Thursday, 1 January 2015

Nothing New For a Year Challenge


I’ll let you in on a little secret – I love to set New Year’s Resolutions!  They aren’t gimmicks to me.  The New Year brings about a real chance to set goals for the year ahead, to determine something that I can really connect with and keep focus on throughout the year.  They’ve certainly worked for me over the last few years and when I have achieved the goals I set for myself I feel really proud.  Being able to achieve goals brings much satisfaction to my life and gives me the motivation to do it over and over ….. and so here I am again at the start of the New Year ready to make my resolutions for 2015.
 

I’ve thoroughly enjoyed connecting with a simpler approach to life in 2014, and I want to keep the momentum of this going.  During the year, as my radar detected stories from like-minded people in the press, I read about some particularly inspirational people doing some amazing things in the space of simplicity. 

Sasha Milne is a Perth mother-of-one who decided last Christmas Eve as she stood in a department store with a shopping cart full of items, surrounded by crying kids and stressed parents, that she really didn’t need all the ‘stuff’ she was about to purchase.   She decide then and there to not purchase anything new for 12 months.   In October 2014 she gave a presentation at a local Ted Talks event in Perth, which inspired me along with many others. 

The other inspirational story I picked up on last year was that of The Minimalists (Ryan Nicodemus and Joshua Fields Milburn) who came to Perth in October as part of their national (and international) tour.  They have turned their backs on consumerism and sold off most of their possessions to discover a new way of living that didn’t involve material things.  They found a new level of happiness and appreciation for life, and share their quest for a more meaningful life beyond excess with others via their blog www.theminimalists.com .

It is truly amazing what people can achieve when they set a vision and philosophy for how they will live life.  Natalie Isaacs of One Million Women is another person who holds a strong philosophy about life-style in relation to climate change and the simple things we can do in our everyday lives to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases emitted to the atmosphere.  By not disposing of items to the tip, but instead re-using, re-cycling, gifting, swapping or loaning we can prevent the wastage of materials and ensure that items have the maximum possible life-span, thus reducing the equivalent amount of CO2 emitted by the items if they were simply discarded to the tip.

Considering all three approaches to lifestyle and how I’d like them to shape my life, I’ve decided that for 2015 I will take up the challenge of not buying anything new for myself for 12 months and to limit anything new for my family – with a couple of exceptions being food, petrol and medicine.  I will make a huge effort to make home-made gifts or source gifts for people from recycled materials, or even quality second hand items or antiques.  I don’t expect this to be easy – it wouldn’t be a ‘challenge’ otherwise, and I’ll keep a track of progress in future blogs.

Here’s to a sensational, simplistic 2015!

Do you set yourself New Year resolutions and have you achieved success?  I’d love you to share your aspirations, so send me a post or comment below or you can email me at livewelllivesmart@gmail.com .