Living Simply: Being Intentional in 2018

   

New Year's is just around the corner. For many, it represents a new start. For some, it's a time of making resolutions. So many people today can't/don't/won't stick to a "resolution", so they just don't bother even trying. What I'm proposing instead is a way to focus on getting to new places in a simple living kind of way.

   

What if you simply decided to live 2018 INTENTIONALLY?

Where resolutions are a set of rules in a way, simply living intentionally is much less formal. There's no focusing on what you can or can't do (for example, a common resolution says you can't eat baked goods or sugar anymore). Intentionally living would be more like making a choice to do something healthy every day to move the ball forward in the direction of being more healthy. Maybe your choices could be to skip dessert one day, to walk instead of watching tv another day, to read something in a self-help book instead of watching a movie, or trying to cook a few nights a week instead of wasting loads more money eating out all year.

     If a resolution is to get debt-free, then the simply living intentional way of doing that isn't about setting spending amounts or setting aside a particular amount each week/paycheck/month - here's why:  If you do, the first time you have a bad paycheck, or your car breaks, or you have unexpected medical emergency expenses, you'll have to blow your resolution, guilt and feelings of failure set in, it's all too black and white, succeed or fail. If instead you work intentionally at getting your debts paid off, it looks different. It would mean that every day, every purchase, you stop to consider the item's value or lack of value compared to being debt free. You would make daily choices to get you closer to being debt-free. You're whole mentality would begin to be aware of your spending and saving habits. You would change your ways, not just have a weekly or monthly task list to pay or save something extra. In the long run, it's changing the HABITS that got you into debt so you can get free. Resolutions are more of to-do lists and they don't usually change your daily habits and get you going in the right direction for more than a handful of times. Most resolutions are forgotten by spring.

     What intentional habits would you like to develop in the next year? Imagine if you made little daily choices, baby steps, but actually kept them up for the next 12 months?! Where will you be this time next year? I can give you some insight...you will have lived intentionally, changed bad habits, developed some new ones, improved the way you think about things, and will be living a more simple life that resembles the goals you intentionally pursued through daily decisions. Isn't that far better than ending the year feeling nothing more than, "I can't wait for this year to end, I blew all my resolutions and I am right where I was a year ago," maybe even worse off.

   

   This year try living simply through being intentional. We'll discuss this topic a bit more next time. In the meantime, think about what kinds of things you'd like to do, become, improve, etc. over the next year.