Simple steps to simplify your life

If you struggle with the lack of willpower or perfection paralysis, the answer to making a positive change to improve your situation could be where you expect it the least– in your own home!

As the world is becoming increasingly more complex and overwhelming, it can negatively impact our productivity, creativity, physical and mental health and our confidence. Just watch yourself checking your social media daily and watch for the comparison monster starting to run the show.

Although you may not be able to change the world (overnight), you sure can adjust your actions so that you optimise your life and make sure you achieve your most important goals. This week I’m interviewing Tanya Slater, the Girl Who Simplified, who’s sharing some amazing gems on what it means to simplify your life and where to start.

What made you get curious about simplifying your life?

I had been clearing my physical environment for a couple of years and noticed my physical and mental health improving. I had gone from being depressed, struggling with anxiety, and hiding away from the world to feeling much lighter, brighter and in control of my emotions. The more I cleared my physical belongings the more clarity I gained and with the clarity came confidence and this beautiful snowball effect began to play out in my life. I became curious and wondered, “If such a simple act of clearing out my possessions could have such a profound impact on my health, where else could I apply these same principles and what else was possible to improve and achieve?”

How would you best describe minimalism and what are the main benefits of applying it to your life?

Minimalism is simply choosing to have the minimal amount of what you need. A lot of people struggle with that word and conjure up all sorts of pictures in their mind of stark white walls and extreme lifestyles. It is true that it’s possible to take anything to the extreme but really, it’s choosing a simple life. Something that is much closer to our humble beginnings than the over consumed lives we have grown into living these days.

There is an abundance of benefits to choosing to clear out the excess in your life and living simply. Many of my clients experience improved confidence, they share being able to set better personal boundaries and managing to uphold them with ease after their initial clearing. Other benefits are improved rest, sleep, physical and mental health, overall wellbeing, clarity of purpose, more energy, higher quality relationships, more time, and more money. The list is endless.

Many of my clients struggle with willpower and motivation when it comes to changing habits. Is this something that could change if choosing to simplify life?

Yes absolutely! This was the same for me before I embarked on my clearing adventure. The key here is that when you create a home or space that you really love, you become very protective over it and so find yourself keeping up some small new habits to maintain it. Now, this is where the power of clearing and simplifying comes into play. Having created these new neural pathways (had a practice and experienced the benefits first-hand) it gives you the motivation to continue simplifying and improving your life. When you start to gain clarity on what is most important to you, you start making choices in other areas that support your clearer vision. For me, my health, including my diet choices, has been a huge turning point. Now I have total clarity on my purpose and what I want to achieve, I have the motivation to make small choices that will support that.

What advice do you have for people, who get paralysed by perfection?

Simplify! Honestly, when you clear out the excess in your life and uncover what is most important to you, that is when you gain clarity on your purpose. When you connect with yourself in this way and have a crystal-clear view of what you are here to do, you start to live and act very differently. I was paralysed by perfectionism for many years, worrying what people would think of me, fearful of failure and so on. But, when I gained this clarity, I began to come from a place of knowing. It’s like, “well this is what I’m here to do and this is me in all my truth, so I have no choice but to take imperfect action in the direction of my dreams”. Coco Chanel put it best when she said, “Beauty begins the moment you decide to be yourself”. Perfectionism has no place here.

What’s the ONE thing you wished you could tell yourself 10 years ago?

Ohh, there’s a lot! I guess a big one would be that you already have everything you need to do everything you want. The world tells us we need this thing and that thing to make our lives easier, better, happier etc. and unknowingly we become a part of this massive marketing machine, believing all it tells us and taking action in consuming all it’s wares. Once I learned that my strength and beauty are something I already possess and I already have all I need to live my best life, everything changed for me. We all need to know that we are enough, just as we are, in all our imperfect glory.

Tell me more about the 5 step method you use to help people transform their lives?

Yes, It’s really just a distilling process. I have it laid out on my website in this order;

1) Discover and Connect – We quiet the noise and tune in to your intuition.

2) Decide and Commit – Choose a goal and commit to making small changes in that direction.

3) Delete and Delegate – We start removing all the excess in your home and life and delegate where necessary.

4) Visualise and Create – Using your improving clarity we create a better vision for your life and make a plan.

5) Cultivate Nurture and Grow – this is building on the lessons you’ve learned and creating small daily actions and habits for long term growth.

That said, my clearing journey has enabled me to tap deep into my intuition and really the process is as unique as each person I work with and I use that intuition to guide us. I use the 5 steps as a loose framework but essentially first we clear your home then we clear your life. Over time I have realised that the above are more a story of how things tend to play out by taking the two simple clearing steps of home then life.

What’s one piece of advice you could give to someone, who’s reluctant to try minimalism and see it as just another fleeting trend?

First, change the word minimalism, to simplifying. That is all it is and understand that it’s not something new, it is just taking things back to how they used to be before us humans complicated everything so much!

Then, the best thing to do is to just get curious and try it for yourself. Honestly, even choosing something small like a cluttered drawer in your home can make you feel lighter and more in control. Be warned though, it can be addictive!

Thank you, Tanya!

Born and bred in Frome, Tanya Slater discovered a way in which to help people thrive in life and business. The Girl Who Simplified is a true labour of love. The need for her own home and heart to be clear was born out of a traumatic and painful adolescence that followed her for years into adulthood. After a decade of clearing all the excess in her life, Tanya was able to tune into her devine self and reclaim her identity. A single mum home-schooling two boys under the age of 10, working on her own business and running her home, Tanya knows well the overwhelm and exhaustion other women, mothers in particular face.

Tanya’s Home Clearing Club starts again on October 28th and costs just £5 a day (£250). A small but very worthwhile investment in you to gain clarity, build confidence and move boldly into the next season of your life. To book email bookings@thegirlwhosimplified.com “Although it’s a course that gently guides everyone together room by room around their homes, it’s important to understand that it is much more than a declutter, and is something that will stay with you forever. This is life, family, relationship, mental health, wellbeing, clarity, confidence and business coaching all rolled into one, simply using the power of mindful clearing of our physical ‘stuff’ to make quick yet lasting positive change. Basically, It’s Magic!”

You can find out more here, www.thegirlwhosimplified.com or connect with her here, https://www.facebook.com/thegirlwhosimplified/ or here, www.instagram.com/thegirlwhosimplified or say Hi on LinkedIn .