Life Lessons With...Sarah Knight
Following on from the Warrior Woman Project life lessons interview (which you can view here), next up is the (and I do not use this phrase lightly) bloody-amazing Sarah Knight, bestselling author of The Life Changing Magic of Not Giving a F*** and Get Your Shit Together. You pretty much need to have been living under a hole not to have come across her two life changing books and perils of wisdom she shares online. Sarah's approach to 'self help' is doable by everyone, which is exactly why the books are so darn relatable. Wanting to find out more about where the ideas and meanings behind the books come from, I chatted to Sarah to get her life lessons for us all.
The Life-Changing Magic of Not Giving a F*** is not only a genius and hilarious take on life but it has real meaning behind it also, which is why so many people have shown genuine interest in the book! Can you tell us a little more about where the idea for the book came from?
In 2015, I finally quit the corporate job (as a senior editor at a top New York publishing house) that had been making me very unhappy for over a year. Once I left, I felt much lighter, and free to live a different kind of life as a freelancer. I realized it had been okay to admit that I was not cut out for corporate life—that meetings and conference calls and bureaucracy were not things I gave a fuck about! With this came more time and energy to spend on things that made me happy, such as reading for pleasure instead of for work, and ultimately, writing my first book. When I was working as an editor, I hadn’t had anything left in my Fuck Budget for my own creative pursuits, because I spent all of my time end energy on other people’s books!
You mention the 2 Step Not Sorry Method in the book. Can you talk us through this?
It’s very simple. Step one is “Decide what you don’t give a fuck about” and Step 2 is “Stop giving a fuck about those things.” In this case, giving a fuck has two meanings—it’s about identifying the things you don’t care about, and then it’s also about literally not giving your “fucks”—in the form of time, energy, and or money—to those things. Those are your “fuck bucks” and they make up your overall Fuck Budget that I mentioned above. The key is to not be an asshole while doing it. I call it the NotSorry Method because if you act with honesty and politeness when carrying out these two steps, you have nothing to apologize for. You are not a bad person, and you are literally “not sorry.”
The title is a reference to Marie Kondo and the decluttering movement, do you think we're living more cluttered lives than we ever have – possessions, work, social media or fucks given – or are we perhaps just more aware of it now?
I think it’s probably a little of both. I like to say we’re living in a post-tidying society. It seems like, with the success of Marie Kondo’s “KonMari” method, everybody has a story about cleaning out their apartment and organizing their socks. But a lot of those people have fallen back into their messy, disorganized ways. That’s why I think you need to address mental clutter first, before you even get to the socks.
How can we have more fun and feel happier on a daily basis but still get sh*t done?
For me, it’s all about attacking my to-do list in small, manageable chunks. That’s something I discuss extensively in my second book,Get Your Shit Together. The big picture can be overwhelming, whereas breaking tasks down into smaller pieces makes them easier to accomplish and you feel better about yourself along the way as you make progress toward your overall goal. For example, “Move to the Caribbean” is a big, potentially overwhelming goal. But “research Caribbean countries” and “look at online rental listings” are smaller, easier parts of the whole that you can do in an evening.
Many self-help books are focused on the goal of being/achieving more whereas you are focusing on the less. What are you trying to get across to your readers with the idea of ‘less’?
I just think that a lot of the aspirational, motivational books and gurus out there are setting the bar too high for the average person. We can’t all be Gwyneth Paltrow and Jillian Michaels! The problems I was having in my life were about being overbooked, overwhelmed, and overdrawn—I didn’t want to add more (exercise, activities, events, responsibilities, PRESSURE) to my life. I wanted to pare down. And I figured out a way to do it and people really responded!
Why was writing the book important you?
Writing this book, and more importantly, the reactions I get from readers, has been extremely liberating. I put in writing what I suspected so many people were thinking, and it really resonated.
I read a quote from you once were you said: “I believe in looking yourself in the mirror today and dealing with what’s reflected back at you — letting it make you angry and then make you act.” I absolutely loved that line and truly believe in it, the here and now. Why do you think doing that is so important?
Yeah, that’s what I call “The Power of Negative Thinking.” I think a lot of the aspirational books out there are too focused on a fantasy version of the self, and on the supposed “new you” that you’re meant to be chasing. Personally I just find it more realistic—and more motivating—to confront what’s wrong and let yourself feel all the feelings associated with that—guilt, shame, anger, sadness, whatever—and work through them.
Your second book Get Your Sh*t Together is a continuation of your crusade to promote mental decluttering. What can we expect from the book?
Mental decluttering, like physical decluttering, has two steps: discarding and organizing. So if The Life-Changing Magic of Not Giving a Fuck was focused primarily on discarding (the fucks you no longer give), then Get Your Shit Together is focused primarily on organizing—making the time, energy, and money that you have left work for you, in the most efficient ways possible. I like to say that my first book is liberating and my second book is “weaponizing.”
Looking back, knowing what you do now, and having your shit together/not giving a fuck...what would you tell the 20-year old you trying to work it all out?
I would tell her that the perfect is the enemy of the good.
What’s ahead for you in 2017?
I’m doing a TEDx talk on March 17th, focused on not giving a fuck, and then I hope to buckle down with a third book idea.
For further information on Sarah check out www.sarahknightauthor.com. For more of Sarah's no shit attitude to life follow her on Instagram and Twitter.