It's All In The Mindset...

What's the most important thing you can do to change your life right now?

I went off the grid, so you don’t have to.

I went to a cabin in the woods, with very limited solar power and now I want to share with everyone what I’ve learnt.

Here’s my biggest lesson: wherever you go, there you are.

You may recognise this quote. It’s from American professor and meditation teacher, Jon Kabat-Zinn.

For years, I dreamt about moving to a cabin in the woods and living a free life. I had visions of tending to my garden, making kombucha and reading novels by the crackling fire.

Since 2023, we have finally found our little place in New Zealand that we can call home. It’s nothing fancy or flashy—an old shipping container and an almost completed tiny house. We’re fully off the grid and away from everything.

Am I now tending to my garden, making kombucha and reading novels by the fire? Absolutely.

But also, it didn’t take long to notice that everything I had ever wished for wasn’t about gardening, kombucha or reading. 

It’s about a mindset.

If you don’t change within, you can go as far off the grid as you want, but nothing will ever be different.

The changes needed to come from within me and had nothing to do with my surroundings.

I want to share this with others. My goal is to demystify this way of living and share ideas on how everyone can adopt the lifestyle without going out in the bush and buying a homestead. 

I want to uncover which aspects truly make up the lifestyle and share with the world that it’s part of a mindset, an off-grid mindset if you will.

In the past months, I finally found peace. My surroundings helped, or at least expedited the process. However, my goal is to share with the world my steps to finding peace and the things that helped me reconnect with my inner world.

Going off the grid isn’t for everyone, but that’s the thing, you don’t have to.

Disconnecting your mind can yield similar rewards.

Here are the 10 things that make up an off-grid mindset:

1. Reduce your screentime

2. Go outside more

3. Embrace the slower life

4. Practice gratitude

5. Break free from the clutter trap

6. Self-care

7. Living an authentic life

8. Discover spirituality

9. Be flexible and adaptable

10. Find your community

That’s it, it’s that simple.

I’m just kidding. I realize these are all quite big things that require big and small efforts on your part. In the next newsletters, I will break down all these concepts one by one and help you embrace each of them.

My hope is that this will help you adopt an off-grid mindset, reaping all the benefits from having that cabin in the woods without having to move ;-)

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Here’s what inspired me this week:

I’ve been reading Tribes by Seth Godin.

The book is easy to read and has a couple of really nice gems. He talks about communities and leadership and touches on the difference between management and leadership. One part of the book that resonated with me was about fear.

Seth Godin writes that we are the only ones holding ourselves back. We are so worried about what others will think and what criticism they will have. We’re so afraid of failure that we end up doing nothing at all.

But he adds that criticism means you did something worth remarking on. If you were boring (or if your writing was boring), you wouldn’t be getting any comments.

I felt inspired after reading this. It’s ok to put yourself out there!

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That’s it for this week. Hope you enjoyed it. Let me know in the comments which aspect of the off-grid mindset sounds like the most interesting one!

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This is what you can expect from me every week! A long-form article related to a reflection or life lesson on personal growth and one thing that inspired me this week. If you liked this, don’t keep it to yourself; share it with your friends: