Minimalism, or the art of living with less, may conjure up tearful goodbyes to the stuff of your life, your larger home, even friends who no longer spark joy. But living with less doesn’t have to be about loss. Practiced gently, by gradually adding in new forms, habits, even foods, you’ll reset your inner knowledge about how much is enough. While neutral walls, empty spaces, and tiny touches may emerge, in fact your version may look different. So start your own journey toward living with less with compassion and curiosity, by adding in gratitude, health, and beauty.
Gratitude for What You Have Creates the Space to Value What You Want
There’s a curious mindset shift involved on the road to happily living with less. It goes something like this. If the culture, your social group, or your belief system tell you that any happiness in life exists outside of where you are now, then once you attain something, it will no longer be out there, and therefore won’t make you happy. In order to be filled up by what you receive, therefore, you have to learn how to be grateful for what you have.
Start the exercise today. Practice daily gratitude. It’s simple, but not always easy. Every night, look around you and name one thing you have. Then thank whatever power or goodness exists beyond yourself – the night sky, a God you believe in or wonder about, or the thing itself. Some examples:
- Thank you for the roof over my head as I sleep.
- Thank you for my cat.
- Thank you for my pajamas.
- Thank you for running water.
- Thank you for the air conditioning.
You might prefer to write a list. Some people share theirs with another person.
You’ll start to notice how much you have. Consider adding in the education you’ve received, the job you hate but that pays your bills, or the neighbors who aren’t nearly as loud that night. As gratitude becomes a habit, it will transform how you experience receiving.
Next priority, once you begin this process, involves care. Now that you see the value of your possessions and your life, take better care of it. Clean your shoes. Hand wash your sweaters. Plant some flowers in a pot on your balcony and water them daily. Cook something for yourself and clean up your kitchen afterwards. Give yourself a home facial.
Add Healthy Microhabits to Grow Stronger and More Energetic
When you focus on adding in health, rather than depriving yourself, it becomes easier to go in the direction you need. Micro habits, or tiny, actionable tasks, become simple to repeat. By using repetition and reinforcement, they can lead to significant changes over time. Rather than stressing out your system with a too-big step, or cutting way back to force yourself to change, these gentler tweaks feel more manageable and usually don’t lead to strong internal pushback.
Try these simple ideas:
- Add more veggies to your dinner each day. You’ll feel fuller and more nourished with vitamins, minerals, and fiber.
- Add a daily, ten-minute morning meditation, including one short positive reading, then sitting quietly while letting go of thoughts that show up. You’ll start each day calmer. Try the ThinkUp app if you need help to get started with positive affirmations.
- Add fifteen minutes of daily walking. Whether you currently exercise or don’t even know where to start, it’s good to get fresh air. It’ll automatically mean less time on your phone. Time in nature introduces models of organization and interconnectedness for your body and mind to instinctively mimic.
- More on positive affirmations: the next time you hear something kind or read a helpful thought, write it on a sticky note and place it on your monitor or bathroom mirror.
- Get a book of any kind and read – start with 10 minutes a day. Humans crave stories, and longer ones give our minds a different place to go, consider, and experience.
- Drink a glass of water when you get up in the morning.
Consider Creating Beauty Uniforms
Imagine a luxury spa, all soft colors, tranquil music, and gentle voices. What would the staff, even clients, be wearing? They’d all be in uniform. Picture modern wrap tunics with mandarin collars in a single, muted neutral color that flatter each professional. They’d pair with matching yoga pants, clean pony tails and no-makeup makeup. You and your friends would likely sport white plush towels and slippers.
Uniforms such as these create visual calm and a sense of certainty. Their preplanned aesthetics give the wearer a task, rather than a decision, when getting dressed. To the viewer, the atmosphere makes sense, the roles are clear, and the clothes seem like a given. Of course everyone here comes dressed this way.
Similarly, try adding uniforms to your own life. If you have professional work, try a daily cardigan sweater, dress pants, and short sleeve collared blouse or shirt. Shed the sweater when you go outside in the summer. Buy or choose 2 sweaters, 5 shirts, and 3-4 pants, then mix and match with a single pair of shoes. Accessorize as you like, and rest easy each night knowing your outfit choice has been made. Go to a more casual workplace? Try jeans, t-shirts or polos, and zip-hoodies, again in neutrals. Experiment with other capsule wardrobes.
This same approach works with routines. Choose a few breakfast items you mix and match, and a series of morning steps you do daily. Try a bedtime routine that includes those reading moments and gratitude exercises. These habits provide known patterns that you can step into, that give you a bit of room for creativity, and that fit your needs for nutrition, professionalism, or time use.
Add Rebellion to Your Living-with-Less Life
It’s rebellious to focus on the best things instead of all the things – almost un-American, or even anti-capitalism. After all, aren’t we required to be good consumers and to keep the economy healthy by buying, eating, wearing, and shopping more and more and more? While I have no proof that the need for ubiquitous pharmaceutical ads correlates with overbuying, overeating, and overworking, I have my suspicions. Push back and take a stand. Just say no.
Look for inspiration. What does your counter-culture living space look like? What outfits would you consider wearing daily? How might your plate of food look if it made you feel great after you’d eaten? Pinterest and Instagram beckon, or take surreptitious photos of things that catch your eye. Don’t think of these as pictorial shopping lists, but simply ways to externalize the beauty that lives in your head. When considering a new purchase, ask yourself whether it would fit inside one of your images.
When you live with things you really need and enjoy, and get rid of what’s unnecessary, this leaves time, space, and money for those things you value and really need.
Lastly, Live Below Your Means
The last necessary realignment for your gentle minimalism discovery process? Learn to live below your means. Again, every ad you see, many social media posts, and most movies you watch telegraph a not-so-subtle message: everyone fabulous out there boasts richer, more attractive, and larger lives than you do. So step up.
The truth? No matter how much money or beauty you possess, or the number of rich experiences you cram into your week, someone else out there has more and is doing more. It’s a losing game – give up now. Remember that social media posts often involve faked situations with comped items. Movies spend enormous sums on costumes, lighting, and professionally gorgeous actors. Advertising exists to trigger longings and remind us of our deficits so that we buy the product or service offered.
Instead, while working toward the income you desire, spend less than you earn. Always. If you earn $200,000 a year but spend $250,000, you will never get out of debt. If you earn $45,000 a year and spend $40,000, your savings will grow. The first example creates a lifestyle that looks great from the outside, but cannot be sustained.
By owning fewer possessions, being grateful for those you have, and spending less than you earn, you’ll experience freedom from duplicity. Many people communicate one version of their life for others’ consumption, and go about another one in reality. The wider the gap between the two, the more the stress builds up. Money becomes the means to keep up appearances, instead of serving for you to live on and work towards your goals. It’s exhausting and, in the end, empty.
Living with less starts with more – more gratitude, health, beauty, and, yes, rebellion. Add these in first, then crank up Marie Kondo’s shows, still on Netflix, or grab her “Tidying Up” book at your local library, and declutter yourself into a new life.
