Essentialism: The Danger Of Saying ‘Yes’ To Life.
'The one who always walked backwards and lived in a barrel', I answered.
As a life coach, the privilege of asking annoying questions is usually mine only. So when a potential client recently returned the favour by wondering which philosopher I identified the most in my coaching practice, I panicked.
Luckily, having worked in politics for fifteen years, I have a response ready for everything – mostly the wrong one – so I continued:
'He (Diogenes) always sounded like a trooper to me. He may have been a cynic, but he was a hippie at heart with a sense of humour. He also loved screaming obscenities and exposing himself in public. The story goes he killed himself by holding his own breath. What a practical man!'
All in all, a well-considered reply, I thought, but somehow I never heard back from them after the call ended.
Being a rather practical man myself, conceptualising isn't my strongest point. Philosophers don't capture my imagination in quite the same way as, say, the Great British Bakeoff or Lego Wars.
Nonetheless, her question intrigued me, so I decided to give it some further thought.
It occurred to me that what I always try to teach is the message of simplicity. Simplicity in behaviour by doing less but better (essentialism); in ownership by getting rid of more (minimalism); and in one's mind by worrying less about things we don't control (stoicism).
In this first article of a three-part series on leading simpler, more meaningful lives, I'm honing in on the idea of essentialism.
I'll borrow rather heavily from Greg McKeown's excellent bestseller on this topic. I'll also serve you with nine practical tips on editing non-essential commitments out of your life.
The danger of always saying yes to life
Most of us have grown up believing that always saying yes to life is the key to happiness.
Life's too short! Good opportunities never present themselves twice! Say yes now and you'll figure out how later! – We're only ever one Instagram post removed from a tired cliché.
Often heavily pushed by the personal development industry, there's a strong bias never to let opportunities go to waste. As a way of life, that leaves many of us exhausted, directionless, and on the edge of a burn-out.
Dinner on Saturday night with Susan and her boring husband, who keeps goading you with his views on vaccines? Sure hun, what time? Meeting a potential client with zero budget who'd like to pick your brain quickly over coffee? Of course, I'll spend two hours of my time for free. I'll pay for the coffee too.
The belief that we can and should do everything means we chase one commitment after the other, without much concern about where any of them may be leading. We feel busy all day trying to tick off a never-ending to-do list, and we develop a chip on our shoulders about not wanting to disappoint anyone by saying 'no'.
Obviously, we've overcommitted ourselves because we start cutting down on sleep and put in far more time at work despite getting less done. We begin to neglect our diets and begin to make basic errors. The sure signs that a burn-out is around the corner.
Except for one clear exception, which I'll talk about later, most of us would benefit from a complete priority overhaul. That involves editing out all non-essential goals, events, and commitments clogging up our diaries and mental bandwidth.
Why so many people plateau at work
McKeown has identified why so many otherwise successful people fail to break through to the next level. He calls it the paradox of success.
Imagine that you gain some initial success and expertise after a couple of years of doing what you do at work. You're so good at it that you've become the 'go-to person for that particular skill or topic.
You also happen to be a nice sport who's always happy to advise and chip in. Because of that reputation, you now get presented with an increasing number of opportunities to demonstrate just how good you are at this thing you do so well.
Your ego gets fed – and rightly so. But those additional demands on your time, coupled with a desire always to say yes, mean that you're starting to spread yourself rather thinly. It gets worse until one day you're so far removed from what you were good at in the first place that your pursuit of success has in fact become a catalyst for failure.
Indeed, your success has distracted you from focusing on the few essential things that produced that success in the first place. That's the reason why people plateau. Or, as McKeown says: "Your skills may have matured, but your criteria for saying yes to things haven't."
Essentialism definition: the benefits of doing less, but better
Instead of the undisciplined pursuit of more – McKeown suggests most of us should strive towards the disciplined pursuit of less but better.
Why less? By investing your limited time and resources into fewer activities, you'll end up making a lot of progress in the two or three areas you most care about. That feels a lot better than making a tiny bit of progress in many different areas.
And why better? Essentialism encourages you to make the wisest possible investment of your time and energy, so you start operating at your highest point of contribution. That means shifting your attitude from agreeing to every suitable opportunity to saying yes only to excellent opportunities. Unless it's a Hell yes! It's a no from me, honey.
Consequently, instead of complying with every request that comes your way, you decide on some narrow criteria to determine whether this request is exactly what you're looking for. If something is just about or almost right, you should decline.
Imagine life as a video game. Every time you pursue a particular route or scenario, you make a choice not to take a different path in that game – one that may have been better for you. The same happens in real life. There's an opportunity cost to every choice you make, which is the price you pay for not making a different choice.
Essentialism means accepting that only a few things in life truly matter to you. You start to follow the famous Pareto principle, which says that 20 per cent of your input produces 80 per cent of the output. Your job is to figure out which of those commitments fall within that 20 per cent. Then focus your efforts almost exclusively on those.
