Why Minimalism is the Key to Happiness and Simplicity is the Path to Wealth
Saying Yes to Less
I didn’t volunteer for minimalism.
Most of my life, especially in my high career achieving 30s, it was about more…more dinners out, more nice clothes, more shoes (lots of shoes), more visibility, more business, more trips, more clients, more projects…more.
I was involved in so many things, both personally and professionally. I networked at least three times a week, went out with friends, volunteered, and served on committees. Busy was successful.
I loved it, having fun and feeling good about the praise.
Then, I had a child in my late thirties, and everything changed.
I sold my meeting-planning business and committed to being a stay-at-home mom with the occasional proposal-writing project and even an occasional meeting-planning project. Mostly I took care of my son for the first five years of his life. When he entered school, I gradually re-entered the business world in a new career as an executive coach. For the next fifteen years, I grew that business into six figures.
It wasn’t until my late forties that I began to feel burnt out. Between being a mom, an entrepreneur, and still trying to have a social life, I wasn’t managing all that well. Then came unexpected upheavals in my personal life.
I began to pull back as events in my life forced me to. We lost our house in the mortgage crisis. I sold off much of what we had accumulated to fill the big house we bought. We moved to a smaller place in a better neighborhood and school system. Years later came a divorce, and I made another move into a tiny apartment on the Chesapeake Bay, leaving behind most of what I owned. Then, several years later, I moved to Ecuador and sold most of whatever I had taken with me or accumulated in those past few years. Each time, I traveled lighter.
I became an accidental minimalist.
By all accounts, I live a very simple life. And a very inexpensive life, too. Yet I have everything I could want. I now live in the Algarve of Portugal near the ocean. I live with my dog Sophie and my cat (actually, it’s the other way around; we are his people) in a beautiful cottage near stunning limestone cliffs overlooking the ocean, where I walk almost every day. The cost of living here in Portugal is lower than in the USA, but that’s not really the reason behind my minimalism.
I simply found that having less stuff meant having more freedom.
Freedom to do what I want when I want to. I don’t feel the anxiety of having to work crazy hours or be in large groups with meaningless chit-chat. Although I admit to craving an occasional foodie meal out, I don’t need anything. I have no debt, and I’m saving money for my next adventure and publishing more books. I’m doing work I love: writing books, running retreats, and working online with individuals who care about making meaningful changes in their lives and social changes in the world.
With the entry of COVID-19 into our world, people everywhere are reevaluating their lives. They are asking themselves questions they didn’t dare ask before.
Is this the life I really want?
How has this slowing down changed me and my relationship with friends, family, and work?
Is it possible to work remotely, have more time, and still be productive and useful?
How does this system support my joblessness, and how do I want to change my life to better care of myself financially?
Should I take this time to start that business I always dreamed of or do that project I never had time for?
These questions and more point to one thing: less is more.
Less stuff is more freedom.
Less manufacturing is more clean air.
Less commuting means more time with your family.
Less anxiety is more energy for your well-being.
When you start simplifying your life, you notice what really matters.
You discover that you don’t actually miss all that stuff you thought mattered.
When you create space in your home, you create space in your heart.
You experience more happiness when you have less to worry about.
Minimalism is the key to happiness.
Saying yes to less is more than simply not buying more stuff. It’s about slowing down to enjoy life.
It’s an intentional choice about where you want to spend your time, money, and energy.
It’s about not wasting precious time, money, and energy on things you don’t actually care about.
It’s about looking at the difference between the consumeristic illusion of success and a new orientation around sustainability and significance.
Here’s a business example.
I’m working with a client who, because of COVID-19 and the disruption in the world, woke up to her life (or the life she really wants). She was feeling guilty and worried about putting the brakes on her business. In our work, she noticed her business had been expanding, but she had taken on clients that exhausted her, that didn’t fit well with her values or her offers, and that, in the long run, were costing her too much of her wellbeing and didn’t appreciate her.
So, what was she really saying no to?
She was saying no to being depleted, undervalued, and stressed.
This is where simplifying comes in. In business, it’s counter-intuitive to scale back. The assumption is that it goes hand in hand with less income. When done correctly, you can actually increase profit.
We focused only on those clients who appreciated her expertise, the work that brought her joy, and where she felt she added value. We removed anything that seemed to distract or deviate from her core mission. She let go of clients and projects that depleted her energy. She honed her offers, deleted several services, and simplified her online presence.
In a few months, she had more time, less stress, clients that valued her, and a better income.
Simplicity is the path to wealth.
Do what you do well with those who appreciate you.
But here’s the secret that no one tells you.
Start with yourself first, not with the market or what you think you should do.
Start with what brings you alive, what gets you up and excited. Build a business around that.
Amplify that energy into your conversations, online presence, and marketing. Your offer will resonate only with some people — the right people. And there are plenty of those.
Start with yourself first in all things. If you have relationships that deplete you, let those go. If you start having negative thoughts about scarcity, start a gratitude journal to recognize the abundance around you.
This love affair with more and bigger is what got us in trouble. It breeds inauthenticity, greed, and competition (win/lose); it damages our natural world and creates monsters out of people in power.
Here’s my call to you.
Embrace minimalism and simplicity not as less but as more joy, more living, more love, and more adventures. You may believe that your income or your relationships will suffer. But it’s not like that at all. What you’ll lose are those things that were not serving you anyway.
Take a good look at your life and see what you can hone, change, adapt, release, shift, and say no to. Then start to say yes to what matters and simplify around what brings you purpose, meaning, and happiness.
The road to happiness and freedom may not be only simplicity and minimalism…but it’s a great start.
Start your day with an intention and reflection that will sustain and inspire you. Check out the #SIMPLEWISDOM Daily Inspiration Series here.
Cover image by Photo by Scott Webb on Unsplash
