Discardia_ More Life, Less Stuff - Dinah Sanders [13]
2. Do it and don't enjoy.
3. Don't do it and enjoy.
4. Don't do it and don't enjoy.
In describing this principle to me, counselor and writer (and my mother) Jinx McCombs, who studied with Dr. Goulding, said, “All four are real choices, and it's surprising how often people pick number two or number four.”
What choices aren’t you enjoying now that you’ve made them? What were the other options that you could keep in mind for next time?
Beware of cognitive bias and wrong-sized conclusions
As you evaluate your current situation, your dreams, and what you may need to discard or add, watch out for two important things: cognitive bias and over- or undersized conclusions.
Firstly, cognitive bias—a pattern of different judgment occurring for you in specific situations—can kick in when you worry about being unprepared. There is a world of difference between the overprotective response “that might come in handy for something maybe someday so I’ll keep it” and specific, common-to-you situational preparation, such as “I should carry a book and writing tools when I am doing errands where I might get stuck waiting.” Keep things for which you have a plan, limit the number of active plans, and limit the storage you allocate to inactive ones. Allocate your resources primarily to your current goals.
In my experience, the payoff for getting rid of 100% of the stuff for which you don't have a plan and don't wildly love is still worth it, even when you come up with a use for a small percentage of it later. Getting 90% of your unneeded items out of the way creates opportunity and energy, which makes dealing with the occasional 10% you need to get again much easier.
Beware of cognitive bias in what you notice about your things, habits, projects, and even dreams. Would it stand out in your memory that you never needed something you got rid of? No. In fact, you might forget you ever had it in the first place. That 90% can fall from your awareness without a trace, leaving the rare exceptions to stand out and seem more significant than they actually are. I highly recommend Thomas Gilovich’s book, How We Know What Isn't So: The Fallibility of Human Reason in Everyday Life, as a great way to gain insight into some of the silly patterns of perception that can have you working against your own best interest.
Secondly, consider the scale of your conclusions about things. For example, when faced with a work environment that leaves you completely frustrated because everyone else wants to run at full speed instead of thinking in advance, it would be possible to draw the very large conclusion, “I am not suited to live in today's world.”
That’s a much bigger jump than the situation warrants. I'd recommend something like, “To be successful, I need to be part of a company culture that fits more in the middle or to the planned side of the overplanned versus winging-it continuum.” That’s a life lesson on which you can act for future job decisions. It certainly gives you a good answer to the old “Is there anything you’d like to know about us?” question in a job interview!
The opposite pattern—undersized conclusions—is also worth your attention. Folks who are overly hard on themselves will often discount their efforts in achieving a particular situation, saying, “I just got lucky.” instead of “That worked out great! I should approach similar problems that way again and see if it helps.” Listen to the language you use with yourself and keep it in line with what achieves positive change in your world.
Balancing your commitments
We all have pet projects, social commitments, goals for personal or professional growth, and hobbies to which we devote our time. We stroll past the buffet of life and load our plates. Unfortunately, we make a lot of trips back to that smorgasbord of options and, pretty soon, we are groaning under the load.
Do you really like everything you picked up thinking it would be tasty? Can you really finish all that? Would doing so leave you feeling painfully overstuffed?
Look at your obligations, including those things on which