The world tells you to maximise your life and it’s ruining your happiness.
Instead, focus on optimising.
This shift has made such a difference to me and I hope for you too.
Maximising: “To make something as great in amount, size or importance as possible.”
Maximising is why you think you have to:
- Do everything,
- Always,
- For everyone &
- Never get tired etc….
Maximising is why you feel you’re not keeping up.
Maximising is why you’re stressed and burning out.
Expectations set to max will only ever lead to disappointment.
In contrast, optimising: “Make the best or most use of (a situation or resource)”
Optimising helps you achieve balance and harmony – a feeling of enough.
You can do (almost) anything, but you can’t do or be everything.
The sooner we meet the reality of that statement, the less overwhelm, the less disappointment, guilt, frustration and anger.
The weight you can put down will change your life.
The sooner you’ll feel you can live fully, just focused on fewer things and done realistically…
…rather than feel like you’re never measuring up to everyone else.
Everyone else is a big number of expectations that will be impossible to hit.
To get started optimising, try the below:
- Self-care! Look after yourself as a priority.
- Focus on what areas of your life you want to make important – pick 3 initially. Then make them important with your time and actions.
- Focus on the roles you play and write your own rules for what good looks like. e.g. if you’re a husband like me, ignore Instagram and the ‘buying your wife a car everyday’ type of expectations. I will never feel good enough if that’s the expectation I hold on what being a good husband looks like.
- Know that because you’re focusing on less, it will feel like you’re giving up something else. You will be giving up something. I think the ‘something’ is the feeling of never being good enough or keeping up even though the world tells you to try. Play the game you can win more often (optimising) rather than the impossible never-ending chase for more (maximising)
What do you think? I’m happy to be wrong.
#happiness