NO to each of these questions, then there is NO reason why the opinion of other people should matter to you.

 

Here is why:

1. If the people you are surrounded by don’t live the life you want to live, they can’t tell you what you should or shouldn’t be doing because they have no idea how to get where you want to go in the first place.                                                                                                                                          
2. You are the only person who can know who you are because you live with yourself every day for the rest of your life. The only person you can ask to know if something is good or bad, true or not about you - is yourself. No one can know who you are and what you need better than yourself, because you are the only person holding your mind and living in your body.                                                                          
3. Based on your unique needs, desires, interests, abilities and potential, you are also the only person who has access to all the information to determine whether something is worthy or valuable to you or not.

Now that we have identified the main reasons why the opinions of the external world don’t have to hold this much weight and importance in your mind and heart anymore,

 

it’s time to shift our focus to what truly matters instead:

 

Your internal world.

 

You care because you don’t have any goals.

 

We all need something to focus on.

 

Our brains are powerful, goal-oriented machines that everyone has access to in various unlimited ways (I highly recommend Maxwell Maltz’s book Psycho-Cybernetics).

 

We know this is true because of the dopamine release your brain rewards you every time you achieve something difficult and make progress in your life.

 

Every time you:

• finish a workout
• accomplish a task
• confront your fears
• learn something new

You are hit with a dose of dopamine, a crucial neurotransmitter and hormone that is part of your built-in reward system.

 

You have felt it before. That amazing sensation of feeling powerful and invincible. That realization that you are progressing towards something better and meaningful.

 

When was the last time you felt this way?

 

If humans are biologically wired to be rewarded for growth and progress, why are most of us living the same day over and over again?

 

Because again, your focus, energy and attention are being poured into the external world instead of into yourself.

 

You don’t have any personal goals to work and progress towards.

 

According to studies, 92% of people set yearly goals… to never achieve them.

 

Instead, you are wasting your precious dopamine to work on goals that are not your own (your bosses’ or society’s goals) and on cheap pleasure and distractions such as endless scrolling, processed food, porn, Netflix etc.

 

The second reason why you care about what other people think of you is because you don’t have anything more important than other people’s opinions to focus on.

 

If you do what everyone else does, you will get what everyone else has.

 

Now that we have identified why focusing your attention, time and energy externally won’t bring you further in life, it’s time to shift our attention and priorities towards the most important person in your life:

 

Yourself.

 

The good life.

 

You need to become a better human.

 

By better, I don’t mean someone who does more good (although you will achieve that as well through working on yourself). What I mean is, you need to become a more valuable person.

 

If the only skills you master in your life are the ones you learned to fulfill your job, you can easily be replaced by someone else.

 

A bit earlier in this letter, we realised that you hold a unique perspective of reality.

 

No one can see the world through your eyes because no one is you.

 

Your uniqueness makes you highly valuable if you learn how to leverage your individuality.

 

Good news, we just uncovered your first goal. To find yourself.

 

If you need help and want to short-cut this process, grab my online course CHOOSING ME to make the start of your self-improvement journey (wayyy) easier.

 

If you don’t know what you want, you can’t have any goals other than the ones society has given you (go to school, get a job, have a family, retire).

 

Right now, you don’t have anything personal worth waking up early for, so you wake up to work for someone else instead.

 

Is the dream you wrote down on your piece of paper really what you want?

 

No.

 

If you truly wanted it, you already actively would be working towards it.

 

So let’s forget about the cocktail sipping on the beach and never working again because that is not what you actually want.

 

You want something way deeper.

 

You want meaning. You want freedom, adventure and authenticity.

 

You crave experiences and emotions that make you feel alive.

 

And this cannot be found in the mundane routine you plan to keep staying in for the next 30 years.

 

None of this will just be handed to you. You have to create it

 

I hope you read that well: You have to create it.

 

We need You – this is why we are making finding yourself your very first goal, starting right now.

 

To create the good life here is what we need to find out about yourself:

• your fears
• your needs
• your values
• your purpose
• your interests
• your strengths
• your addictions
• your self-image
• your boundaries
• your weaknesses
• your coping mechanisms

yeah… I hope this puts things into perspective for you.

 

Why should you let anyone’s opinion upset, hold you back or bother you when you have so much to find out and explore about yourself?

