Doing Less, Achieving What Matters: On Becoming an Essentialist
Three years into running a private practice while also being the director of a small non-profit while also teaching aerial arts on the side, I hit a moment of identity crisis. I was not just tired and overwhelmed, but also frustrated by how little progress I was seemingly making in any direction. Now, of course, my notion of "progress" was wild and outlandish. But still, I felt I was meant for more. Could I really continue to be a "jack of all trades" and nurture many different parts of my life at once? In truth, being multi-passionate was one of my favorite qualities. Yet feeling constantly "scattered" and overwhelmed, was not.
If you go by the books, most people will tell you to specialize and to choose one thing to be good at. But to me, that advice that felt like chopping off an arm and a leg. I didn't want to be good at one thing, I loved seeing all of the connections between things. I wanted truly "to live 1,000 lives at once", as writer Tahir Shah once said to me.
So what are the options when you love many things but want to feel less scattered?
Become an "Essentialist" in the words of Greg Mckeown.
“Essentialism is not about how to get more things done; it’s about how to get the right things done. It doesn’t mean just doing less for the sake of less either. It is about making the wisest possible investment of your time and energy in order to operate at our highest point of contribution by doing only what is essential.”
In other words, you don't have to pick one thing, but you do have to say "no" to a lot of things in order to be effective at the right things.
Becoming an essentialist is recognizing that you do have to prioritize, that you can do it all - just not all at once.
This looks like:
knowing that, within a certain season, one of your projects will have to take precedence - not always, but just for this season.
saying "no" to all the noise and shiny new things when they don't directly impact your top line goals.
prioritizing spaciousness over opportunity, knowing that you are here to be impactful, and impact requires going deep.
“Remember that if you don’t prioritize your life someone else will.”
I spent years falling victim to time - even as my own boss. The work felt like it was working me. When I didn't choose what was most important to me, whatever was urgent to the first person in my email inbox, or the news anchor, or the worried friend, was what determined my whole day.
Becoming an essentialist is taking life back and carving space out for what truly matters to you.
Essentialism is the antidote to productivity culture. To "not-enoughness". To impatience and to time scarcity.
“What if we stopped celebrating being busy as a measurement of importance? What if instead we celebrated how much time we had spent listening, pondering, meditating, and enjoying time with the most important people in our lives?”
Here's to a year of prioritizing what matters,
Much love,
Jaz