Happy Thursday!

I hope you’re having a great week.

Here are the 3 things I want to share with you in the realm of longevity and simple living this week.

Let’s dive in.

🫀 Live Longer

Uncovering Limiting Beliefs That Cause Stress And Anxiety

Many of us, including myself at times, overlook the serious health detriments of prolonged periods of stress.

But this is a fatal mistake since stress not only reduces the quality of your life, but it is also a silent killer.

Take a few moments to reflect on these questions:

• In what areas of your life are you trying to “have it all” and “do it all?” 

• How might this be limiting your ability to “succeed” in your single most important life goal right now?

As Richard Koch wrote:

“Most of what exists in the universe—our actions, and all other forces, resources, and ideas—has little value and yields little result; on the other hand, a few things work fantastically well and have a tremendous impact.”

Don’t try to do more. Do less, but better.

💪 Feel Healthier

You Should Build More Boredom Into Your Day―Here’s Why

In 2007, the iPhone was born.

Bestselling Author Michael Easter describes this as the death of boredom.

But boredom didn’t die alone.

By walking without your phone for just 20 minutes daily, you will unlock 3 benefits of boredom:

Benefit 1: Boredom will boost your productivity.

Productivity isn’t about getting more things done.

It’s about getting the RIGHT things done.

Moments of boredom give you time in unfocused mode which will allow you to figure out the next most important action or task.

Benefit 2: Boredom will generate your best ideas.

The cliché of having your best ideas in the shower exists for a reason:

Being bored gives your brain time to process information in the background.

But filling excess time on a screen deprives your brain of time to think.

Benefit 3: Boredom gives you more time, energy, and focus.

Screen time drains your battery by stealing your attention and overstimulating your mind.

Reducing your screen time will:

• Give you more time, energy, focus, and mental clarity.

• Give you more time for work, hobbies, or quality time with loved ones.

🧠 Cultivate Purpose

The 3-Step System To Eliminate Complexity And Be More Effective (While Living Simply And Creating More Space)

Most people overcomplicate their lives.

Without realizing it, well-intentioned commitments turn into nonessential actions and overcomplicated practices that result in:

• An overstuffed schedule we keep trying to add to.

• Increased anxiety, stress, feelings of unease, and symptoms of burnout.

• A trivial amount of progress in a million directions (as opposed to massive success in 2 or 3).

In his book Essentialism, Greg McKeown outlined a 3-step system to analyze your daily behaviours and prevent the overcomplicated and nonessential.

I updated the questions to reflect our goal of living longer, feeling healthier, and cultivating a purposeful life:

Step 1: Explore & Evaluate.

Take an inventory of your daily and weekly routines. Then, analyze your actions by asking:

• Does this give me joy, fulfillment, or excitement? 

• Is this activity the most effective (highest impact) way of moving toward my goal? 

Pro Tip: Apply The 80/20 Rule to both questions: What 20% of my actions are driving 80% of my desired outcome(s)?

Step 2: Eliminate.

If “No” to either question above, eliminate those activities.

You can also ask “if I wasn’t already doing this, would I start now?”

Step 3: Execute.

Now that you’ve simplified (and increased the effectiveness of) your days by eliminating the nonessential and only keeping the highest impact activities, you need a system to execute the remaining actions consistently.

Ask yourself:

• How can I organize my days to reduce friction and make executing these actions as effortless as possible?

• How will I ensure my time, energy, and focus do not stray from the critical few actions (despite seemingly relentless external influences)?

When faced with an opportunity in the future, this reflective practice should be the one decision that makes a thousand others.

Answer “No” to everything that does not align with what you deem essential.

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P.S. If you have any feedback, I’d love to hear from you. What did you like or dislike? What do you want more or less of? Other suggestions? Please let me know. Just reply to this email, leave a comment, or send me a Tweet @jackrossdixon.

P.P.S. If you enjoyed today’s newsletter, follow me @jackrossdixon on Twitter for daily tweets and threads on how to live longer, feel healthier, and cultivate purpose while living simply.