This week me and my partner, Mark, were reflecting on our mortgage. When we bought our current house in 2023, we took on a much larger mortgage than we had before.
Unfortunately, it was at the same time mortgage interest rates in the UK went up from around 2% to 5%.
Our house is detached, has plenty of space and stunning views stretching for miles. But we pay a small fortune every month to live here.
We’ve been questioning whether we want all the pressure to keep paying it for the next 25 years.
We’re fortunate enough that we could move to a much smaller property further away from town and not have a mortgage at all.
This shift in perspective changed everything.
The story we were living
There’s a cognitive bias called status quo bias, which means we tend to stick with what we know – even if it’s not working – because it feels familiar and safe.
And then there’s social contagion. The spread of emotions, behaviors, and attitudes from one individual to others, often unconsciously.
“The housing ladder” being one concept that we’d unconsciously bought into.
We thought that moving into our dream home would drive us to work hard to pay it off.
But instead, we’ve found ourselves feeling weighed down and demotivated because 25 years takes us up to retirement age.
A friend passing away a couple of years ago, has made us very conscious that none of us know how long we have.
The shift
We talked about what we actually want. We want Mark to leave his well paid but stressful, long hours job, and do something with less pressure, and I want a mixture of self-employment jobs – life coaching, dog walking and perhaps teaching ukulele.
Our current house is standing in the way of the future we want.
The moment we realised this, we knew our values had changed. And of course our environment needs to change too.
From belief to behavior
According to Cognitive Behavioral Theory, the way we think influences how we feel, which influences what we do. The model is simple but powerful:
Thought → Feeling → Action
When we believed “we should buy our dream house and keep working hard to pay for it” we bought accordingly.
When we started thinking, “we could be mortgage free, which is a very fortunate position to be in, and it allows us to do work that we want to do, even if it doesn’t pay very well” everything shifted.
That’s when we decided to downsize.
What we’re learning
Downsizing isn’t just a logistical choice – it’s an act of alignment. A way to say, “This is what matters to me now.”
And that’s the powerful thing about perspective: it doesn’t just change what you see – it changes what you do.
I know a few people in the UK and US who had incredibly successful corporate careers who quit and went to live in a van. Another who moved to Bali because she can live somewhere beautiful with a cheaper cost of living.
A question for you…
Your perspective shift doesn’t need to be as drastic as moving home to give you benefits though!
What’s something in your life that no longer fits the way you think or feel today?
Perhaps it’s your job, the people you hang out with, your hobbies, how you use social media, your diet.
What does it mean to you?
For example, I started to eat healthier when I saw food as nourishment and learned which vitamins were in different foods, instead of seeing eating something I do mostly for enjoyment.
When I started seeing social media as something that was wrecking my dopamine baseline and leading me to be more easily distracted and unhappier. I hugely cut down on my social media time.
What aspects of your life aren’t working for you? How can you change your perspective on them to trigger the kind of actions you want?
You don’t have to overhaul your life overnight. But awareness – real awareness – has a sneaky way of turning into action.
That’s why there’s no video this week – I’ve been searching for a cheaper house!
Emily xx