1. A satisfying lifestyle becomes your priority

Your family and lifestyle becomes the priority as opposed to being focused on earning more, buying more and looking after more stuff. You start thinking about what’s important to you and not what others or the media say is important to you. You create a thoughtful and meaningful lifestyle that offers satisfaction to the core of your being.

2. You now value the gift of time

Time is now considered a precious gift that is preferred to be spent in a more relaxed and meaningful way to the individual. You prefer a smaller home, saving you the time and energy demands that comes with a larger home such as maintenance, cleaning and repairing. You now only work the hours to suit your new thoughtful lifestyle and eliminate time wasters such as TV to get a deeper sense of value from your time.

3. Your stuff no longer demands your attention

All things filling your home demand your attention, constantly. You need time and energy to buy them in the first place. Once in your home they require to be used, not used, cleaned, stored, taken out, put away, re-arranged, thought about again, repaired, re-organized into better storage and insured. You then need to make a choice at some stage in the future if you still want to keep them, give them away or throw them out. This all adds up to a whole lot of thinking, worrying, time and energy being directed towards your stuff which, of course, takes you away from your new simpler lifestyle.

4. Achieve more with less

When living a simpler life you have less things to worry about, less distractions and less energy pulls and drains. Your pace of life is gentler and your thinking clearer. You now have the time to gain a deeper sense of self and therefore a greater connection to your true goals in life. You are able to focus more of your energies more intently towards a few key goals, which actually produces greater results.

5. The law of diminishing returns

The more you have of something or the more you experience a pleasure, the less you notice and enjoy it over time. The initial rush of enjoyment when buying something new gradually declines with frequent exposure. This is certainly true with children who are overwhelmed with excitement at first, only to find the novelty quickly wears off. Buying more stuff to make you feel better or as quick pick me up does not offer any lasting satisfaction.

6. Reduces money stress

Living in a smaller home just big enough for your needs saves you plenty of money which, in turn, reduces your money stress. You are now no longer worried about the fluctuation in mortgage interest rates. It is cheaper to heat and cool, you need less cleaning products and you can’t over spend on furniture, decorations and stuff as you only buy accordingly to your limited storage space. A smaller yet comfortable home also brings the family closer together physically and emotionally.

7. Your self worth is no longer connected to the stuff you have accumulated

You begin to realize that your true self-worth and what inspires you to jump out of bed in the morning has nothing to do with how much stuff you own. An addiction to consumption doesn’t satisfy the soul. You start to question your motives behind what has driven you to accumulate so much in the past.

8. Conscious Consumption

You release your attachment from addictive consumption and switch to conscious consumption. The simpler you live the more conscious you become about your spending choices. You value each purchase. You have a greater awareness as to the consumable items environmental impact and effect on sustainable living. You buy wisely with the bigger picture in mind.

By: Carole Fogarty

What’s freerunning? The short categorical answer: an urban running pseudo-sport. The real answer: it’s about finding your own way.

Freerunning is taking your own (most effective) path through obstacles and structures in a city, or whatever setting. Vaulting over a fence instead of walking around it. Jumping over stairs instead of taking them down. You find and take the creative short way instead of the intended long way.

Now, why would you do this? Well, first of all, it’s fun. Freerunning is an urban sport in a way. You use your creativity to find and maneuver through obstacles – like skateboarding. But freerunning can also be a discipline for personal development: following your own way. And that’s what it became for me.

Here are three life lessons I got from freerunning:

1. Find and Follow the Most Effective Path

The most effective path towards accomplishing your goal is rarely the most immediately visible. If an obvious path was the most effective, then everyone would take it. But it’s not, so you have to find it.

The good news is that the most effective path is also the most rewarding. You get results sooner than later, and you enjoy what you’re doing a lot more.

2. Be Confident In Your Unconventional Path

Don’t be afraid to venture off the beaten path, and not care what people might think of you for not following societal standards. Remember: you live for yourself, not for others. Your life is for you, not for them.

When you do what feels right for you and not care what people think, you start to shed self-consciousness – and boost your confidence.

3. Break Free of “Sidewalks”

“Sidewalks” are predetermined paths that most people take in life. They’re usually long, boring, and not the most effective. One example is mediocre 9-5 jobs. This isn’t knocking jobs in general, just the unnecessary day jobs that many people settle for.

You have the most fun in life and become the most remarkable by not doing what everyone else does. You do things your own way. You break free of “sidewalks” and follow your own path.

So how do you break free of “sidewalks?” Be inventive and creative: learn to look beyond the obvious in order to find the most effective path towards your goal.

During freerunning, it might be seeing a second-story rooftop and a street lamp next the building – you can climb up that post and jump over to the rooftop. In your work, it could be finding a way to increase results in less time. Your true passion might be hidden from you: it’s not a box to check off in a high school career adviser meeting, but combining your interests in a unique way.

What if you loved traveling, video editing, finding cool stuff off the beaten path, and building websites? The “sidewalks” would be to pick video editing or website design and focus on a career doing it full time. You’d be okay with that, but you wouldn’t be truly happy or living your life to the fullest.

But what if you combined all of those interests? Go to different cities and create videos documenting hidden gems, then posting your videos to your site that helps people to discover them? You can monetize it with ads, offering premium products, affiliate sales through travel guides, or whatever else. All of a sudden, you broke free of the “sidewalks” and followed your own path. And your life becomes drastically better for it.

I Improved My Life by Following My Own Way

When I started freerunning, it was like a whole world of opportunities opened up to me. I stopped seeing the city as predetermined blocks of sidewalks, staircases, walls, and so forth. Instead, it all opened up to me like a playground where I can explore and find my own paths.

After freerunning for a while, I noticed paths I hadn’t before. A staircase next to a ledge became a potential shortcut. A handicap access to a building transformed into a vaulting playground. But what’s interesting is that this finding of hidden effective paths started spilling over into the rest of my life.

I started noticing opportunities I could take with music-making, writing, and online business. Before, I felt limited, like I had to choose from a few potential careers. I could either be a electronic music artist, or a blogger, or an online business owner, but not any of them combined – much less fused together.

The more I did freerunning, the more unconventional paths I started seeing in my life. I saw past the predetermined and limiting models: the get-an-indie-record-deal music path, the write-a-daily-blog-for-a-target-niche blog method, and the find-a-niche-and-dominate-the-keywords online business approach. Instead, I realized how I could combine these passions into an organized system that was both value-giving and profitable. And that’s how my site Lifebeat was born, and why you’re reading this article now.

Freerunning helped me to find my own way. It started by running and jumping around and soon spilled over into the rest of my life. It went from physical activity to a personal development discipline. By doing freerunning, I drastically improved my life by following my own way.

Improve Your Life by Following Your Own Way

Are you living to your fullest potential? Do you want to do more but are afraid of what people might think? Are you itching to pursue your passions but can’t seem to find a way to do it? You can drastically improve your life by taking a cue from freerunning: find and follow your own way.

Be confident in your unconventional path. Break free of “sidewalks” to live how you really want to. You can only be you… everyone else is already taken.

About the author: When he’s not jumping from ledge to ledge or vaulting over walls, Oleg Mokhov writes about unconventional life-maximizing strategies for remarkable people. He also makes energizing electronic dance music for melody-lovers on his site Lifebeat.

http://www.marcandangel.com/2009/07/13/50-questions-that-will-free-your-mind/