Design a Life Worth Living with an Existential Revolution - MR #5

Using the 80/20 Principle to Drastically Prioritize Your Vital 20%

In the last edition I talked about a framework for existential health.

And though I believe in this framework deeply, and have implemented it in my own life with amazing results, I can see that the crisis of health and wellbeing that plagues us in the 21st century will not be solved so easily.

Any framework is useless without the time and space needed for implementation.

I saw this in my work at the hospital over and over again.

Treatment plans could be effective for some patients if they were able to actually follow them. But for others (most actually) it was a real struggle to make room in their lives to put these plans into action.

At first I thought this was because of a lack of education or information. But this can't be the reason since access to information has never been easier.

I realized it had to be something else.

After quite a bit of thought and exploration, I started to get a handle on what I believe to be the deeper problem:

People seem to have a strange relationship with time and space.

It almost seems like people truly believe they will live forever.

A 24 hour cycle becomes filled with the most trifling of tasks while the most important things are put off indefinitely. As the existential anxiety builds in the background, corrosive habits of dissociation make the situation even worse.

Addictions and compulsions offer a short term distraction but these habits just end up causing more and more problems.

What has been most painful for me as a nurse is watching people distract themselves for so long from the pressing needs of their lives that their lifespan just simply runs out.

And suddenly, faced with the ultimate existential crisis, it becomes painfully clear that the opportunity to actually live a satisfying human life has slipped away.

Kickstart your Existential Drive by Embracing your Mortality Early

This, of course, is not a new problem.

Our wisdom traditions are chock full of rituals and practices to help us sit with ourselves long enough to face the reality of our existence. But nowadays we have disassociation and distraction down to a science. It has become the hallmark of our Attention Economy.

There’s an infinite number of things to do, see, and hear that promise to take us away from all that ails us. Focusing on what is needed to live a life of quality seems to be the last thing on people's minds. Though I've been discouraged by all of this, I've also seen how existential concerns can galvanize people into action.

And this has deepened my conviction that an existential framework is the best foundation to build a solid health and wellness plan upon.

So where and how to start?

The first order of business is to fully face the fact that you will die someday.

Your days are numbered. Plain and simple. This is simply how things are for everyone. From this starkly existential standpoint, you can see that there is very little time and space for the excesses of our modern world.

Once you realize and embody this, life takes on a potent sense of urgency and the things that might have seemed important a moment ago cease to have any meaning.

"I’m aware of no other time management technique that’s half as effective as just facing the way things truly are." - Oliver Burkeman

This is a good thing!

When we face our mortality we connect with our Higher Self, to The One who Knows, and this is where you find the deeper purpose and meaning of why you are here.

This purpose does not have to be larger than life like saving the rainforest or going into warzones with Doctors without Borders. Perhaps your purpose is to learn how to love your husband more deeply or to communicate something important to the world.

The first trick to quality living is to know what is most important to you and to connect with that daily.

Everything else becomes a very distant second in comparison.

Maximize Your Health & Wellbeing by Setting Boundaries that Truly Matter

The next step is to clear some space and focus on only these few things. Set firm boundaries around this one thing. This means you must risk looking somewhat unconventional and eccentric.

People might not understand why you want to miss the tedious staff networking mixer or quit your stressful professional job to bake cakes in a local bakery.

But these are the small revolutionary acts that can change your moment to moment experiences so deeply that life actually becomes joyful rather than a painful slog.

And you'll have to let go of your perfectionism and choose to be mediocre at some things so you can make room to build mastery in other areas that are more important to you.

This requires sacrifice.

The important thing is to choose carefully and consciously.

And the way to do this is by starting with an 80/20 analysis of your priorities.

“A few things are important, most are not.” - Richard Koch

The 80/20 principle, aka the Pareto Principle, is an idea from economics that states that 20% of the causes produce 80% of the results. (If your interested, Richard Koch wrote a fantastic book on the subject and you can get it here.)

For example, 20% of motorists cause 80% of accidents; 20% of your clothes will be worn 80% of the time; 20% of the carpets in your home are likely to get 80% of the wear and tear.

You get the idea.

This means that the majority of your efforts and activities are actually irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. Identifying the vital 20% and focusing your life heavily on those things will bring you the quality of life you are seeking.

If 80% of your happiness comes from only 20% of your activities then it makes sense to hone in on the activities that make your life worthwhile.

If you are having more positive, and even peak experiences, you are much less likely to feel the need to disassociate from your experience in the first place.

In 80/20 Living the goal is to:

• Increase time and energy for the use of our strengths.

• Make room daily for positive experiences that help you feel how you want to feel.

• Spend time nurturing a positive, life-affirming relationship with yourself and others.

I'll use a case study to show how this might play out in practice for a woman who has recently been diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes.

Focus on the Vital 20% - A Case Study

Alice was diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes 6 months ago. Since then she has been struggling to follow the diet and lifestyle recommendations prescribed by her nurse practitioner.

Alice has had a lifelong compulsive eating habit which she continues to rely on to cope with her overwhelming and stressful lifestyle. She commutes to the city everyday to work at her unfulfilling corporate job. The work environment is emotionally and psychologically toxic and even borders on abusive at times.

She has continued to use overeating and sedentary social media scrolling as a coping mechanism. She is aware that she needs to change her diet and lifestyle but has been unable to find the energy to implement any changes.

She has a 3 year old daughter at home who is the joy of her life. Alice feels that parenting this little girl is a significant source of meaning and purpose for her and she experiences a lot of guilt every morning when she is forced to drop her off at daycare. She is afraid that her little girl is already developing some emotional problems due to Alice's inability to be truly present with her.

If we begin to view Alice’s problem through an existential framework, it might look something like this:

🍏Purpose & Meaning

Alice's stated goal in life is to be the best parent to her little girl she can be.

