Maintaining a good balance in life can be really challenging these days.
Everywhere we look, we’re being bombarded with messages fuelling our appetites for shiny new things we didn’t know we needed and told that we should want more or be more.
Each time I open my social media, this is roughly what I see.
“Make a million in under nine months!” – says a good-looking dude standing next to a private jet. His online course will set me back $3,000, but it’s a worthy investment.
“Manifest your dream life fast!” An insanely tanned, contoured to perfection woman is chilling on a beach in the Maldives, sipping champagne. She only works ten hours a week, she says.
A 20-something-year-old living in the most beautiful, immaculate, expensively styled, huge apartment in central Paris. A slight feeling of inadequacy hits me at this point, mixed with a dash of envy.
All these people clearly know how something I don’t. What the fuck have I been doing with my life? I must do more. I must do better.
And with mobile phones in our hands first thing in the morning, that’s often what we see before we even get out of bed.
How do the messages we see affect us?
There is nothing inherently wrong with wanting a better, more joyful and easier life.
There’s also nothing wrong with material possessions, cosmetic procedures, or wanting a better-paying job. All of these things, when used wisely, can really enhance the quality of life.
But there is a difference between having a preferred outcome but being ok with the possibility of it not happening, and craving something so badly that it gives you heart palpitations, making you unable to sleep or think about anything else.
Easy access to information is something I’m very grateful for, but there’s certainly a dark side to it. When we’re constantly and relentlessly being told what to want, how much better others have it and how quick and easy it should be to get it, it’s only natural to start feeling inadequate.
We begin wanting things quickly, without truly working for them or with minimal effort. We want instant gratification. We feel entitled to the same things someone else worked for a decade to get, even though we’ve only just started.
Other than the more obvious side-effect, such as impatience and entitlement, there is a whole host of physical symptoms. I personally suffered from chronic lower back pain which lasted over seven years and was eventually attributed to stress and anxiety. I also experienced multiple skin and scalp conditions that were also linked to increased stress levels.
Psychologically, that ‘hedonistic treadmill’ and the constant state of desiring new things can be exhausting and, contrary to the promise of post-purchase or post-achievement nirvana, make you feel anxious and really unhappy.
That’s because you never actually pause to enjoy the things you’ve achieved. There’s always that lingering feeling that others are doing better than you and you end up constantly chasing that elusive tail.
Now, I’m not saying that we should be lazy slobs and do jack shit all day.
Seeing what’s out there opened my eyes to what’s possible for me and led me to make some incredibly positive changes.
There were times when I couldn’t imagine leaving my minimum wage job. I never thought I’d earn well and live a life being true to myself — one where I don’t need to get married because my income is enough to be free and independent. I never thought I’d write a book and become a published author. I also never thought that I could have a romantic relationship where I don’t need to settle or compromise my core values.
And without seeing others achieve these things, I never would have bothered trying.
But there is a fine line between feeling inspired, and giving in to the toxicity of always wanting more and never being satisfied.
Finding happiness in this hectic world that promotes instant gratification, excess and pleasure is down to assessing what’s available to us and rightsizing instead of maximising.
How To Find Balance
1. Practice self-awareness
What do you truly want?
Not your parents, not your partner, not a random guy on TV trying to sell you crap — you.
Determine whether you’re doing something for your ego, for someone else, or to be perceived a certain way, instead of simply for you, by asking yourself this:
If you were the only person left in the world, would you still want that thing?
Would you still want a fancy car if nobody could see you drive it? Would you still suffer wearing a pair of sky-high designer stilettoes?
The answer might as well be ‘yes’ and that’s fine, but the key is to understand what drives it.
Doing this simple exercise allowed me to re-evaluate my own priorities:
A big house
Having thought about it, I realised that I simply wanted a house where I could live my life and do what I normally do without it being crammed.
And for me, that’s a two-bedroom home. Anything bigger than this can suddenly become a liability for one person. The last thing I want is to become a slave to my house and clean all week.
A million pounds
I love a good spreadsheet and I’ve been budgeting daily for almost a decade.
So I did a fun exercise where I created a copy of my spreadsheet, but with an annual salary of a million.
Initially, this felt amazing. But I quickly ‘bought’ all the things I wanted, ‘booked’ all the holidays I’ve been dreaming of for a while, ‘gave’ money to my family, allocated a huge chunk to stock market investing and…still had a crap tonne left. After that, I was just making stuff up for the sake of allocating the leftover money.
‘Hmm, maybe I could just go out to restaurants more. Or maybe I could buy some new clothes. Oh, still loads left…I’ll just invest all of the leftover money.’
Of course, if I had a million pounds, I wouldn’t spit on it. But what this exercise highlighted was that I don’t actually need it.
