The 7 Changes Required For A Minimalist Lifestyle

PUBLISHED ON October 16, 2020

“A minimalist home is very intentional,” Joshua Becker explains in an article for Good Housekeeping magazine. “Each possession is there for a reason.”

I’ve spent the past six months bogged down in the restructure of my manuscript. Anyone who has been through the pain of editing 90,000 words will understand that you must isolate yourself, without distractions for any chance of success. You also need to accept the reality that years of hard work may ultimately come to nothing.

In a previous post, I purported the idea that there’s nothing wrong with contentment — and that state of mind is something I am trying really hard to remember right now, in the thick of potentially more rejection.

Learning how to be content with what you’ve got is not only beneficial for writers, it’s also a great mindset if you are someone like me, who allows yourself to be pulled in lots of directions and ends up in a perpetual state of overwhelm.

There’s a name for this mindset of lifestyle: It’s called being a minimalist.

Most of you will be aware of Minimalism, a style used in interior design and decoration, which embraces a modern, clinical style, with no clutter or distractions — other than those you choose to have in your life. However, these days, the term is being used more broadly, to promote the kind of simple, pared back lifestyle many of us aspire to live — especially since COVID.

Joshua Becker describes the meaning of minimalism in his article What Is Minimalism? in the following way:

“It is marked by clarity, purpose, and intentionality. At its core, being a minimalist means intentionally promoting the things we most value and removing everything that distracts us from it.“

I won’t deny that this lifestyle is particularly appealing to me at this stage of my life - as a middle-aged woman, feeling my invisibility - and the attraction may also have something with money being tighter because of my decision to semi-retire early — hence, the need to cut my cloth. However, it is clear that our younger generations are also embracing this idea to change their priorities, and while I used to mock the couples on shows such as Grand Designs, who opted out of the rat race, I’ve since done a u-turn. I think they’re having the last laugh.

So how do you become a minimalist?

“The minimalist lifestyle is about living with only the things you need. Minimalists are free from the desire to buy and accumulate more. Instead, they find happiness in relationships and experiences.” Joshua Becker

Sounds like common sense, doesn’t it? Although, it’s not simply about dedicating a bank holiday to do a spring clean in your home. There’s more to simplifying your life than the physical process of tidying up. There’s also a lot of mental work to be done and ingrained habits to change, and it can be hard to know where to start. So to help you out, these are seven changes that are working for me:

1. Being more intentional. First of all, you have to really think about the purpose of your decision and what you really want to gain from it. My greatest fault is wasting money on tat when I’m in a funk, i.e. it has taken me over fifty years to learn that quality beats quantity every time. I’m that person who gets a thrill out of buying something new (that I neither need nor want) and then letting it sit in the cupboard . The other important thing to do is to base your changes on what you want, not what your kids or friends expect from you, or even what your partner wants. This is your life — and if your partner doesn’t agree with your choices, can I suggest you throw them out with the rest of the clutter.
2. Forget about owning stuff and consumerism. As I’ve already said, this one hurts me. I am a shopper and I love that sense of instant gratification - which is probably why I haven’t caught onto the online shopping bug yet. I am also creative, so I take a huge amount of pleasure from wandering around malls, just to look at beautiful things. An afternoon at the mall is one of the few times my brain switches off, so changing my buying habits is a work in progress, but where I have started to buy into minimalist idealism is by buying less crap and only buying quality things I really need or recycled goods.
3. Change your mindset and your priorities. A bout of depression or serious anxiety is the best push to make changes in your life. But I don’t recommend either of them. Instead of waiting for that to happen— prioritise the things in your life that promote your wellness and health. Step into nature when you can, try mindfulness if that works for you — it’s not for me, but listening to an entertaining podcast can have a similarly relaxing effect. Exercise, meet up with friends for some free therapy. Make the time to switch off and relax, and don’t feel guilty about it.
4. Stop worrying about what others think. Remove toxic people from your life, like those friends who don’t understand your choices, who don’t value your opinion, or with whom you can’t have a discussion without them shouting back at you. True friends treat you with the same consideration you treat them.
5. Stop competing with others. Forget about the Jones’. The ugliest part of a consumerist society is the way it pushes people to compete with each another and social media has exacerbated the problem. It is natural - and throughout my thirties and forties I was guilty of comparing myself to others or attempting to live vicariously through them - but all it did was make me unhappy. The qualities I envy in people these days couldn’t be more different to the ones that impressed me when I was younger.
6. Be grateful. I have why me days all the time, where all I do is moan about what I haven’t got or why things never seem to go the way I plan them. But once I calm down — usually, on a walk — I am getting better at putting those thoughts into perspective. Don’t feel bad about them. A therapist once told me that feeling sorry for yourself is completely valid, as long as you don’t let that negativity overtake everything else.
7. Create processes — I have a scatty brain, particularly right now in menopause, and the days I don’t organise myself and write a to-do list, I achieve much less. Of course, it’s much easier to get distracted when you work from home. One minute, I’ll be writing, the next I’m flicking through social media, and the next I’m playing with the dog. But you need to be accountable to yourself for how you spend your time. That doesn’t mean you need to always be productive — far from it — you just need to be productive when you have to be. Having processes mean you’re not always chasing your tail, and you’re more likely to feel a sense of fulfilment at the end of each day. My partner and I share chores such as walking the dog, emptying the dishwasher and cooking on alternate days, and the rest of the chores we have divvied up so they are equal, i.e. we’re fairly conventional. For us, being organised to that anal degree stops resentment building, and it also means we can enjoy our Gin and Tonic at the end of each day without feeling guilty.