At the start of a new year it is common to make resolutions that we think will bring us long-term happiness, be it a new diet, exercise regime, or work goal. While it’s admirable to set resolutions, often we lose steam because we don’t see immediate results, and then we sadly give up altogether.

It takes hard work, of course, to achieve any type of goal. We must work at it day in and day out. Sometimes, however, we experience some benefits just days in working on our goals, which in turn can further inspire us to keep on going.

For example, as we wrote in our last post, we’ve been on a mission to declutter our home and simplify our lives in 2024. Over the past month we have been working hard to get rid of things and tidy up our living quarters. We have made some significant strides so far towards our goal of achieving a more streamlined home.

While, like any goal, it could have been easy to give up just as we got started, we were motivated to continue because we quickly experienced psychological benefits. We noticed our stress levels almost immediately decreasing as we let go of a variety of items we had accumulated and stored for a number of years in our home.

By ridding our home of belongings we no longer desired or needed, we opened up the space—both internally and externally—for things we wanted to focus on in our lives. No longer bogged down with excess, we witnessed our attention naturally shift to those forgotten treasures we do still want and cherish: memories,........

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