What should you say yes to?
Being ultra-selective in your choices can be tricky without a clear sense of direction and purpose about what you're pursuing. McKeown uses a brilliant soundbite to illustrate this: "You might be able to do anything, but you certainly can't do everything".
Essentialism encourages you to ask: "If I could be truly excellent at only one thing, what would it be?" That's a question whenever you feel you have too much on your plate because, instead of wondering what you want to get rid of, you ask yourself what you want to go big on.
Spend some time on your own or with a friend, colleague, or a coach, and write down several specific and deliberate outcomes you want to achieve in the next few weeks, months and years. Better even, write a detailed vision for yourself that is measurable, meaningful, inspirational and concrete all at once.
In McKeown's words, this statement of essential intent can then serve as "the one decision which will eliminate a thousand later decisions".
I don’t know what to do with my life
There are two exceptions when it comes to taking an essentialist approach to life.
The first is if you've recently graduated and haven't got the foggiest idea of what to do with your life. At this point in life, you need to cast your net as wide as possible before pinning yourself down by getting hands-on experience in many areas.
It'd be best if you didn't get hooked on trying to figure out how to find your passion. Instead, you should be prototyping – something I've written about at length in a previous article.
Most of us aren't passionate about anything that's ever likely to pay the bills. And quite frankly, everything sucks quite a lot of time anyway – no matter how excited you are about it.
So, instead of finding your 'Eureka!-profession, focus on finding something you enjoy doing and can become good at. If that also happens to be something the world needs and is willing to pay for, well, that's your Hell yes! right there.
The same applies if you've decided on a new chapter in life, but you're not quite sure yet what you want that chapter to look like. Allow yourself a period of exploration, playfulness and broadening your experiences before returning to a default essentialist position.
For anyone else, here are nine straightforward tips for edit some unnecessary noise and commitments out of your life.
Tip #1: Go with the flow? No!
Being the person who likes going with the flow makes you sound rather cute. But remember that unless you deliberately choose where to focus your energy, you're delegating that power to someone else – your partner, kids, colleagues, or your boss.
Tip #2: Apply the 90 per cent rule
As you evaluate a decision or an option, think of the most critical criterion for that particular option. Then give it a score between 0 and 100. If it is rated lower than 90, automatically change the rating to zero and forget about it as an option.
Tip #3: Pause before yes
Next time you catch yourself about to say 'Sure, that sounds lovely' to a personal or work obligation, ask yourself if it truly is essential. Better even, go through your diary right now and run through all of your commitments. Find a polite way to talk yourself out of all those unlikely to add anything to your most important goals.
Tip #4: Don’t rob people of their problems
Whenever you're tempted to say yes to a non-essential request from someone, remind yourself that their problem isn't necessarily yours. By removing someone's ability to solve their issue, you may indeed be enabling their future helplessness.
Tip #5: Put boundaries in place
Just like toddlers crave the physical and verbal boundaries to indicate what's acceptable and not, so do the adults around you. Start putting some barbed wire around your priorities. That'll stop the boundary bullies and time-wasters from peeing all over your Play-Doh.
Tip #6: Practise extreme preparation
Think of yourself as the Bear Grylls of planning by remembering that extreme preparation is the key to your success. You don't have to go as far as eating a yak's eyeball. Still, you can prepare for the unexpected by building in plenty of time in your diary for slack and buffers.
Tip #7: What’s important right now?
Ask yourself, what is essential right now? Tune into the answer and remind yourself that it's impossible to concentrate on two things at once. Indeed, you might be able to multi-task, but contrary to popular belief, you can't multi-focus.
Tip #8: Say no most of the time
One of your most valuable assets is your ability to make choices, so protect that asset well. Essentialism isn't about saying no to everything and everyone. But by saying yes only to what truly matters, you end up saying no to all the non-essentials anyway.
Tip #9: Focus on the small wins
Trying to accomplish huge goals all at once can lead to burn-out quickly. Instead of going for massive, in-your-face wins in areas that don't really matter, focus on a few straightforward gains in essential areas. Those small, concrete successes will do wonders for building momentum and confirming faith in your future progress.
Living a life of simplicity
You don't need to live in a barrel to experience the happiness that comes from living a life of simplicity and purpose. But you may need to make some significant tweaks to how you commit your time and headspace.
Remind yourself who's in charge by setting clear boundaries on your time and preventing others from prioritising life for you.
By pursuing less but better, you'll stop rushing through a schedule filled with activities that don't serve your goals. You'll end up choosing more deliberately who or what you say yes to – and most importantly, why. Doing so will free up a lot of bandwidth you can use for making progress in the two or three areas that truly matter to you.
In the words of one of the Real Housewives: 'If one's life is simple, contentment has to follow.' Or that may have been the Dalai Lama but, either way, you might want to tattoo that on the back of your eyelids.
