The Colors Of A Optimistic World

Minimalism is the name of the game

Before you start with your minimalistic program, you should know as much as possible about minimalism. In this chapter you will find out what exactly is meant by minimalism, why a minimalist life makes sense and what the advantages of this lifestyle are. This basic knowledge is important so that you understand exactly how decluttering and minimalist lifestyles can enrich your everyday life and happiness. Because why should you dare to tackle the mammoth task of clearing out if the benefits are not clearly understandable beforehand?

What is minimalism?

Minimalism means limiting oneself to the bare essentials. This is done consciously in order to experience more joy of life and happiness. Minimalism can be lived out in many different ways and we almost want to think that there are as many different forms of minimalism as there are minimalists. The one minimalist may focus on not letting the wardrobe overflow. Another minimalist loves the minimalist holiday feeling of camping and yet another practices an almost ascetic lifestyle. How you live out minimalism is up to you. We are sure that you will continue to evolve as a minimalist, to examine more and more aspects of your life and to learn to apply your minimalist way of thinking beyond your home environment.

All minimalists have one thing in common regardless of their individual stage of development and focus: they focus on consciously renouncing material abundance in order to create more space for a fulfilled life. It is clear to all of them that possessions do not guarantee happiness and contentment, that material goods do not build friendships and love, and that changing one's own consumerist habits (spiritual and practical) opens entirely new doors. Suddenly there is more time again for an intensive examination of oneself and one's own happiness in life. Most people feel happy after an extensive shopping tour, but this is not a lasting, real and deep happiness. Instead of shopping indiscriminately, conscious consumption and above all renunciation are lived. The decision to minimalism has nothing to do with poverty, but with attentiveness!

Necessity of minimalism

Why is it necessary to consciously limit oneself? Because it gives us back full control over our habits and thought processes. Constantly present advertising, seemingly endless unused possibilities thanks to apps and Co., one special offer after another and how do we react to it? We just walk along, we give ourselves up to the whole thing and feel quite comfortable in our consumption-controlled skin for a short time. However, it quickly becomes clear that the new Smart TV doesn't really make you happy if you sit alone in front of it evening after evening. Today's society already teaches children at a young age that one is more respected if one is equipped with the most up- to-date material goods. Only then is one properly accepted by society and part of it. How much money do you spend on your apartment every month? How many hours did you go to work for it? And how many hours were you actually at home to enjoy this beautiful apartment and the new Smart TV? Our days have every 24 hours of which we spend on average 8 at work and 8 at bed. We still have 8 more hours left, which can be quickly filled with the way to work, a little television and shopping. How many of these 24 hours do we really consciously experience, how many of our decisions do we consciously make and how consciously do we really shape our lifetime?

This is exactly where the necessity of minimalism begins: Through a minimalist lifestyle, we carefully and consciously choose what we fill our time with, what goods are allowed to play a role in our lives, and what facets of our lives are really important to us. Through minimalism we pedal ourselves free, we free ourselves not only from material goods, but also let unhealthy behaviour and ways of thinking go, perceive ourselves better and can let true feelings of happiness enter our lives.

Advantages of minimalism

The advantages of minimalism are obvious: Those who don't spend every Saturday on extensive shopping tours suddenly have time for completely different activities and also save a lot of money. Let's say you spend an hour watching TV or sitting at your smartphone (or both at the same time?) in the evening. The conscious renunciation of media and social media can also be an aspect of minimalism. As you can see, part of your minimalism could be the deliberately limited use of media. In this way, you prevent yourself from being "sprinkled" with less valuable content on TV and other media and create space for yourself to deal with things that really get you ahead and have a real benefit for you. You could use this saved time for example to read books with useful knowledge, to become creative yourself or to learn the art of meditation.

What is the advantage of merciless clearing out of one's own four walls? The old, unused coffee machine finally finds a new owner and you have less ballast. The material ballast in your home inevitably has an influence on your mental situation. The separation from unnecessary material objects helps you to let go, to separate yourself, to create space for yourself and to focus again on yourself and your happiness in life.

The advantages of minimalism are therefore clearly defined:

- You save a lot of money by more conscious consumption.

- Material goods receive an ideal value that has nothing to do with the material value itself.

- Your handling of your belongings is becoming more conscious.

- You save a lot of time by avoiding shopping tours and dealing with the latest market trends.

- You let go of superfluous material possessions and create more space for yourself.

- You have the opportunity to consciously deal with what makes you really happy.

- You will develop more conscious and mindful thought processes and patterns of behaviour and thus have more opportunities to take care of yourself, become creative and develop yourself personally.

- You learn which facets of your life actually contribute to your long-term happiness and give your life a deeper meaning.

These are just a few of the advantages of minimalism to bring you closer to its strong effects. On your way to a minimalist lifestyle you will discover many more individual advantages that minimalism offers you personally.

