Q: Can I get rid of it? A: Yes.
Whether it's the beautiful duvet cover at home or the so-so lip balm in your business, if you're wondering whether you can let it go, the answer is YES.
I've been on another minimalism bender lately, purging (aka donating) everything I can. It's addictive, regaining power and control over these inanimate objects I willingly bring into my home, then somehow come to define me.
I love the tiny burst of dopamine I get when I say sayonara to, for example, the so-very-pretty duvet cover that lives in the closet because I don't have a duvet.
Once you've gotten rid of the easy things -- the Tupperware lid that doesn't have a bowl, the vet records for the cat that died last year, the tube top from when you were 100x more likely to bare 50% more skin -- then you move on to the tough stuff, the perfectly useful or sentimental things.
For me, it's the beautiful stainless steel pan I kept just for cooking scallops (which we cook .5 times per year), the Spanish-English dictionary that reminded me of the promise of my college years, or the golf clubs that defined my existence in my 20s but haven't been swung, chipped, or putted in years.
But every time you touch those things and don't use them, they've taken up just a little of your life and energy.
So I sucked it up and donated those perfectly nice but unused things from my home, and I slowly free up more and more of my time.
Same goes for your business.
When you feel attachment to your honey-vanilla lip balm just because it was your very first product -- but it isn't near as great as your honey-mint and honey-lavendar lip balms -- every time you have to concern yourself with the honey-vanilla one, you lose a little bit of your life.
Every time you update its price on your website, every time you check your stock of it, or every time you ponder momentarily whether or not it fits in your lineup, you are giving your life to that product, life that you can't get back.
So the takeaway here is this: Whether it's the beautiful duvet cover at home or the so-so lip balm in your business, if you're wondering whether you can let it go, the answer is YES. You'll be fine without it -- actually, you'll be better off. So take the plunge, purge it, and feel that nice little dopamine burst from taking back just a little control.
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