Have you ever wondered how the concept of “less is more” might relate to your life?
I wondered this for several years. As a professional organizer I had helped plenty of people in their 60’s and 70’s minimize and downsize for a transition to an easier-to-manage lifestyle. I viewed it as a stage of life transition, as opposed to a lifestyle, adoptable at any age. I’d certainly never helped anyone my age downsize.
In 2015, my husband and I hadn’t hit 50 yet, but we were confident that having less would allow us to experiment with living a life more closely aligned with our emerging values of a healthier lifestyle, simplicity, a smaller carbon footprint and a more minimalistic existence.
I read a lot about simplicity and minimalism while contemplating this shift, starting with the book Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown. This book, which focuses on living a more purposeful, focused and intentional life struck a chord with me. This is what we were after! We were also wanting to own and care for less, so I explored the topic of minimalism, though the idea of a white room with two chairs and lamp terrified me.
What I learned through my reading and exploration is that minimalism isn’t an absolute. Instead, it’s actually defined by the individual who’s minimizing. Author James Altucher minimized himself down to 15 items (way too minimal for us.) The Minimalists traveled a road towards minimalism that was still a little too extreme for our comfort level. The concept of minimalism we most closely connected with is rational minimalism as defined by Joshua Becker, author of BecomingMinimalist.com. Rational minimalism, per Becker is about finding a style of minimalism that works for you.
SlowMinimalism is a nod to the fact that so many of the minimalists whose stories I read practiced what seemed more like instant minimalism in comparison to our more drawn out process. We knew we wanted to experiment with having less, much less in fact, but weren’t ready to release everything at once or even over the course of just a couple of months.
After purchasing a smaller house in the city and with the goal of SlowMinimalism in mind we began the process of releasing. To date, we estimate we’ve released well over 60% of what we had owned as mid-life suburbanites.
In my 15 years as a professional organizer and professional coach I’ve learned that overcoming overwhelm is almost always about more than just minimizing the stuff.
The same goes for SlowMinimalism. In addition to minimizing the stuff it’s about minimizing your life, but in a way that enables you to experience more of the life you really want to lead instead of being exhausted by the life you’re currently leading. It’s about releasing the commitments that are keeping you from a more manageable and less overwhelming existence.
Minimizing stuff and commitments slowly allowed my husband and I the opportunity to notice the incremental improvement in our lives as we continued to release what we didn’t really need. We also believe minimizing slowly resulted in fewer regrets than we may have had if we used a faster approach. We know our approach isn’t necessarily the right one for everybody, but it is the right approach for us. Maybe it would be the right approach for you.
Though our transition ended up being a challenging process, the results have been better than we could have hoped for. There’s a lot to be said for more time for what we love to do and more opportunity to be who we want to be in this phase of our lives.
What would you choose to have less of in exchange for more time, more experiences, and more connection with others?
If you know you’ve got too much crammed into your world to truly enjoy what life has to offer, let’s discuss partnering to explore where you’re at now, where you could be and what the path looks like to get there.
Click here to contact me by email and request a complimentary conversation. In this conversation you can share what kinds of challenges you’re experiencing and what kind of change you’re seeking. You can also ask me any questions you might have about coaching in general or about us working together. You can expect for this conversation to take about 30 minutes.