BEGINNER'S GUIDE TO MINIMALISM | How To Start & Succeed

Hola muchachos. Welcome here, back to my channel. Oh! It dropped me. Nope. That was the worst to make me lean over like that. I never usually go out of a notebook for anything, especially when I'm filming, unless I'm just kind of planning ideas. But I felt like this video was going to have a lot of info. I've been looking forward to doing a video on this, and it's talking more about minimalism and reducing accumulation in your life, reducing clutter, and also, in a lot of ways, reducing stress, anxiety, which clutter and just having such an ample amount of things can actually really bring out in a person. So in this video, I'm just going to start focusing on some tips to help you start to become a minimalist. Our society is very materialistic, which is another word for just being a full-on maximist. Filling your life with so many unnecessary things that just form a lot of clutter, take up so much space, take up a lot of energy, and a huge thing, take up a lot of money. So I hope this video is helpful just to kind of start you getting into a mindset of what it means to be more minimal. And I feel like there's this huge stigma if you're considered a minimalist or you try to live more of a minimalist life, you have only 20 items to your name and that's how you live. Minimalism is not letting go of everything, but letting go of things that clutter your life, unneeded accumulation, just having a lot of items that aren't thoroughly and properly used. So keep that in mind as I'm going through this video. I hope you really like it. Be sure to subscribe. Just a quick stretch here. We're going to go ahead and get started. When starting minimalism, you can really look at someone and think, wow, they have such a little amount of things. I want to get to that point. But really you shouldn't rush into it and you shouldn't feel so forced to live minimal within 24 hours. Take your time and I encourage you just to start with simple research that can be talking to minimalists themselves, that can be watching a YouTube video. Thank you for being here. That can be reading up on blogs that can be reading books and pretty much just doing some more research on seeing how different minimalists live because there's me who's a minimalist. I do live a very clutter free life. I don't have a bunch of crap that I don't use, but I do have quite a few items, especially with children. And then there's some people that literally live with like 40 items and that includes like individual silverware. So remember that a lot of minimalists live in different ways and that's cool. Starting with research and digging deeper into what minimalism is in general can help you see how you can make that transition into applying it into your own life. Next is asking yourself why, why do you want to pursue more of a minimalist lifestyle? Is it to save money? Is it to rid yourself of just a lot of clutter? Are you starting to realize that your weekend shopping trips and such are bringing you not the same amount of joy that they may have used to? And also realizing are all the items that you're accumulating on such an often daily or weekly basis, are they really controlling your life and the way your life even functions? So once you kind of have, Oh, there's a plane pulled up. Whoa, that's a big one. So once you've kind of figured out the why, keep that in your mind and continually pursue it. So for example, if you're doing it for the sake of saving money, keep yourself fixed on the goal of shopping less and invest in other experiences and honestly just being outside more. Even go to your bank and open up a savings account. A lot of people are very visual, so when you see your savings account filling up with money that you would usually spend elsewhere, having that visual and seeing that goal of being more minimal come to life in such a big way because money, I'll say money is very important and to see that open and grow while you're on your minimalism journey can really encourage you to keep going and to pursue other ways in your life of being more minimal. My next tip is to focus on you. So a lot of people don't live on their, well, actually that's not true. I'm sure a lot of people live on their own, but there are also a lot of people that don't live on their own and they can live with people that are very materialistic, very Maximus and it can be kind of hard for them to think about developing more of a minimalism lifestyle and I just encourage you to focus on you and start with your things and finding contentment in that, maybe you'll be a good influence for the people around you, but focusing on yourself first before focusing on where you live, what everyone else is doing is really key to have a good mindset going into minimalism. This is a biggie and I wish I knew this when I first kind of started out, but prepare to have hard times and to be kind of uncomfortable. When I first really started decluttering out my life and all these things that even though I knew I didn't use, it was sometimes a little bit hard and I remember going to Salvation Army, Value Village, donation boxes, lots and lots and lots and I was realizing, whoa, I spent a lot of money here and it almost seems more justified to keep it because I spent so much money on these things. I don't use them and I don't get joy from them and because of that, I'm going to pass them on and give it to someone else. But it was hard. It was hard packing up a bunch of stuff, things that I kind of became used to having and giving them away. It was weird and it was hard and even, like I said, uncomfortable. So kind of planning for that and realizing that that time may come for you, I think is really important and when you're kind of planning for that, you can go ahead and set your mind on other things that are a lot more important than you just kind of feeling uncomfortable and dare I say, sulking in, oh my goodness, I spent so much money on this stuff and now it's all gone. Plan to be uncomfortable. I also encourage you to not minimize all areas of your life immediately. Think in your head right now or you can think about