Less

Less is my one word for 2016.

Last year it was healing through intention. The year before that it was unprocessed, and the year before that it was also unprocessed.

But here is what I learned from the previous three years.

It was all still too much.

Yay for everyone who has set big goals for 2016, who have their sights set on achieving more, more, more and growing in ways that might not even seem possible.

To you, I say: Go get ’em.

But for me?

Nope.

Just less.

I have spent my entire life in overdrive. As an extreme Type A personality, this has been physically and emotionally exhausting to me. Up until now, I didn’t care, though. In fact, I thought I had to be this way in order to be anything or anyone.

And then I began to dig into my purpose, which I defined as:

My purpose seeks nothing fancy. It seeks no title. It seeks not money, nor luxury nor the approval of people in places for which I couldn’t care less about approving.

This past October marked the beginning of changing seasons for me, and ever since then, they continue to change. And by change, I mean that once I started doing less I actually became addicted to doing even less than I had originally intended.

I have spent, again, my entire life trying to justify myself and why I should be doing less. But while I was justifying I was, ultimately, doing more, more, more and trying to be more, more, more.

It ended in an illness that depleted me physically and emotionally (likely).

And if you want the real and raw truth, it also ended in me becoming someone I didn’t actually intend on becoming.

Does anyone intend on feeling empty even though they DO so much?

You know, the hustle doesn’t always create the beautiful outcome and person society says it will. This is why those who get the things they have in life are not lucky, but instead, they have worked hard for those very things. I was not lucky, I earned it.

And yet, in so many ways, it wasn’t the beautiful outcome you merely see on paper.

It was the outcome that forced me to less.

What Less Means to Me in 2016

At its most basic level less means,

A smaller amount or quantity.

Less does not equal nothing. It’s not that I’m going to sit around all 2016 with no goals, desires, aspirations or productivity. It simply just means less. And it simply just means that it’s okay to embrace this during this season of life.

• No set fitness goals. I don’t need to do anything lofty to make progress and feel amazing. How do I know this? Because when I was in the gym the other day, I took a picture (I had not in a very long time). I was shocked by all that I have accomplished with just 3 days at 29-minutes a pop. I’m going to write more about this soon. If I want to do a Spartan or two or Trifecta, then I will. Maybe, maybe not. But 3 days in the gym, for a minimal amount of time will suffice.
• That said, without all the extra time in the gym and with the arrival of another child(ren), I do have one small goal challenge for myself. 50 xyz each day in 2016. This can be push-ups, squats, burpees, mountain climbers, sit-ups, anything. Just 50 per day. At the end of 2016, no matter if I never set foot in a gym or competed in any athletic competition, I will have done 18,250 reps. This is awesome, and also majorly less (for me).
• No justifications. This might be the hardest thing for me to do (just ask my husband), but when I don’t want to do anything, I will not justify it. I’m just not going to do it. I will learn to say no more often, and I will learn that the guilt I carry by saying no is on me, not on anyone else.
• Social Networks. I’m cleaning them up a bit. I need less.
• A Loving Spoon nut butter. Do you want the honest truth? I am re-evaluating my business. I am spending the first several months of 2016 determining the direction and/or how much I want to give to it in the future. The natural food business is grueling, and I have grown weary over it these past couple of years.
• Clutter. It just needs to disappear. ‘Nuff said.
• God willing, no diet. I am hoping that my SIBO testing results show it’s gone and that I won’t have to adhere to any specific diet. Gluten and dairy will still stay out (though I plan to put raw dairy back in), but I plan to continue to eat for energy and performance (both athletic and running around with children performance – ha!) and to continue eating more, more, more because I’ve never felt better in my life. The only “diet” I want to follow is the one that helps me continue healing and this means adding, even more, things in on a consistent basis (i.e. liver and sardines), along with having food prepped and ready so I can eat at any given moment (in other words, Intermittent Fasting is not for me). I will likely go back to bulk cooking and baking on Saturday and Sundays in order to achieve this.
• Happiness Jar. By doing less, I’m going to have time for creating more memories. I failed at the Happiness Jar in 2012, but I won’t this year. I will write about our jar soon.
• Continue plugging away at my list of 105 in 1,095. What I love about this list is that there are so many super simple (and meaningful) things on the list to cross off.

I have just one actual New Year’s “Resolution,” (remember, a real resolution means that you are resolving to solve a problem) and that resolution is to have all my 2016 Christmas shopping done (or mostly done) by November 1, 2016. This year was complete chaos in the final days, and do not want that again.

I don’t need to create goals, desires and aspirations for bigger and better when this season of life is telling me that the biggest and bestest (!) things are my faith and time spent with the Lord, Samarah and the new little(s) that will be (hopefully soon) joining us and Ryan.

Right here, right now….with less is where I feel the most comfortable that if I left this Earth tomorrow, I would die knowing that I did everything I was supposed to.

I feel it deep down that less is going to provide more.

I’d love to hear your one word for 2016 if you have one!

p.s. Be inspired.
Follow Sarah Hoffman’s board Natural Healing {SIBO, Autoimmune, Adrenal Fatigue} on Pinterest.

p.s.s. Grab my 36 New Years Resolutions that have Nothing to Do with Weight Loss

Xox,
SKH