But after some careful consideration, she realizes in order to achieve this goal, she must start following a healthy lifestyle and change her eating habits. She must also begin to model healthy living for her 3 year old daughter. It horrifies her to think she could pass down her emotional eating issues to her daughter the way her mother did for her.

Though it is painful for Alice to come to terms with how her own mother’s disordered relationship with food has affected her, she knows it would be more painful to get to the end of her life and suddenly be blindsided by the realization that she had, in turn, contributed to her daughters difficulty with food and weight. It’s important to Alice to work toward disrupting this intergenerational cycle.

Alice begins a rigorous journey of self-reflection and asks herself some tough questions about what is keeping her from fulfilling the purpose that is so important to her.

🍏Emotional Wellbeing

Alice's happiest times are when she is spending time with her daughter.

After running an 80/20 analysis of her life, she realizes that instead of optimizing her life so she can prioritize time with her daughter, she ends up soothing her frazzled nerves by disassociating from her emotions with food and mindless scrolling in the evenings.

She also realizes that her emotional pain is getting in the way of being fully present with her daughter even when they are together. Her emotional dysregulation and ineffective coping strategies are affecting her entire life.

She starts to brainstorm a plan that would allow her to rearrange her schedule and see a therapist once a week. She also seeks out a 12-step support group for people with food issues and begins to spend a few hours a week journaling and dialoguing with her feelings.

She writes a grocery list for the meal plan her nurse practitioner has prepared for her and makes more time and space in her schedule to do groceries and start cooking meals at home. She decides to begin walking around the block after supper.

She includes her daughter in these activities.

They begin shopping together and Alice teaches her about the healthy foods they buy and how to prepare them. They go together for an evening walk and, afterwards, Alice gives her daughter a bath and reads to her before bed.

As an added benefit, Alice immediately begins to save money by cutting out eating at expensive restaurants four times a week.

🍏Autonomy & Personal Growth

Alice feels stuck at her unfulfilling job because, a few years ago, she and her husband took out a gigantic mortgage to buy a large house. The mortgage payments and other lifestyle expenses, like eating out most days, requires them to have two incomes.

She sees that her stressful job and commute is getting in the way of her meaning and purpose to be present with her little girl. She hates dropping her off at daycare which has become increasingly expensive.

She speaks with her husband and they decide to sell their house and move to a small townhouse they can easily afford with one income.

Alice is able to quit her job within one year of putting this plan into action. Since she no longer has to commute, they sell their second car which leads to even more savings.

🍏Relationships & Social Wellbeing

Since quitting her job, Alice is finally able to separate herself from her unfulfilling and toxic workplace which has caused her so much emotional and psychological stress.

She now spends quality time with her daughter all day, every day.

Alice is making great strides with her therapy and other emotional work and has much more patience and ability to be present with daughter than ever before.

The quality of their relationship deepens.

She commits to cultivating a better relationship with her friends and family and now has time to bring her daughter to visit her grandparents more frequently.

🍏Achievement & Competence

Alice's sense of self worth and self-esteem has increased exponentially over the first year of changing her life in this way. She no longer needs to rely on a big corporate job in the city or on owning a giant house to feel good about herself.

Her blood sugars, eating, and weight are now under better control which she experiences as a huge achievement.

She is developing a sense of mastery over her life.

She is also feeling better about her parenting and less anxious about how her daughter is developing.

She is on an upward spiral of health and wellness that couldn't have been achieved without forming a deeply existential plan to transform and revolutionize her life.

Transform Your Life by Daring to Face Existential Challenges Head-On

The key to Alice's transformation was deep reflection.

Alice had the courage and fortitude to look at her situation honestly and starkly.

She was able to face her existential fears and stare the true nature of time and her mortality in the face. In so doing, she was able to muster the existential drive to achieve what she thought she never could.

As Alice's transformation shows, life offers many opportunities for doing things a little differently.

Being a little eccentric and unconventional can be the key to opening the doors and opportunities that may have eluded you before.

Unfortunately, you are guaranteed to disappoint, and even anger, some people.

But, sometimes you have to risk the judgement of others and take the road less traveled to find some peace.

And if you are feeling resistance to upsetting people then that is another good thing!

Because now you've identified another piece of the vital 20% that stands in your way.

Factor that into your existential plan and get to work on it.

Start asking yourself why you care so much. Do you need to work on your boundaries? Are you a people pleaser?

View these revelations as a sign post pointing you in the direction of existential growth.

Embrace the Upward Spiral: The Lifelong Journey of Existential Growth

You might say this is all a lot of work with a lot of risk. But what else is life for but to strive to make the most of it?

If you view these five areas as critical existential competencies that make life worth living then working on them every day, every year, every decade becomes a small price to pay for the alternative.

And what's the alternative?

Getting to the end of your life with only sadness and regret to keep you company.

Working in the hospital helped me to see that

20% of our activities in life give us 80% of our well-being.

If you are working on the vital 20%, before you know it, a compound effect begins to take root and your life becomes ground zero for an existential revolution.

A caveat:

You don't have to change everything all at once. Small changes end up producing massive results.

Having too many projects going limits productivity on any of them and increases the risk of failure.

Instead of getting a lot done, you end up getting nothing done.

As long as you are making time for key existential goals, the season will come around again and again for new goals at different stages of your life.

You won't get everything you want right away.

The upward spiral of growth and renewal is only sustainable if you slow down and pay attention to what you want and need and to ruthlessly cut away what stands in the way of that.

You can be rest assured you will know in your core you are working on something significant.

Is there a moment or event in your life that kickstarted your existential drive? How has this experience shaped your journey since?

Please share in the comments. I’d love to hear your story.

All images in this post have been created by the Author.