#1. Focus on your “Pièce de résistance.”
I don’t give one-on-one coaching, but occasionally someone knocks on my door with a big problem, and I try to help.
This led me years ago to try to get a 34-year-old (now 38) girl out of a situation where she had no savings or good health.
Along the way, she has achieved great things: paying off her debts, having a reasonable sum of money saved, taking care of her 73-year-old father who lives with her without going crazy, fixing her destroyed mouth, loving herself, and losing 30 pounds.
The point is that yesterday she called me on the phone (she lives hundreds of kilometers away from me) and told me that after 17 years working in a pizzeria, her boss took her aside and told her that her productivity had dropped and that either she had to get a move on or he would fire her.
Quickly, I said, “Breathe and say Ohmmm.”
She has struggled so much that it makes me angry that every time she manages to advance a little step, some misfortune happens to her. But deep down, I think it’s because life is like a video game in which the difficulty increases as you move from screen to screen.
That’s why during the couple of hours that the phone call lasted, I insisted that “Less is more.” Because simplifying things when you have a complicated life is the key to moving forward lightly.
And the three minimalist tips I gave her went deep into her, and in the end, she realized that if her boss fired her, nothing would happen either, and she felt good again.
That’s why I want to share the three tips I gave her with you, in case they can help you too.
1. Focus on your “Pièce de résistance”.
We all have a goal that, if we reach it, can positively affect the rest of the areas of our life. — In my friend’s case, it is to lose weight (she still weighs 264 pounds.)
Losing weight will decrease her chances of dying of a heart attack (like her mother), reduce her risk of all kinds of diseases, increase her energy and self-esteem, and improve her life.
Getting fired from her job is bad, to be sure. But that’s what she has been saving for, to deal with the unexpected.
Now she has to focus on losing weight because, without health, she won’t have a job. So with health, she will have plenty of employment, and she knows it.
Understanding this, my friend realized that it doesn’t matter if aliens come down and twerk with her boss while she gets fired; she has to focus on her main goal: losing weight.
And the rest will come on its own.
Application to your life
What is that one thing that would change your life if you achieved it? Make it your main goal in life, and every time you suffer a setback like my friend’s, remind yourself, “Nothing matter except my main goal.” And that anguish about the bad things that happen to you will be reduced by understanding that you need all your energy to achieve a single goal that changes everything, not a thousand goals that take you nowhere. That’s what minimalism in goal setting is all about, mate 🙂
2. Don’t obsess over what you don’t have; use what you have.
My friend was in Drama Queen mode at the beginning of the conversation.
Until I stopped her and told her, “You know, the mother of an influencer in Barcelona used a text of mine on Twitter to say goodbye to her 20 years old daughter who died a few days ago,” after which she stopped playing the victim.
We must be grateful and not long for what we don’t have. Because we have much more than we think we do.
Giving value to things makes you need less, which is emotional minimalism.
You have health. Value it.
You have some savings. Value it.
You have a partner. You’re already luckier than me 🙂
Application to your life
When you think your life is a mess, remind yourself that at least you HAVE A LIFE. The cemetery is full of less lucky people. I know it sounds cliché, but as long as you breathe, there is hope, don’t forget that.
3. Don’t complicate yourself emotionally
One of my friend’s complaints was about her managers, people she thought were her friends and found out they were not.
The pizzeria’s performance dropped, and the managers agreed to blame it on my friend — an employee — and get rid of their responsibilities.
I told my friend that the next time her boss asks her to explain herself, she should reply, “I am the one who sells the most over the phone because I always try to offer more products. If everyone did the same, we wouldn’t have this conversation.”
She had to give herself the courage, which the rest of them take away from her because they are not her friends even if they were one day, many years ago.
She feels she is betraying them, and having so much emotional mess in her head complicates things; you have to be more minimalist: you do it to me = you pay for it, period.
It’s hard for us to understand that people change, and many personalities live inside the same person: the friend, the boss, the envious, the jealous, etc.
We need to start reducing the guilt and start acting like adults.
Application to your life
We need to be minimalist in relationships by 1) doing the best we can, 2) not COMPLICATING our lives when people betray us, and 3) acting accordingly so that we don’t end up paying the price for other people who use us as scapegoats.
A virtual hug
AG
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