One Experiment That Will Make You Hundreds of Dollars This Week While Increasing Your Well Being
This post is from Simon Cave at The Becomer. Enjoy!
As human being we always tend to want more. More money, more fame, more power, more attention, more recognition, more muscles…
We think that more equals more fulfillment and happiness in our life. Truth is, it’s not always the case.
Here are a couple of example that prove it:
You want to leave your tiny apartment and buy a house that’s a little above your means. As a result, you struggle every month to pay for your mortgage. Your mortgage is such a financial burden that you can’t afford to travel, to go out, to offer gifts to your loved ones. Because you wanted more, you are now trapped.
You want to make more money so you work more at the office to get promoted. You go to work earlier and stay up late to accomplish more. As a consequence you spend less time with your family, which will probably lead to certain issues in the future.
Always wanting more doesn’t bring balance into your life. We have to learn to integrate “the less” in our life, and it all starts by experiencing it.
Experimenting “the less” this week
The experiment I’m going to share with you is meant to show you that less is sometimes as profitable as more.
So here’s how it works:
When you’re at home, look around you and ask yourself:
What makes me feel good?
So when you look at your shelves and see certain objects, do they make you feel good? When you open your closet and look at some clothes, do they make you feel good? If not, sell them.
The goal of this experiment is not to get rid of the things that are useless but of the things that don’t bring joy into your life.
I’m sure there are many things in your house that are completely useless but that you keep because they make you feel good, and that’s fine. What’s important is to focus on the things that are useless and that don’t add any value into your life. You will notice soon that getting rid of them will bring you much more satisfaction than letting them take up space.
Not only will you make a few hundreds dollar by getting rid of them but you will also create space in your mind, which will increase your well-being at the same time.
Read also: What does a sponge have to do with your personal success
Author Bio: Simon Cave is passionate about Digital Entrepreneurship and Personal Development and helps people reach financial independence on his blog The Becomer. Follow him on Facebook
Kim’s Comments: One of the things we’ve embraced over the past few years is making sure all purchases do add value to our lives. We aren’t perfect, but by taking that extra step before impulse buying means less clutter and more money our pockets to achieve the things that are really important.
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This is a great idea. Just sitting here now I can see a bunch of stuff that I could easily get rid of and never miss. It’s amazing how different things are when you just change your perspective on them.
I went through this exercise myself the other day, and found the things that gave me real joy were spending time with my family, reading a good book, playing basketball and helping a patient who is really in need. That’s a short list, so I got a lot of stuff to sell! Thanks for the reminder.
This is indeed a valuable skill. We’ve cut our entertainment costs by about 75% by simply working to figure out what truly brings value to our lives.
I appreciate you reminding us that more is sometimes not good. It’s good to want more, but I myself would not dwell into this thought much because I am satisfied with what I have. You have a good point there! I would also think what I can get out of my house to share it or sell it to others.
Thanks for the reminder about making sure that our possessions add value to our lives. This is particularly poignant as the holidays near and our house gets bombarded with (loving) gifts from grandparents.
I guess I’m the odd one out here. I can’t say that when I open my closet, my clothes give me joy. But clothing is something I need. So I’m not going to rush out and take them to a re-sale shop simply because I don’t jump for joy every time I see them. I suppose everyone probably has more than they need, which I assume is the point of the post. But to advocate purging your house of anything that doesn’t provide joy or value is a little unrealistic. Sorry that my viewpoint doesn’t agree with everyone else’s.
I would think things like clothes and food would provide value but not necessarily joy.
Seems like a cool little experiment. I’ll try to remember to give this a shot!
It’s why I take inventory every once in awhile to see what I can get rid of or sell. Now Im much better about what I buy and I ask myself that question of whether or not I really need it or not. I like being able to find things easily and simplifying my life. It makes it so much less stressful.
I couldn’t agree more Simon. We embraced a value based spending philosophy a number of years ago and it has helped us immensely to only bring in things that we’ll enjoy and get value from. Not only does it save us money, but when we sell the junk we get nothing out of we get to make money as well. 🙂
We share a common perspective, Simon. Not only do I evaluate things in my home and sell things that don’t bring value to my life, but it’s my status quo question to ask myself when I’m about to purchase something – “Will this thing bring value and enjoyment into my life?” If the answer is yes (in relation to the price), then I buy it. If I don’t, I don’t. Of course, the value of an item changes over time. Maybe I used to really be into movies and bought a ton of them. Now, not so much…they no longer bring me value. Time to sell!