This blog post is in response to Natalie’s 10 Day Freedom Plan Blog Challenge Day 6.
Can’t see the video player above? Watch it on YouTube.
Transcript
Hello, and welcome to Day 6 of the 10 Day Freedom Plan Blog Challenge.
And in Natalie’s instructions today we are to identify someone who inspires us, talk about why they inspire us, and ask them a question.
So the person who inspires me — one of the people who inspires me — is Greg McKeown.
And why? Because he wrote this book “Essentialism,” which is fantastic. I absolutely love it!
I have read this book or listened to this book six times in full and I often dip into the book and look for my favorite quotes, which I’ve highlighted.
And here’s one I just wanted to share with you today. So it says,
“Only once you give yourself permission to stop trying to do it all, stop saying yes to everyone, can you make your highest contribution towards the things that really matter.”
Love that!
So I have a question for Greg, and that is
“For someone like me who has read the book many times, absolutely loves it, and I totally believe in everything and I want to do it, and I still find that I’m taking on too much, as I talked about in blog post 1 of this challenge. So what do you advise me to do?”
And I very much hope that Greg will answer this — I hope he’ll find it ESSENTIAL to answer because I’m sure it would help a lot of people.
So that’s all for today, and I hope you’ll come back and see what’s happening in Day 7 of the blog challenge.
Thank you! Bye!
After recording the video, I went to Greg’s website and discovered his newsletter. So I’ve signed up in the hope that regular reminders will help me to focus on the essential 🙂
Update: I’m so grateful that Greg McKeown took the time to reply:
Helen,
How nice to hear from you and your blogging challenge! I am delighted that you have so often returned to the book!
Here is my answer to your question:
My advice to you is to run essentialist experiments and be gentle on yourself in the process. Essentialism is a “disciplined pursuit” of less but better. So you won’t get it perfect. Indeed, that isn’t event the goal. Rather, try something small and record your results in a journal. Every day capture every success: celebrate the smallest wins, the tiniest progress, the things you learned as you got it wrong. You can’t become an Essentialist in a nonessential way: that is, don’t try to become an Essentialist by trying to get it perfect in every area or life all at once. So treat every day like a prototype opportunity and learn from experimentation. Then celebrate. Then try again. Then celebrate again. That’s my advice to you in your marvelous ongoing adventure to design and live a life that really matters.
Very best,
Greg
Other posts in the 10 Day Blog Challenge series: