10 Minimalist Tips For A Meaningful Life

Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus are The Minimalists, a couple in their thirties who write about living a full life on their website, which has more than four million readers.

A few years ago they were two successful professionals from Dayton (United States), unhappy despite having a six-figure salary, a luxury car, a large house, expensive clothes … For them, working 70 or 80 hours a week and buying more and more things did not fill his emptiness but enlarged it.

So they embraced the principles of minimalism, focused on what was important, and regained control over their lives. In 2001 they published the book ‘Minimalism, for a meaningful life’, the second edition of which has been published in Spain by the publishing house Kairós (2018).

Take some time to evaluate your life

The book is structured in seven small chapters that advise you to read in a week, one per day, reviewing your experience and a series of tips to reflect on your own life and how it is lived.

A work of introspection that allows you to take perspective to become the best version of yourself : “Your real you – say Joshua and Ryan – a passionate, loving, compassionate, disciplined and happy being”.

The story begins with how to minimize material possessions, and once the excess is eliminated, they review essential aspects of life such as health, personal relationships, passions, personal growth and helping others, five values ​​that affect them. in enjoying a full and meaningful existence, something they have discovered in recent years.

These are its 10 keys:

1. Find dissatisfaction

At the beginning of their book ‘Minimalism ‘ , Joshua and Ryan throw a forceful reflection: ” Conformity is a drug with which many people medicate themselves.” Not in vain they believe that conformity generates dissatisfaction, it is a slow and destructive burn that penetrates our lives after years of subtle disappointments and that is installed in them.

The problem is not facing it and trying to make up for it by buying and filling our lives with material belongings that, in reality, do not bring us the long-awaited happiness that we pursue.

2. Make your own satisfaction

The most constructive thing is to explore your dissatisfaction and face it decisively. This is an attitude that helps build a truly liberating life satisfaction.

As they say: “We can spend our lives accumulating monetary wealth, or we can spend it with meaning, which does not necessarily exclude the former, but the incessant search for wealth does not lead to a meaningful life.”

3. Recognize the anchors

This term refers to what keeps us tied (to situations, objects, people …) and prevents us from growing. It is essential to recognize our anchors because “the first step to solving a problem is to identify it.”

There are main anchors : things that prevent you from being free, such as large mortgages, unhealthy relationships and everything that takes an inordinate amount of time without adding value.

And there are secondary anchors, too : minor debt bills, clothes you never wear, items you don’t wear, or things that consume smaller amounts of time, attention, and focus.

It is advisable to start getting rid of the main anchors first, and then tackle the others.

4. You have to make tough decisions

Getting rid of these burdens allows you to recover time and money, and use them with greater sense, but it is not always easy to take action.

Joshua and Ryan tell in the book how they got rid of many possessions and things that did not add value or that was not relevant in their lives, until they were left with only what they enjoyed.

The result was liberating for them, and they gained in quality of life, but as some of these anchors have to do with personal relationships (partner, colleagues, family …) they recognize that sometimes they are complex decisions to carry out and that they require, without a doubt, courage and commitment to oneself. But they are always worth it.

5. Health is the foundation of everything

Health is not an objective to be reached, nor an aesthetic canon to fit into, but rather the logical basis of a full life within the personal circumstances of each one.

Its main ingredients are to avoid alcohol, tobacco, unnecessary medications, sleep and rest well, eat healthily without processed or sugars; reducing gluten, bread and pasta, as well as any beverage other than water.

Also dairy products and meat, and incorporate more water, green drinks, fresh smoothies, vegetables, seeds, legumes and organic foods. Not forgetting how important it is to exercise daily.

6. Reflect on your relationships

The most frequent relationships we maintain are with friends, colleagues, partners, spouses, lovers, acquaintances or anyone with whom we interact regularly.

Although we all want to be encouraged, love, share our experiences and have other people, most of the time we do not think why we have a certain relationship with someone; we just come to it and accept it.

To improve the sphere of relationships it is advisable to find new positive links, transform current relationships and change yourself. It is convenient to evaluate relationships with perspective and reflect on those that do add value.

But in addition, we must constantly improve relationships, because even the best ones have to grow to maintain a level of excellence and because, precisely, the best relationships are those that are always growing.

7. Make your passions a mission

Minimalists warn: “We have been taught to work to leave our skin for a lifeless entity, giving it our most precious asset (our time) in exchange for a monthly check.” Therefore, although we all need money to live, for many people the search for that set of ideals is oppressive.

In addition, careers can become dangerous when too much is invested in them and they end up creating an identity and social status based only on the professional position they hold.

Instead, we can decide to dedicate ourselves to what we are passionate about and make it our vital and professional mission. To achieve this, you can be guided by a small roadmap that will help you to specify the steps and move forward, and that reminds you at all times that your own identity must be rooted in a life with meaning and not in a salary.

8. Persevere in your growth

The personal improvement constant is possible if you make it to her. Sometimes it happens through “gradual changes” and other times it happens through “giant leaps.”

Be it one way or another, the secret is to gather enough positive stimulus to stay motivated to carry out these changes and that they translate into constant regular actions that end up giving a result of transformation over time in the area where we have put them in. practice.

9. Help others: giving is living

Helping other people is the result of growing up, and if growing up makes us feel good about ourselves, helping makes us feel much better.

The authors of ‘Minimalism’ collaborate with various organizations and help others from their sphere of influence. They encourage others to do it, both through local organizations and with their own projects, for the satisfaction that comes with getting involved through action beyond writing checks or donating money on time in favor of a cause.

A life without helping others is a life without meaning, because to give is to live.

10. Always work with conscience

Try to focus on constant improvement and maximizing results so that your daily life is in line with what makes you happiest and most complete. And for this, it is important that you ask yourself questions about daily chores and that you see how those activities can positively influence more important aspects of your life.

For example, watching television is not a bad thing in itself, although doing it excessively and zapping aimlessly can be. Instead it can become a learning activity or sharing with friends and family if we plan it consciously.

Because it is from that consciousness that all the keys to living in a simple and fuller way emerge.