The connection between minimalism and our habits

Now that you know what is meant by a minimalist lifestyle, why it makes sense and what its benefits are, it's time to take a closer look at your habits. In this chapter you will learn more about the connections between our (still) consumption-driven habits and minimalism. So you're one step closer to the practice again. It's likely that as you read through this chapter, you'll realize how minimalism could enrich your life - don't worry, in the next chapter we'll get down to work on the practical implementation.

The connection between thoughts and habits

Our thoughts control our habits. Our thoughts naturally also control our shopping habits, our media habits and similar habits. So we should take a closer look at how the thought patterns that shaped our consumer behaviour came about. The constant hype about the latest car model, the latest smartphone, the biggest TV and the most expensive shoes - does that make us happy? No, not really, because we are constantly under stress to meet these strange expectations. From experience, we can say that many of these consumption-driven habits arise out of fear. For example, there would be the fear of not fitting into society, of losing one's social status and thus of becoming an outsider. So it can't hurt if you take a little time to investigate whether there may be similar fears behind your consumption habits. These fears are human, because who wants to be alone? The hoarding and collecting lulls us into a deceptive security. Most habits are already so firmly anchored in our behavioural habits that we no longer perceive them. This is a good thing, because it makes our everyday life a lot easier. Otherwise, we would stand in front of the refrigerated shelf every time we shop and philosophize about which butter should be put in the shopping basket and why. Habits therefore make our everyday lives easier. Around 80% of our behavioural repertoire consists of habitual actions. Well, at some point in life every person comes to a point where he wants to change something. And this works best through changes in our habits. You want to make your life more minimalistic? Then you should become aware of habits that do not fit your new attitude towards life and change them in a targeted way. That sounds easy at first, but have you ever tried running backwards all day? No way! It would be incredibly exhausting because we're not used to it. Changing habits means being very reflective, motivated and mindful over a longer period of time in order to uncover old patterns of behaviour and replace them with new, better ones.

Setting new habits as goals

In order to achieve our goals, i.e. the establishment of our new minimalist lifestyle, we need one thing above all else: motivation. Motivation arises as soon as we have set ourselves a goal that is realistic, challenging and not overstraining at the same time. This goal can best be subdivided into several subgoals - this works wonderfully with minimalism. After all, minimalism has incredibly many different facets and is more a development than a fixed concept. In the next chapter you will get to know many subgoals of minimalism. Maybe some of them suit you or you can think of other inspiring partial goals. Set one minimalist goal per week and divide it into seven steps. Let us take the example of the "minimalist bathroom project" as an illustration. This project could be a weekly project and can be divided into seven different steps:

- Definition of goal: What does my perfect bathroom look like and what purpose should it serve?

- Clean out the bathroom (more on this in chapters 3 and 4)

- Give away, sell or throw away misted-out things

- Seek inspiration for redesign

- Remodel the bathroom

- simple structures, clear shapes and unobtrusive colours

- Search for natural alternatives for chemically contaminated products

- Plan regular cleaning and clearing out

Of course, your seven-part plan could look quite different, after all, you have very individual demands on your bathroom. By setting goals, deadlines and sub-goals, you first change your environment and then lay the foundation for changing your habits. Clearing out and designing is an important step, because in a tidy and newly designed bathroom it is difficult to implement the old habits. The more goals and partial goals you achieve, the more motivated you will become and the easier it will be for you to replace your old habits with new ones.

Habits of minimalism

Minimalists are individuals and therefore there are no universal habits for them to live by. The basic idea of minimalism is to simplify life as much as possible and to get rid of unnecessary ballast in order to experience more happiness and contentment in everyday life. This can express itself for each minimalist in different habits. So your habits of minimalism will be strongly influenced by what contributes to your happiness in life. Anyone who strives for minimalism basically pursues the following goals: You want to have more time for yourself or your loved ones, you want to get rid of unnecessary ballast to live more freely and to concentrate on the really important things. Depending on preferences, the goals of minimalists can look quite different. What everyone has in common, however, is that they want to achieve an overriding goal with minimalism. The more precisely this goal is defined, the easier and faster you will achieve it. Let's assume your goal is to reduce your expenses by 50% in 6 months, clean out your apartment and accumulate fewer possessions. The saved money and time you would like to use to develop your career, maybe start your own business, finally have more time for your family, learn Qigong or finance a long journey. Ultimately, the great goal of a minimalist lifestyle is to experience more personal freedom and to live more self-determinedly, in other words to free oneself from the common paradigms - the habits of minimalism that emerge depend on your individual path.

30 Days Minimalism Challenge: Practical Tips for a Minimalist Lifestyle

It is finally time, we start together into practice! Of course you can live out minimalism very individually and accordingly not all of the tips listed here may fit you - or maybe not yet! In general, you should make the implementation of at most one of these tips as your current task per week. In some cases one tip per month is enough! What's the matter with you? Because we humans need around 30 days to integrate a new habit into our everyday lives. In these 30 days we have to fight daily with our old habits and have to concentrate with much strength on the new habits and tasks. If you now take on five or ten tasks at once, this can lead to chaos. The probability that you will not permanently maintain these changes is then correspondingly high. So, take your minimalist journey slowly, but more consistently.

