MINIMALISM: LIVE A MEANINGFUL LIFE BY THE

MINIMALISTS | BOOK SUMMARY & PDF

Minimalism: Live a Meaningful Life is written by Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan
Nicodemus - The Minimalists. Their book questions what it means to be happy and
explores how life a meaningful live. By identifying and explaining five core values
Joshua and Ryan offer useful advice on how you can take steps towards living a life
full of happiness, passion and freedom. Their book makes you take a step back and
take inventory of your life, it can open your eyes to things you are doing, and things
you own that may be getting in the way of your own happiness and freedom.

ARE YOU HAPPY?

The material possessions we accumulate will not make us happy. We all know this,
and yet we often search for lifes meaning through accumulating more
possessions. Real happiness, however, comes from who we arefrom who weve
become. Real happiness comes from within.

Of course, happiness is not the pointa meaningful life is. We must stop searching
for happiness and instead start looking for meaning. If our short-term actions align
with our long-term values, well find purpose in whatever were doing.
Paradoxically, it is this way of livingliving deliberatelythat leads to true
happiness.

Discontent
Discontent didnt suddenly descend from the heavens, striking like a bolt of
lightning. Discontentment doesnt work that way. Rather, its a slow burn; its a
pernicious problem that creeps into your life after years of subtle dissatisfaction.

Take inventory
Take inventory of your life, find out what makes you unhappy,and what you need to
hang to experience happiness, passion and freedom.

1. Identify your anchors - what is making you feel stuck and preventing you from
growing. Write these all down.
2. Identify your priorities - start by dividing your anchors into two categories; major
and minor anchors.
3. Major anchors = debt, houses, mortgages, careers, major relationships etc.

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4. Minor anchors = internet bills, household bills, clutter, daily driving time, etc.
5. Start by tackling the major anchors. Pay off cars, debts.
6. Start eliminating possessions, in favour only of things that you like, enjoy and
actually use in your daily life.

Make difficult decisions

Sentimental items are bad or evil and holding on to them is not wrong. Rather, the
malign nature of sentimental items is far more subtle. If you want to get rid of an
item but the only reason you are holding on to it is for sentimental reasonsif its
weighing on you, if its an anchorthen perhaps its time to get rid of it, perhaps its
time to free yourself of the weight. That doesnt mean you need to get rid of
everything, though.

We are not our stuff.

We are more than our possessions.
Our memories are within us, not our things.
Our stuff weighs on us mentally and emotionally.
Old photographs can be scanned.
You can take pictures of items you want to remember.
Items that are sentimental for us can be useful to others.
Letting go is freeing.

DISCOVERING MINIMALISM

Enter Colin Wright, 24 year old entrepreneur. On his website he wrote about how
this movement called minimalism allowed him to focus on the important stuff in his
life, while shedding the excess junk that had gotten in the way.

Colin owned only 72 things at the timethere were pictures of all his possessions
on his websiteand all of his possessions fit into a bag he carried with him while he
traveled.

The most striking part about this story was Colins contentment: He exuded
happiness and excitement and passion. He loved his life.

Leo Babauta and Joshua Becker proved that minimalism was for anyone interested
in living a simpler, more intentional life. It was for anyone who wanted to focus on
the important aspects in life, rather than the material possessions so heavily linked
to success and happiness by our culture.

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Minimalist
A minimalist can, however, own a car and a house and have children and a career.
Minimalism looks different for everyone because its about finding what is essential
to you.

Minimalism can help us in several ways, including:

Reclaiming our time

Ridding ourselves of excess stuff
Enjoying our lives
Discovering meaning in our lives
Living in the moment
Focusing on whats important
Pursuing our passions
Finding happiness
Doing anything we want to do
Finding our missions
Experiencing freedom
Creating more, consuming less

Minimalism is a lifestyle choice. Minimalists search for happiness not through

things, but through life itself; thus, its up to you to determine what is necessary
and what is superfluous to your life.

What it means to live a meaningful life

There are five Values that allow us to live a meaningful life

1. Health
2. Relationships
3. Passions
4. Growth
5. Contribution

THE IMPORTANCE OF HEALTH

Health is the best place to start your journey toward a more meaningful life. Living a
healthy lifestyle gives you the optimum conditions to do live a happy life.

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In its simplest terms, there are two main ingredients of living a healthy life: eating
and exercising. In other words: what we put into our bodies and what we do with
our bodies.

