Use It or Give It Away: Well-Being Practice

Find Something You Haven’t Used in a While and Use It or Give It Away

Simple Instructions:

• Each day find something in your house that you haven’t used in what you consider to be a long time.
• It can be from anywhere in your house, from the kitchen to the bookshelf to the closet — wherever you are hanging onto less-than-useful stuff.
• Once you’ve identified the item, use it or lose it. Either find a use for it today or in the near future, or give it away.
• This does not mean getting rid of decorative things that have no practical “use.” Aesthetic pleasure is a perfectly good reason to keep something.

Michael and Andy stopped total strangers on the street to talk to them about this challenge. Watch to find out the system this man uses to keep clutter out of his house:

Why Is This Practice Important?

Letting go is hard. We all have things we hang onto because they remind us of something that’s gone, they were once useful, or we just can’t bear the thought of waste.

But when things with little use sit around for too long, they begin to clutter our lives. We can only live in the present moment, and hanging onto things from the past because they once brought us pleasure can confuse what’s important to us right now.

Once you free yourself of the clutter, you’ll be amazed at how much lighter you feel. The resulting clarity and openness brings a huge amount of freedom. You’ll have a much better ability to move and breathe. Your environment will be more efficient and many of your decisions will become much easier.

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.