it later if you're not very good at multitasking but think in your head sometime today, three things in your life that are often used, that are often used to their full ability, that you get your sole money's worth out of these things and it can be a certain activity if you're like me and you're huge into cooking and you really go, I use all my kitchen cooking stuff. Don't even go there. Just leave it. But if you go into your closet and you go, I haven't worn this in six months. Maybe you want to put a little more love into starting to minimal in your closet versus your kitchen. So to kind of set your mind at rest, having three things in the back of your mind that you really know you use often and get its full potential out of and realizing that you don't have to worry about those things can give you a lot of peace, to be honest. And then when you go ahead and turn your attention to some of the areas in your life that you would like to minimize, take your time doing so. Some people think that this is something they need to do in a day or two but really and realistically give yourself months to properly minimalize your life or even years as long as you're somewhat pursuing the goal of being more minimal, of having less clutter and just filling your house in a small way with things that you actually need and use. As long as you're heading in that direction, you're absolutely golden. Next is finding triggers and it's finding things that can be a temptation to make you shop more, to make you accumulate more. If you find you're hanging out at the mall a couple times a week but you want to be more minimal and spend less money, then I would encourage you don't go to the mall anymore. Make it easy on yourself and find ways to counteract those certain situations and that can be through a lot of ways like finding other hobbies or even hanging out with other people that can kind of share the same mindset as you and staying out of places and situations that can encourage you to fall back into that temptation. And also one of the best things about being minimal, like I said before, there's no true real way of doing it that everyone follows. There is no rule book for being a minimalist. In general, it's just living more of a simple life. So however you determine what that is, is how you can go ahead and use it in your life. Don't compare yourself to other minimalists, but instead look at them and find inspiration and motivation and see how they really discipline themselves in keeping their way of life. Now, finally, is just beginning. I hope all the tips previously have helped you kind of have more of a mindset of how you would like to begin, where you want to start, where you don't want to start yet, and how you want to take your time and present yourself towards living a more minimalist life. Next, I encourage you to donate properly. Instead of taking a lot of nice clothes that you don't wear and chucking them in the garbage, donating them to either a fabric recycler, you can sell them online, or you can donate them to a local thrift shop. Donate your clothes properly. And also, I'm pretty stingy about what thrift shops I actually do donate to, because some will just chuck your stuff right in the garbage. So always see what thrift shops you can donate to that will, instead of chucking your stuff into the garbage, sending it to a fabric recycler to be made into something new. Also, don't stop decluttering. This is something where I'll keep a bag or a box handy in my house, and it's the to-go box or the to-go bag. And when I see an item, and it can be sometimes a forgotten item, or it can be an item that I realize I really just don't use fully anymore or enjoy anymore, I have the ability to put it aside right away. And once that box or bag is full, donate it properly to whoever or whatever. But it really is an ongoing process. I don't think you'll ever get to a point where you stop taking things into your house, because there's always gifts. As someone who works on YouTube, there's always packages. There's always stuff coming into the house, and I think it just feels really great to make sure there's kind of a cycle always going out as well. And lastly, once you've come into this headspace of being more minimal, realizing that buying right is just as important as living a clutter-free life. So when you live more of a minimal life, you realize you really are saving a lot of money. And you're seeing money in your bank account stay at a good point. You're seeing your savings account going up. And because of that, you're able to put your money towards either well-made items, ethically made items, high-quality items, which are just going to last a lot longer. And depending on what it is, look a lot better, feel a lot better, work a lot better. And there will be a point where you look at a pair of jeans and you go, that's going to be hard to spend that much money on a pair of jeans, but you know what? It's been six months, or a year, or two years, or three years since I've actually bought a pair of jeans. These jeans are made beautifully, organic, ethical. I'm going to put my money into them because I have the amount of money to do so, because I'm not spending my paycheck every week or so at the mall or on $5 Forever 21 jeans. You buy those jeans, you take them home, they last you five, ten, fifteen years, and they look flippin' good the entire time. Buying right, I think, is huge when you become more of a minimalist. And yes, I do want to do a video talking about more ethical shopping, and high-quality shopping, and vintage shopping, and just how I do it. So if you want to see that, be sure to thumbs up this video. Thank you guys very much for watching today's video. I do really hope you enjoyed it. If you live more of a maximalist life, I'm not saying that you're doing it wrong, but this video was really just for people wanting to be more minimal and just wanting to know where to start. So this video was for those people that are just trying to pursue that lifestyle a little bit more. But I hope overall it was pretty helpful. So thank you guys for watching, and I'll see you all in my next video. Bye!