Get Rid of It: Lifestyle Practice

Get Rid of 1 Thing Each Day This Week

Simple Instructions:

1. Each day, identify one thing that is no longer useful, relevant, purposeful, or bringing you the enjoyment it once did – and get rid of it.
2. The item might be buried in a closet or it might be sitting in plain sight.
3. Consider not only the things you’ve forgotten about, but also the things that may have once meant something that no longer represent what they once did, even if they have material value.

Watch this video for an explanation of this Lifestyle Practice from Whole Life Challenge co-founders Andy Petranek and Michael Stanwyck.

Why Is This Practice Important?

In our lifetime, we all go through many different phases, trials, and personalities. Along the way, we collect things and ideas that support those lives. When you acquire these things, they’re important and they serve a purpose.

But we only have so much space for things.

It’s not just that we run out of physical room (though often that is the case), we can also run out of psychological room. Once we accrue so much physical and mental stuff, then it we risk it becoming unclear to us (a) what’s important and (b) who we are.

Making decisions about physical things can be the first step in making decisions about the meaning of our lives.

Maintaining a physical space that represents who you want to be can be supportive of becoming exactly that person. “Clean up your room” is a way of saying that external conditions can be a potent force in creating your inner reality.

This week’s practice is an exploration in taking on your surroundings and shaping them to represent what you want your reality to be. This week, you will create the reality you want to live in.

Michael Stanwyck

Michael Stanwyck is the co-founder of The Whole Life Challenge, an idea that developed during his seven years as a coach and gym manager at CrossFit Los Angeles.

He graduated from UCLA with a BA in philosophy as well as a degree from the Southern California School of Culinary Arts, and feels food is one of the most important parts of a life - it can nourish, heal, and bring people together.

Michael believes health and well-being are as much a state of mind as they are a state of the body, and when it comes to fitness, food, and life in general, he thinks slow is much better than fast (most of the time). Stopping regularly to examine things is the surest way to put down roots and grow.

He knows he will never be done with his own work, and believes the best thing you can do for your well-being starts with loving and working from what you’ve got right now.