 

The good life is a life catered to all the aspects of you we have listed above.

 

It’s a life that has been custom-made by you and not a life that has been created for you by your parents or society.

 

Emotional minimalism.

 

We now have a clear goal: to get to know who you are, so you can find out what you want and through that, become a person who can add value to the world through who you are.

 

We can now start your journey towards self-actualization.

 

Minimalism is about owning only what adds value and meaning to your life and removing the rest.

 

We are all familiar with this light but deeply satisfying feeling we get after decluttering, organising and cleaning our personal space.

• You can think more clearly because you have less distractions
• You feel calm and at peace because you have lower anxiety
• You know where everything is because everything has its place
• You feel good about yourself because you made your wellbeing your priority

Choosing to live with less makes you more intentional about what you allow into your personal space.

 

It also serves as a filter that only welcomes in what benefits you and is aligned with the way you want to live your life.

 

Today, I want to push this concept of minimalism a bit further.

 

There are a lot of things about you that don’t belong to or are aligned with who you truly are.

 

Your mind and heart are cluttered with opinions you never questioned, heavy emotions you never acknowledged and released, doubts and fears that aren’t yours and limiting beliefs you picked up from your environment.

 

People and society have come into your internal house and filled it up with furniture and objects that don’t add value or meaning to your internal space.

 

The journey of getting to know yourself is a massive process of unlearning and detaching from everything that is untrue about you until you reach a place where you are simply left with the purest expression of your own truth.

 

This is the foundation the good life is built upon.

 

 Decluttering your emotional space.

1. Unfollow + disconnect

We are constantly being influenced by what we consume.

 

Adds are everywhere. The average person is exposed to 4’000 to 10’000 commercials per day that are then stored unconsciously in our brains to influence our buying habits.

 

The content you consume on YouTube, Netflix, social media and television follows the same mental pathway. They infiltrate your mind and nest themselves into pockets of your unconscious to then frame the way you perceive reality.

 

The most popular shows or biggest Instagram accounts aren’t built around education, critical thinking and personal growth – they promote drama, gossip, toxic and unhealthy behaviours and empty entertainment.

 

Allowing this type of content to enter your internal space will only add more clutter and useless stress to your life.

 

Let’s get your phone out, open your instagram app and identify the people and pages you follow that don’t add any value or have a negative influence on your emotional well-being. 

 

Good - now, unfollow all of them.

 

Repeat this process on all of your social media platforms, YouTube included.

 

Then, for the next couple of weeks, disconnect from everything that is happening in the world. The news, the radio, the newspaper, the weekly TV shows – everything.

 

Don’t worry, you can always decide to go back to it next year, but for now, we have made you our main focus and we need all of our attention to be on who matters the most.

2. Retreat

Say no more often.

 

No to going out. No to constantly seeing people. No to planning one thing after the other. No to doing things you don’t even want to do.

 

Just no. So you can say yes to yourself instead.

 

Allow yourself to get bored. To get uncomfortable.

 

To think.

To feel.

To be.

 

Solitude and presence are the only places where you can meet yourself. The more often you pay yourself an honest visit, the more you will be able to learn about yourself.

3. Create a new version of yourself

Real change only happens when your identity changes.

 

- The new year affirmations.

- The money you said you are going to save.

- The morning routine you said you are going to implement.

- The promises your partner makes when they say they will change.

 

It won’t happen.

 

Words are not enough to change your identity. You need actions. A lot of actions.

 

You are the sum of all of your repeated actions.

 

If you say you are going to wake up at 5 am but then snooze the alarm as soon as it rings, you just have reinforced the identity of a person who doesn’t stick to their word.

 

To become someone who wakes up early and you have to wake up early.

Over and Over again. It’s as simple as that.

 

Now that we have created some space in your mind and your heart, it’s time to think about the identity you want to adopt.

 

• What type of person do you want to be?
• Who do you look up to and what are the qualities that person emulates?
• What kind of values do you want to commit to, no matter the circumstances?

These are all questions I help you answer in my free course.

 

Sign up here to get access to it.

 

Gaining clarity around these fundamental questions will slowly give birth to a vision.

 

A direction in life, you now feel more confident to start walking, because it’s no one else’s path but your own.

 

I will see you in next week’s letter,

 

Until then, take care.

Oli