Whenever possible add good things into your life rather than removing bad things. When there are enough good things in your life you'll naturally let go of the bad things without missing them or feeling deprived of them.

I first saw this principle articulated years ago when I read Jon Gabriel's book The Gabriel Method. In the book he explained that the best approach to changing your diet was to start by adding good things to the regimen of what you eat before worrying about removing anything. His particular recommendation was to start with adding Omega-3 fish oil, as the nutrients in that is one of the most common missing elements of most peoples diet. By adding in this simple nutrient, you can actually eliminate a significant proportion of hunger feelings and thereby reduce snack eating. A great example of eating less by carefully adding to your diet rather than removing.

This life principle fits well with the life principle of Maintaining Simplicity. When maintaining simplicity, you should aim to only change one thing at a time in your life. I understand that this is not always possible, but it's still a worthy goal. Adding good things into our life should also be done in such a way as to maintain as much stability as possible. Returning to my first example, start taking that Omega-3 fish oil (I take Krill oil, slightly more expensive, but more Omega-3 by volume.) and keep taking it for a month before making any other changes. Then make your next calculated change. Perhaps, adding more non-starchy vegetables to your meal plans. Do that for a month and then add something else good. Find an unsweetened drink that you like and drink that instead of soft drinks. Keep repeating this process until you have so many good foods in your diet that you do not have room to eat the sugary and less healthy foods that you used to have.

This doesn't only apply to foods. It's a very flexible principle that can be applied to many areas of your life. Just remember to not go crazy with adding them all in at once!

Great candidates for adding good things to your life include walking (especially in state parks), reading classic books (your library will be delighted to help), volunteer at a charity or a soup kitchen (or your library as you're already going there for classic literature), start going to church (or be at more services if you already attend one), write letters to your friends instead of wasting time on social media, play board games with family and friends, listen to interesting historical podcasts while you are doing your chores (or walking in a state park), read books on nutrition and exercise (again, your library will be delighted to help), go back to school (evenings or weekends) to study something that you always wished you'd taken time to learn, learn a new language, build an amazing train set in your basement and invite local families to come and enjoy it, start blogging, write a book, take up painting, learn photography, learn to shoot, study a martial art or learn to play an instrument.

There are so many good things available in this world, and many of them are free or inexpensive, that it should be easy to find good things you like to add into your life. And after you've added enough of them into your life, you'll find that you've just naturally (and peacefully, without trauma or guilt) let go of many of the bad things you used to do as there was just no room for those things in your life any more.