Minimalism: Live a Meaningful Life

by Joshua Fields Millburn

Here was this young, 24-year-old entrepreneur living an amazing life—a seemingly impossible life. He’d left his high-paying career to pursue his passions—traveling the world and running his businesses from anywhere.

minimalism allowed him to focus on the important stuff in his life, while shedding the excess junk that had gotten in the way.

You should do something online. You could make a difference. The world needs people like you to help them see things clearly.

Five Values that allow us to live a meaningful life: 1. Health 2. Relationships 3. Passions 4. Growth 5. Contribution

HEALTH

Diet Exercise Sleep

Foods to Avoid

Processed & packaged food Sugar Gluten, breads & pasta Any drink other than water Dairy Meat

Incorporate More

Water green drinks fresh smoothies vegetables (non-starchy) beans & legumes fruits fish oganic foods

a person who intermittently fasts might not eat for sixteen hours per day and then eat two or three meals within an eight-hour window.

Joshua's 18-Minute Exercises

Push ups pull ups sit ups squats

There are three ways to create better relationships: 1. Find great new relationships. 2. Transform your current relationships. 3. Change who you are.

Once your list is complete, review it and answer some important questions: How many relationships do you have? Why so many (or so few)? What percentage are primary relationships? What percentage are secondary relationships? What percentage are peripheral relationships? What percentage are positive relationships? What percentage are negative relationships?

Your primary relationships are by far the most important relationships in your life.

Better half Close friends (usually 4-5) Close family members

Your primary relationships are your top priority.

Write down everything you want from your primary relationships (intimate relationships, close friendships, and the like). What do they look like? What do you want to do together? What do you want from them mentally, physically, spiritually, emotionally? What types of desires must these people have? What are their beliefs, values, desires, interests, rules, fears?

You can find everything you want in a person, but if they also carry a belief or value you must not have in your life, it can ruin the entire relationship. For example, say you find an intimate relationship and the other person appears to have everything you want, except they are unsupportive. If an unsupportive person is something you must not have, then that relationship will not work long-term. Now, make your list of things that must not occur in your relationships.

Once you’ve determined what you want and what you must not have, you must determine what changes you must make within yourself to attract this kind of person as a friend, lover, or whatever relationship you are searching for. Must you listen more? Must you get into better shape? Must you learn how to communicate better? Write down what you must change in your life to attract these new relationships.

You need both—commonalities and differences—to make passionate relationships work long-term.

While you embrace the things in common, you learn to respect and enjoy the differences.

Meaningful relationships have eight main elements that must be nurtured for the relationships to grow and improve: love, trust, honesty, caring, support, attention, authenticity, and understanding.

You should, however, work hard to understand what your loved ones need. And the primary relationships in your life should feel the same toward you. If they don’t, you must ask yourself if that person is worthy of being one of your primary relationships, and worthy of the time you must dedicate to said relationships.

happiness is contagious—but only after you get past the arguments, past the stages of tolerance, acceptance, and respect, and you honestly appreciate the other person’s desires, values, and beliefs.

When we appreciate others for who they are, not who we want them to be, then, and only then, will we understand.

So the next time you reach a fork in the road, remember T.A.R.A.: Tolerate, Accept, Respect, and Appreciate. If you travel this path frequently, your relationships will flourish, and you’ll experience a richness of experience that wasn’t possible without a deep understanding of the people in your life.

Sometimes it’s okay to say goodbye, walk away, and travel a perpendicular path.

keep in mind that you must find ways to continuously nourish your primary relationships every day. They are far too important to ignore.

People tend to designate one of three labels to their work: job, career, or mission.

People are asked to answer this question so often that they become rooted in their careers: they establish “what they do” as their core identity, and they give their occupations far more societal worth than they deserve. Once someone establishes their career as who they are as a person, it is difficult to shed that identity, even if the person hates their career

Your identity is who you are, not your job title

So, instead of saying, “I’m a Director of Operations,” say, “I’m passionate about writing (or scrap-booking or rock climbing or whatever you’re passionate about).” It’s nice to follow that statement with, “What are you passionate about?”

You are not your career.

Your identity should come from your meaningful life, not from how you earn a paycheck.

As it turns out, we discovered four main anchors in our own lives that were keeping us from pursuing our passions: identity, status, certainty, and money.

For the two of us, this meant actively identifying ourselves with more meaningful labels than our corporate-given titles like director or manager.

The best way to escape the destructive influence of status, and the cultural stereotypes that come along with it, is to turn down the volume. For the two of us, this meant placing less value on what people thought about our jobs, and showing them why they should give more credence to our new identities, which were transferable to virtually anything we did, not just our careers.

the long-term pain of regret far outweighs the short-term pleasure of certainty.

find at least three people making a living doing what you’re passionate about.

What’s important is that you find people doing what you want to do, that you learn from them, that you soak up their knowledge, and that you take massive action.

Daily Incremental Changes

The more leverage you have, the easier the decision is to make and follow through with—because the satisfaction you’ll experience on the other side of the change is so great that you must make the change a reality.

Thus, you want to find little ways to make improvements in each area of your life, be it exercising daily, strengthening your relationships via one meaningful conversation per day, spending one hour on whatever you’re most passionate about, etc. These small changes add up quickly, and they compound on top of each other. And, pretty soon, you’ll glance in the rearview and be stunned by how much progress you’ve made.

While you’re taking your daily incremental actions, it’s important to raise the bar a little each day, especially when it’s uncomfortable. Getting outside your comfort zone is an important part of growth. You needn’t raise the bar too high, but just high enough to make your change a little more difficult each day.

the key to real growth is consistency. Consistent, gradual action taken every day is the way we changed our lives. It feels like a slow climb at first, but once you build enough momentum, you won’t want to stop growing. It’s growth that makes you feel alive.

the more you grow, the more you can help others grow; and the more you help others grow, the more you grow in return.

finding ways to transform the positive experiences you dislike into positive experiences you enjoy is the ticket to changing your life long-term. This one strategy is the ticket to long-term happiness, fulfillment, and a life with meaning.

The point is that there will always be something there to tempt you from doing the things that make your life more meaningful. The good news is you can avoid those tempting activities by transforming the positive experiences you dislike into positive experiences you enjoy. In this way, all the positive experiences that relate to your life are made enjoyable.

The best way to do this is to simply ask yourself a question: How did I incorporate all Five Values into my life today? That is: How did I focus on health, relationships, passion, growth, and contribution?

With every action we take, the two of us tend to ask ourselves the following question: Which area of my life does this action improve? If it doesn’t improve any of the five areas, then we need to ask another question: How could this task improve one of the five important areas of my life? If whatever you’re doing doesn’t improve at least one of the five areas—directly or indirectly—then it’s important to find a way to drastically reduce or eliminate that action from your daily life.

Most people’s days are filled with tedious, banal tasks that take up much of their time but don’t add value to their lives.

Minimalism is a tool to eliminate life’s excess and focus on the essentials

It’s also important to ask another question about your daily tasks: How could this task positively affect one or more of the five important areas of my life?

Success = Happiness + Constant Improvement