Only Do This If You Want To Be Happy!

The #1 Thing I've Started Doing More and More that has made me happier and happier in the past 3 years is Minimalising.

Watch the 1 minute video or read the blog, or even better: do both!

Important:

The examples and simple explanation I use in this post is a very basic introduction. In order to apply minimalism in a way that it is effective we need to dive in deep. I could write a book about it, and maybe one day I well.

What Is Minimalism?

To be honest I don't really like the word. I see it as Maximalising fun and values, rather than getting rid of stuff , but hey I didn't come up with it so I don't get to name it. I do get to do it however. So see this minimalism as a 'less is more' kind of philosophy. Whenever you look up minimalism you will find out that people mainly refer to stuff, physical things that are to be minimalised. I don't really think that is the whole deal though. So let's walk through it:

Physical Things

So the first thing to minimalise on is stuff. Basically the idea is that we all possess a lot of things that we hardly ever use, or wouldn't have to use if we use other things more efficiently. A nice example might be an 'apple-cutter' yes we can cut a whole apple in 8 slices with one motion which is nice, but with a knife it takes 2 seconds longer, yet we don't have to spend $10 on a device that we only use to cut apples. Also and this is more important, we don't have that device laying around in the kitchen for no reason like 99% of the time.

By getting rid of these unnecessary things we create 'space' in our lives and mind , and literally space in our house. It also means we spend less money on stuff we don't really need and we don't have to worry about things breaking down as much. Another step could be to be less up-tight about other people using our things. At the end of the day, it's just stuff.

Mental Things

Basically I don't want to be occupied with useless thoughts or feelings for that matter. When you're not used to running your own brain it is possible that it is being occupied by a ton of annoying, hurtful, or simply inefficient thoughts that don't really help you get where you want to get in life. My minimalising these thoughts manually, and later on automatically as a habit, you will feel a lot more happy in life.

People

Another thing to minimalise on is people. Some of our relationships, friendships or even family members might not be as relevant or useful today as they were in the past. You may just catch up with old friends because it is a habit, or because 'that's what friends do' yet you may have grown apart. I can almost 100% guarantee that there is a person in your life who you simply shouldn't spending time with anymore because it doesn't make any sense, yet you do it because you're used to it, or feel you cannot tell them that, it's over.

Activities

Another thing you can minimalise on is activities. My favourite example: family birthdays. Bleh I just don't like sitting around all day with people I hardly know and are 30 years older than me. I would much rather spend my time somewhere else actually adding value to someone's life because let's honest here. You hardly ever get time to talk to the birthday boy or girl, you don't really care about the other people and everybody is just pretending to have fun, whilst eating way more cake than they should. So pick your activities carefully you only get to spend your time once.

Conclusion

By 'cutting out' the stuff that's not important to us, or that simply doesn't add value to our lives we get to be so much happier. It's like getting rid of weeds so that there is more space for the roots of our crops ;)