Sacrifice to maximalize

The thirty-ninth newsletter is about creating space

I wear a uniform of sorts. A basic black t-shirt and gray, zip-off pants. They have been my daily go-to for years.

This isn’t because I’m particularly frugal or I dislike clothing or fashion. And I have to admit, I do occasionally throw on a shirt (that has some color) for special occasions.

I wear the same thing every day because it eliminates choices and ultimately prevents overwhelm. I can blindly reach for the pile and simply put on what my hand finds. No anxiety, no stress, not a shred of energy wasted.

Saying no to certain things (in this case the joy of self-expression through clothing) actually opens me up to say yes to other things.

Other things that are more important to me.

Less friction when getting dressed in the morning gives me more time to meditate, take a cold shower, and focus on making breakfast.

All of these things deeply matter to me. They have become my non-negotiables.

Acknowledging my non-negotiables means that other things are negotiable, and they deserve less or even none of my time, energy, and resources. So it would be correct to say that I am a minimalist, in terms of clothing.

But I would argue that what we call a minimalist is actually a maximalist, because I’m focusing on what elimination makes space for.

Most necessary space.

Perfect overwhelm

My lowest point in recent years could be defined as a complete mental overload. As part of being mentally (and physically) unhealthy, the overwhelm caused by obsessive perfectionism was an all-consuming challenge that took everything I had to turn around.

Although the word perfectionism is technically correct because it’s about having unrelentingly high standards, for me ‘perfectionism’ doesn’t paint an accurate picture of what it felt like.

When we put avoiding failure above all else we end up standing absolutely still. Not having the ability to go forward even an inch. Perpetually stuck, waiting for the moment we have all the information we need to make the perfect decision. A moment which, of course, never comes.

And when perfectionism spirals downward, it leads to maximum overwhelm. At least it did for me.

In this way perfectionism made me lose sight of the bigger picture, of what’s important. Focusing on and obsessing over minute details became a way to infinitely postpone deciding on what’s important.

Staying far away from overwhelm has become a necessity for me, and it informs how I prioritize all areas of my life.

Spend lavishly

I’m not too familiar or particularly interested in the world of finance, yet today I find myself sharing some points from a couple of financial greats that have helped me clarify my decision-making process and how to approach what to cut and what to keep.

Ramit Sethi’s book ‘I will teach you to be rich’ is a great reminder of how important it is to focus on the boring stuff and save money instead of racking up credit card debt.

But another, more important, point he makes in the book, is that the whole reason we save is so we can actually spend it. On the things that matter to us.

It takes away the nervousness and scarcity mindset we have (or I had) about money and focuses on how (saving) money can enable us.

His book was such a relief. The combination of ruthless prioritization and lavish spending (on things that are important to us) was an absolute breakthrough for me, not only on the money front. The philosophy behind it extends to all other decisions we make in our lives.

Saving money in order to spend it is the same as cutting out clothing choices in order to make space for a morning routine.

Saving on the negotiables means spending it on the non-negotiables. When I read the book I immediately knew. For me and my family, these are health and education. Those are my 'always allowed to spend’ categories.

Cutting things out of our lives can be painful but focusing on what it brings us makes it less painful.

Accept sacrifice

But how to deal with two clashing priorities? What if both are important?

For me, giving up clothing choices for a self-care practice isn’t that difficult. It gets more painful when I deeply care about both sides of the equation and it requires real sacrifice.

For example, when I wrote about sacrificing part of my social life for the benefit of my health. They are both incredibly important to me (and they’re even intimately linked, relationships are important for health which confuses the decision even more). The same goes for my essay about not having a smartphone, the sacrifice is mostly about social connections and the gain lies in better mental health.

Both of these show my utmost priority of personal health, brought forth by a history of health issues, which makes the choice easier in a way.

I know there are downsides, I know I’m missing out. But I fully accept those sacrifices because I can see the value they create. Opting out is totally worth it knowing what I’m opting into.

It’s important to get ultra clear on what to sacrifice though, and that’s not easy. We tend to go a little soft on ourselves when it comes to determining sacrifices, but luckily there’s a solution for that. Coming, once again, from a financial guru.

At all cost

Warren Buffet’s private pilot once asked him for advice on (career) priorities.

The story goes that Buffet had his private pilot write down his 25 most important things to work on. When he came back with the list, he had to circle the top 5 most important. Presuming that he would only work on the other 20 (the ones he didn’t circle) intermittently, Buffett reportedly said something like: No, everything you didn’t circle is now your ‘avoid-at-all-cost list.’ These get no attention until you’re done with the top 5. These 20 are the real distractions exactly because they are also important to you. Just not important enough. And they should be avoided because they will distract you from your top 5 because they aren’t as important.

The lesson here of course is that we shouldn’t only ‘just’ prioritize but that we should make it clearer for ourselves. Pull apart the priorities and make them binary, black and white. Do these things. Don’t do those.

It’s too easy to think that making and ranking a list of items will have a meaningful impact on our day to day. Left unattended it will create the overwhelm I so desperately want to avoid.

Preventing overwhelm needs priority-setting but not simply that. Making space for the important things requires sacrifice and radical prioritization. From the big things to the small things.

And my black shirt symbolizes that for me.