Freedom is partly lowering the number of things capable of controlling your decisions.

A great deal of decision-making is not really yours. Debt, obligations, other people’s expectations, and your own attachment to how things look all get a vote. Freedom is partly a subtraction exercise, reducing the number of things with standing in your decisions.

List what would object if you made a significant change. Some of those objections deserve weight and some are just accumulated. Removing even one changes how much of the decision is actually yours.