How to Start Living More Simply and Naturally
Start learning how to cook from scratch
When on the journey to try and live a more natural, and homegrown life, one of the best ways is to start learning to cook from scratch! Wherever you may be on your journey, you can start building on these skills. Start by moving away from foods that are super processed, and more towards whole foods. Instead of buying the premade bread, or premade sauce, buy the ingredients to make these things instead. Working on this little by little will help improve your grocery bill, make it so you’ll start to really know what’s going into your food, and begin to prepare your cooking for when/ if you want to grow and forage more of your own food in the future.
Start shopping locally and seasonally
No matter what your future goals might be, I think it’s a great idea for everyone to start developing more of a community mindset when it comes to shopping. Instead of purchasing from big chains that make things with usually poor working conditions, and buying things that have had to be packaged and shipped from thousands and thousands of miles away, It’s a much better idea to purchase things that you know where they came from. Reduce the carbon footprint, and help keep your money with the people, and not with the corporations. Tied in with this, it will help you to have a better understanding of what’s in season and when as well. It may help you learn new meals to prepare and new food to enjoy when trying local and not relying on things shipped in from different places.
Try growing something!
One of the best ways to start moving into a more natural lifestyle is to start growing something! Wherever you live whether it’s acres, or the tiniest apartment, growing food is not off the table for you! It doesn’t matter what you grow, but just start! It may come as a surprise to some, but plants want to grow! They just need some help from us along the way. Trying and failing is part of it, and it’s better to keep trying on whatever scale you are comfortable with than to not try at all.
Work on your time management and spending time wisely
I think one of the hardest things people face in this modern age is the lack of time management. I’m sure many of us know the feeling of going to quickly check social media, and finding ourselves scrolling way longer than we intended. Maybe we get caught up in doing things that aren’t that important. Therefore wasting the time we could be working on something we care about more. In one way or another, everybody can benefit from some time management skills. Some of the things I like to do include making goal setting sheets, setting up restrictions on my phone to certain apps, and making a ” What to do when you have time” list. These kinds of things all help me to stay on track, and to help me spend my time in a way I will be thankful for in the future. Not in a mindless way.
Move away from consumerism mindsets
It can be pretty impossible to stay away from the consumerism mindset. Everywhere you look there are things being advertised to us. Whether it be clothing, makeup, kid’s toys, you name it! In a world that is constantly trying to sell us happiness, the most rebellious thing to do is find it yourself. Instead of constantly buying new, repair what’s old. Instead of filling your home with clutter, keep it simple and only hold on to what you really love and need. This could potentially be one of the top ways to simplify your life. Cutting down on clutter cuts down on cleaning and organizing. Cutting down on shopping gives you more money to save. So much stress can come from thinking we need more, but in reality, if we look within, we don’t need these things to fulfill us. If we focus on ourselves first we will be able to find, and truly invest the time and money to what we could really get use from.
