11 Principles Nature Created to Enhance Your Life Instantly
And +1 bonus principle to get you started today!
🏡The FARMISH Mindset🏡 *is a reader-supported weekly publication. I show individuals and businesses how they can make nature their strongest ally. To gain more freedom and health. If you find my posts helpful, please consider becoming a subscriber. Thanks!
It’s Sunday Brunch Time - Time for the FARMISH Mindset newsletter. Grab a croissant and let’s hop in.
Hello Reader
Things aren't going as they should?
Thousand uncertainties?
Doubts? One step before throwing things at the wall?
It’s complicated, I know…
This article is for you if your life is a series of unpleasant, difficult moments.
It may be because you have no guardrails. You're swerving on the highway of life and crashing into every obstacle. No matter if big or small.
With the ideal partner, you can find ways out of the chaos. Fast!
In this article, I'll show you how to apply permaculture principles in your life. For your benefit. These natural principles were originally invented to design farms and landscapes. Surprisingly, they can be invaluable in our daily lives.
They can even save lives. My life, for example:
But applying them in your life can also reveal surprising insights and new paths.
Grab a cup of coffee, take a bite of your croissant, make yourself comfortable, and let's get started.
The order of the principles is not meant to imply any kind of ranking. They are all equally important.
So, let's start with the first principle.
1. Observe and Interact
You can only gain deeper insights if you learn to observe. This applies to the garden just as much as it does to life. Instead of causing even more chaos with blind activism, it's better to take a step back. Observe what is happening. And then act.
2. Catch and Store Energy
Our body works similarly to a very complex battery. Most human beings forget that every battery must also be charged. Periods of relaxation and reflection must be built into an active, hectic everyday life. If you understand this and apply it, there is little standing in the way of a healthy life. And you can live to a ripe old age. In the best of health.
3. Obtain a Yield
The ultimate rule for the people pleasers among us. Always say yes to all obligations? That's the most direct route to exhaustion. You have to think of yourself too. Sometimes it has to be for your benefit too. Always being available for everyone else? Learn to say no. And make sure there's a harvest for you too.
4. Apply Self-Regulation and Accept Feedback
You do have morals and principles, don't you? Do you sometimes question them? Do you occasionally ask for the opinion of others? Family, friends and colleagues? Those who never question their own thought patterns soon appear arrogant. And those who can't take honest feedback isolate themselves. And are soon alone. We all have an uncle like that in our family. Always right about everything. Always grumpy. Never smiles. Yes? That's right, I mean Uncle Bob...
5. Produce No Waste
These three words leave so much room for interpretation. You can write entire books about them. Waste has many faces. It's not just the plastic bag from the supermarket. Or the glass bottle that you don't take to be recycled. No, we are also talking here about the unused opportunities. The chances that life offers us. Which we don't take. Which become skeletons in the closet of hope.
6. Use Renewable Resources and Services
Most of us are not egocentric. Rather, as a species, we are simply quite lazy. Always oriented towards convenience. But this behavior costs resources. Resources that will no longer be available to future generations. With a little good will, an alternative can be found for (almost) every product or service. One that respects the planet. And leaves fewer pollutants behind. After all, we will have grandchildren someday. (By the way, I will soon... yeah!)
7. Design From Pattern To Detail
Do you also lose sight of the big picture? Sometimes? I do. Stress, hectic and events often lead to situations in which we only take care of details. Little things that all too often rob us of time and nerves and contribute nothing to the goal. Having a vision helps. Imagine an ideal vision of life. Work towards it. In steps that keep the big goal in mind.
8. Integrate Rather Than Segregate
We are creatures of habit. Whether we like it or not, we find it easy to exclude things from our lives. We are reluctant to let the unknown into our daily lives. But it is only by experiencing new things that we grow. With experience and new emotions. It's worth breaking out of your comfort zone. Always saying no and excluding leads to boredom. (Or to a friendship with Uncle Bob.)
9. Use Small and Slow Solutions
Our highly technical life celebrates gigantic and fast solutions. Everything has to be fast. We rarely think about the consequences of this. From very simple things like fast food to the gigantic energy requirements for ever faster servers and computers. Fast has consequences. And they are rarely good for our health. Decelerating life and relying on slower and smaller solutions is more profitable in the long run.
10. Use and Value Diversity
Frustration and boredom very often have their roots in routines. Doing things, ways and processes always in exactly the same way bores your brain. An organ that depends on stimulation. Why are prisoners in movies always locked up in cold, empty garages or basements? Because they bore the brain. Because it is torture.
Breaking out of routines and letting the unknown into your life is a must. Unless you want to end up a prisoner of your own thoughts...
11. Use Edges and Value The Marginal
We all have an edge in our lives. Like the zone in the garden where the fence to the neighbor stands. Many would not use this zone in the garden. Small, insignificant, sometimes not really visible. But it is the fringe area in life that can be incredibly colorful. The hobby, the unprofitable sideline that gives so much joy. Passion and zest for life often meet right on the fringes of life. Barely visible but invaluable for our well-being.
Who are these principles for?
If you've never heard of permaculture, you've come to the right place.
Surely you've wondered why some people always seem to have luck on their side. Everything they touch seems to turn to gold. Every new job, every investment and their entire relationship environment is built on success.
These people are no different than you and me.
What makes them different is only a small but crucial difference. They have made a gigantic friend their partner. Unconsciously or very deliberately, it doesn't matter. All these successful people have made nature their advisor and ally. In all areas of life.
And that's exactly what you can do too. The principles of permaculture are the essence of the laws of nature. Reduced to the core and unbeatable in their simplicity. Getting to know them and applying them will trigger amazing changes. In your life as well as it did for me.
Oh yes, one principle is still missing from the list:
12. Creatively Use and Respond To Change
Even though I know from experience that all principles have the same value: this is my favorite principle. Because it can be applied universally. A human life is full of change. From birth to death, our circumstances are constantly changing.
Sometimes because we work towards it, but often also through events over which we have no influence.
Change is the only constant in life. And those who can respond to it with creativity, commitment and goodwill are always safe.
And guaranteed to always be on the winning side!
🏡 Thank you for reading my thoughts. It means a lot to me. 🏡
If you find value in this publication, please comment, like, share and recommend it to others.
It helps a lot, to get more visibility!
It’s an interesting comparison and approach to consider doing things differently in our lives. What almost every point on your list has in common is that change feels difficult for our brains, but only when we’re operating from the “baby” brain—our instinctual, short-term thinking. However, our higher, long-term planning and rational thinking brain can make it clear that there's no need to fear the unknown.
This is the BEST! Brilliant reframe.