Leave your comfort zone

Through the lived minimalism you have to leave your previous comfort zone and get involved in new experiences. Maybe that's why your neighbours will look at you crookedly or your friends will get to know you as a kind of changed person. You will quickly notice who is enthusiastic and willing to support you and who thinks your project is strange. Of course you don't owe anyone an explanation and don't have to justify yourself for your intention. However, if you live with your partner and/or children, then it is worthwhile to say a few words about your plans and involve the family in this process. There is of course a certain potential for conflict buried here, but with loving communication you will also overcome this hurdle - it is the first step out of your comfort zone! You made a conscious decision to take this step and for good reason. So stay consistent and self-confident with your decision, after all this is about your personal happiness, which only you can shape yourself.

Minimalism in thought

Minimalism is about consciously and attentively observing one's own thoughts. This succeeds wonderfully with regular meditation, yoga, playing the piano, dancing and similar activities. During these activities you are in the here and now and also concentrate on it. Especially in meditation and yoga you have the opportunity to become an observer of your thoughts and thereby change them. You will soon find that the negative thoughts you have lead to negative feelings. Even if many of our thoughts are formed unconsciously and subconsciously, we can recognize certain patterns through regular observation and, for example, work with affirmations to change these unconscious patterns. Minimalism is all about getting rid of inefficient, unnecessary and excessively negative thoughts that block you and inhibit your personal growth, and replacing them with positive, friendly and loving thoughts. Regular practice is of elementary importance! Of course, you should be aware of where your journey is going: Which areas would you like to optimize and where would you like to experience more luck? This determines the focus of your future minimalist lifestyle.

The minimalist gift giving

Minimalist giving is not about giving as little as possible, but rather about giving as valuable a gift as possible. However, this does not mean the material value, but the ideal value. An example: It is your brother's birthday and he would certainly be happy about a new Porsche. But honest, nicely meant words are also a wonderful gift. And instead of a book, a time spent together in a beautiful place can create something much more valuable: Common, loving memories. Gifts are about showing mutual recognition and love. This is also possible without large material purchases, which in themselves are meaningless. So before you give your next gift, think carefully about what you would be happy about and how you can express your feelings as authentically as possible.

Earn Money by Clearing Out

Of course the mucked out things must be accommodated somewhere after a large clearing out action. In the best case, this is not in the basement or in the attic, where they then continue to accumulate dust undisturbed. Instead it offers to sell the sorted out items. Thanks to appropriate Internet portals this is now quite easy to manage: Take a photo of the item, post it on the sales portal, set the price and wait for an offer. But many items can also be sold at flea markets or a garage sale. Every Euro earned is a success! Anything you don't get sold will sooner or later be given away or thrown away - your earnings in these two cases are zero euros. So make it easy for yourself and don't be too dogged when it comes to pricing, after all you want to live easier than before, don't you?

Donate superfluous items

Even if you personally don't need 45 towels, but maybe only 5, this doesn't mean that the other 40 have to go to the garbage. Especially non-profit organizations are happy about all donations. Look around you for this: What charities could use something I own more than enough of? Ask these associations and be happy if your objects that are useless for you are a welcome gift for other people and animals. Food can be well used for blackboards, clothes in old clothes collections and furniture, technical equipment and the like in the social department store. You'll find a good place for everything you want to give away for free. Giving from the free heart is an incredibly beautiful feeling and you will certainly not regret it!

Reduce media consumption

Restricting media consumption today sounds like an unsolvable task. After all, almost all communication takes place via smartphones and the like. We have an important message for you: The e-mail or the SMS are waiting for you, if necessary even several days! Would you really miss all the unchecked images in Instagram? No! No! No! At best, you'd miss the habit. To limit your media consumption for more quality time with yourself or your loved ones, you should start by finding out when you are distracted by media. Is it the night before sleep, is it on the train to work? You are probably not bothered by the use of the media itself (or is it?!), but rather by the way it is used. So instead of reading posts that don't concern you on Facebook or looking at women's exchanges, you could take exciting books in digital or printed form as a distraction. Set a daily time limit for your media consumption - how about 30 minutes? If you get bored outside these 30 minutes, this is the perfect opportunity to get really creative!

The 30 days shopping rule

Changing shopping habits is not always easy. Especially because we are firmly convinced that we really need all these things. The next time you have a special offer or advertising that makes you think you really need a particular product, you put it on your 30-day list. In these 30 days you have enough time to think about whether you really need this item. After an average of three days it becomes clear: "I definitely don't need this item to be happy." In this way many impulse purchases can be averted and you will quickly develop a new connection to really important purchases. If the purchase is really important, in 99% of the cases you will not be made aware of it by an advertisement, but will encounter this necessity in everyday life. This rule will feel strange at first, after all you are acting against your habits. After about 30 days you will get used to this method and after a few months you probably won't need this 30 day rule anymore, because you don't do impulsive buying anymore.