Setting limits isn’t as popular in our advertising culture as buzz phrases like “No Limits”. When we think of “limits”, it’s typically in a negative sense. So, when setting limits on ourselves, like when we go on a bad diet, or a too tight budget, or worse, when someone or something puts limits on us, we think of it as a bad thing.

But setting limits is actually a really good thing! Limits are a fantastic tool to help simplify your life and actually help you appreciate the things that are most important to you. Learning to accept, use, and embrace limits can help make a whole lot of sense of the hyper-consumer society we all live in. No limits? No way!

So let’s get started! Read more…

So I first thought about the framework of setting limits being a truly positive thing while I was watching a Tony Robbins training video. In it, he mentioned that sometimes limits were good, and the example he used was a glass. If you’re thirsty, you pour yourself a glass of water. The glass limits or contains the water so you can drink it. Without the glass to limit the water’s flow, the water would pour right through your hand.

Well, sometimes the weirdest stuff will get me thinking. And, true to form, Tony’s comment got me thinking about the positivity of limits that help us on our simplicity journey. So here are a few examples from our family:

Stuff We Have

Stuff We Buy

What We Expose Ourselves To

Our Family Time

Media Consumption

Things Dan’s Cutting Back

Limits and Children

Limits and Food

Final Thoughts

So, why think of “setting limits” in a negative sense, when they can be a fantastic tool to help simplify your life. Use limits to your advantage and craft your limits to help ensure you keep on track with your priorities that are in line with your Life Plan. Sure, the slogan “No Limits” is popular these days, but it’s often used to describe what your spending cap should be for the product they’re hawking.

Establishing limits or boundaries can be pretty empowering and it goes hand in hand with embracing the Power of Saying No. Together they can help you live a life with intention and and keep you focused on your priorities.

The last thing we want to do is expand on the word congruent that I mentioned earlier. This whole congruency thing has become our watchword lately. But, limits we set are congruent with our priorities we set out in our Life PLan. Remember, we call our priorities our 5 Pillars of FAITH, FAMILY, FINANCES, FITNESS and FREEDOM. It’s kinda like back in our military days, sometimes people would talk about Command & Control like it’s one thing. It’s not, it’s two very distinct things. Command is like our Life Plan, control is like the Priorities and limits we use to ensure our actions are congruent to our Pillars. So, that’s how we frame limits in our lives. It works for us, and hopefully it can work for you, too!

So, what limits do you use to help keep your life on track? Which limits are the most difficult to keep? Let us know! Be sure to leave a comment below! 

Resisting some marketing temptations and making sure our own actions were congruent to our 5 Pillars.

So our little girl Sunshine was awarded with a “FAIRNESS” award at school…which is pretty cool because it’s like a little reinforcement that we’re teaching her the right things. Well, she also came home with a so-called “award” to go see the San Antonio Spurs basketball team play. She got a free ticket, but of course…she had to get at least one adult ticket too. Naturally she was so excited to win an award, and as a parent you want share in the excitement and praise their good work. So I (Vanessa) started to plan how we were going to go to this game, because of course….we’d have to take the whole family to celebrate. Well, the pressure was on because I had only one day to make a decision. But when I brought it to Dan and as we were trying to figure it out, he was like, “Vanessa…the thing is…would have even considered going to a Spurs game if Sunshine hadn’t won this award?” And I said, “no.” So it really made us think about how quickly you can react to the “FEAR OF MISSING OUT” but when we actually stopped and thought about it, we realized this wasn’t in line with our normal way of spending time together or our priorities (because that would have been a pricey family night out). We’re not going to the game, and we’re celebrating Sunshine’s award together, as a family, in a way of our own choosing.

So here’s a shout out to

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