I found that a third or a quarter of a million is actually plenty. This is the amount that would be more than enough for me to live the kind of life I genuinely want.
Do you know what your magic number actually is? If not, go ahead and do this exercise to find out.
Designer handbags
I love handbags and even splashed out on a few in the past. And each time it shocked me how short-lived the ‘happiness’ was.
It was a great lesson for me, because I now understand that these things offer a temporary boost of adrenaline and that it doesn’t last.
Because of that realisation, no matter how much I appreciate a good design and quality craftsmanship, my desire to own more expensive bags simply ceased to exist.
2. Think back to the shit times
This is my new and improved way of thinking about gratitude.
I love a good list and I’d written a few gratitude entries in my journal. This worked perfectly fine — until it didn’t.
Now, I’m a big fan of expressing gratitude for what we have, but as with everything in life, familiarity makes it less effective with time so this is just an alternative approach when you feel like shaking things up a bit.
Instead of writing a long ass list of things you’re grateful for, think of one really crappy thing that happened to you in the past. Something that you had successfully overcome and it’s no longer an issue in your life.
For me, it’s my accommodation. Anytime I feel a bit blah and catch myself wanting more, I go back to the days when the only place I could afford was an over-crowded, filthy and unsafe shared house in London.
There was mould growing everywhere. I had to put a padlock on my fridge because other people would steal my food. And there were twelve of us in a house with two bathrooms. This was my living situation for many years and one of the darkest times in my life.
So when I catch myself agonising over something stupid that I don’t currently have, I remind myself how bad I used to have it in the past. I make sure that I really feel how awful it felt back then.
And then I bring myself back to the present.
My modest but cosy apartment. The freedom I get from living on my own. My fridge stocked up with delicious food. And suddenly, I feel lucky and grateful as fuck!
An exercise like this will remind you how far you’ve come, how good you have it now compared with before and what an awesome and resilient badass you are.
3. Review your belongings
Your home is the perfect place to put the idea of ‘rightsizing’ to the test.
Look around — how much useless crap is currently hiding in the corners of your home?
The ideal home designed for optimal satisfaction is an intersection of your available space, the number of possessions, and how much usage you get out of the things you own.
If you struggle to let things go because ‘throwing them away is a waste of money’ — consider this: you paid for a service.
All these items served you at some point and you got some mileage out of them.
You wouldn’t think to bring your hairdresser home and ask them to cut your hair forever just because you paid them once. You paid for a service, you got the service.
Start treating your possessions as service providers and let them go once they’ve done their thing.
And whenever you need a new service — you’ll find a new ‘provider’.
4. Compare yourself to those who have it worse than you.
I know, I know. You’re probably thinking: ‘What sort of prick would do that?’ But hear me out.
Why is it ok to compare yourself only to those that have more than you? This kind of comparison more often than not brings nothing but new desires, longing and feelings of adequacy.
It might surprise you, but the ‘pricks’ that actually suggested backward comparison were famous Stoics like Seneca or Plutarch. And these dudes have decent credentials and knew a thing or two about happiness.
Comparing yourself to people whose circumstances you consider to be less appealing than yours doesn’t have to be malicious. It’s actually a really effective way to feel grateful for what you’ve got.
There are people out there right now who look at you and think: ‘This lucky bitch…I wish I was her.’
There are people out there who envy you right now. Don’t underestimate what you already have.
5. Accept the things that are out of your control
We won’t always get what we want.
Knowing this used to cause me a lot of anxiety and unhappiness.
But banging my head against a brick wall didn’t prove very helpful so I eventually decided to change my perspective and the definition of success.
Success = focusing your efforts on the things you can control whilst letting go of the ones you can’t.
For example, instead of basing your happiness on becoming a best-selling author (you can’t control whether people like and buy your book), you can commit to writing the best book you can and then telling as many people as possible once it’s been launched (fully within your control).
Instead of craving a 10-bedroom house that’s currently way out of your budget (you may never have the budget), you can take steps to save up as much as you can every month towards a deposit for a property, or make the one you live in now more cosy and homely (fully within your control).
Instead of getting hung up on becoming a millionaire (you can never guarantee that people will buy from you), focus on actually producing something of value that you could sell (it’s within your control to put the work in).
6. Inspiring vs toxic influences.
It’s impossible to completely cut yourself off from the outer world just to avoid new desires — and neither should you.
So the final point I wish to make is to become aware of how the things you see, whether that’s social media accounts, adverts on TV, people you meet, or anything else, make you feel.
Do any of them trigger you? Make you feel upset or inadequate? If so, eliminate these toxic influences from your life.
On the other hand, pay attention to the ones that inspire you. These are the ones you want more of.