What you put into your body

A change in dietary lifestyle is not only a change in what you consume, but a
change in how you think about what you consume. A temporary diet almost always
fails after the post-diet behaviour commences. A lifestyle change, by definition,
cant fail unless you make a negative change thereafter.

Foods to avoid: processed and packaged foods, sugar.

Foods to reduce: gluten, breads & pastas, any drinks other than water, dairy,
meat.
Incorporate more: water, green drinks, fresh smoothies, vegetables, beans &
legumes, fruits, fish, organic foods.
Dietary lifestyles that have benefit; vegetarianism, veganism, paleo,
pescatarianism, intermittent fasting.

Develop daily food habits

Thus, your diet is marked by the daily habits by which you live. Once you adopt a
healthy dietary lifestyle, you will feel better, and your body will thank you. Food
should be treated as nutrition, not entertainment.

Medicine, drugs & chemicals

Some medications are important and lifesaving, but many medicationscomplete
with their laundry list of side-effectsare unnecessary and can be avoided with
proper diet and exercise. Furthermore, if youre doing things that damage your
body, then you will pay the price for it.

What you do with your body

Be concerned with being healthy, being fit, and feeling good about your physical
fitness. The most important measurements of success are not measured in pounds
on a scale, but rather by two things:

1. Are you constantly improving your fitness?

2. Are you happy with your progress?

Joshua's exercise principles

Enjoy exercise, exercise relieves stress and use variety to keep exercise fresh!

Eighteen minutes is all you need; 1. Push Ups 2. Pull Ups 3. Squats

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Bounce between exercises, complete 3-5 sets of each, start with how ever many
reps you can do, and aim to increase. Even if you can't do a single push up or pull
up, work on it.

The musts of health

eat a nutritional diet to be healthy.
exercise regularly to be healthy.
eliminate harmful substances.
treat your body like it is your most precious possessionbecause it is.

We encourage you to create your own must list. What must you do to experience a
better, healthier life?

THE IMPORTANCE OF RELATIONSHIPS

Your relationships are the people with whom you have frequent contact, the people
around youfriends, partners, spouses, lovers, roommates, coworkers,
acquaintances, or anyone you interact with on a regular basis.

Reflecting on past relationships

You can learn from your past relationships. The good times tell you what went well
and give you a strategy by which you can model your future. And the bad times help
you identify how things went wrong and give you clues and social cues by which
you can avoid bad relationships in the future. Everything is clearer in retrospect.

Evaluating current relationships

Its time to take an honest look at your current relationships. Do they make you
happy? Do they satisfy you? Are they supportive? Do they help you grow? Do they
contribute to your life in positive, meaningful ways? These are all important
questions to consider while evaluating your current relationships.

Categorise relationships into primary, secondary and peripheral relationships.

Establish whether they are positive, neutral or negative.

The idea here is to focus on creating the most meaningful relationships possible
relationships that will reside in your top two tiers. Similarly, there are people in your
primary and secondary tiers who likely dont belong there. It is up to you to decide
which role these people play in your life.

Eight elements of great relationships

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Meaningful relationships have eight main elements that must be nurtured for the
relationships to grow and improve:

1. Love
2. Trust
3. Honesty
4. Caring
5. Support
6. Attention
7. Authenticity
8. Understanding

If you focus on the above eight elements, you will strengthen your relationships
more than you thought possible. Sure, it takes a considerable amount of hard work,
focus, and time, but having meaningful relationships is worth every bit of effort you
put into them.

THE IMPORTANCE OF CULTIVATING YOUR PASSIONS

People tend to designate one of three labels to their work: job, career, or mission.
When you speak about your work, which term do you use?

Chances are you have a jobthe daily grind. Or, if youre unemployed, youre
probably looking for a job. Its a cultural imperative, the mythical American Dream
its what were supposed to do.

The truth is we all need money to live: theres no doubt we all need to pay for a roof
over our heads, food, clothes, medical care , and various other essentials.

But the aforementioned cyclewhat weve been sold as the American Dreamis
devoid of meaning. The American Dream will not make you happy. In fact, for many,
the pursuit of this set of ideals is oppressive and is guaranteed to be a losing
enterprise.

The ugly roots of a career

People invest so much of themselves into their careers that they establish an
identity and a social status based upon their job title. One of the first things a
person asks when youre becoming acquainted is What do you do? This innocent
question actually says, I will judge you as a person by how you make your money,
and I will assign a particular social status to you based on your occupation.

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One way to answer this question is by stating what youre passionate about,
instead of spouting off what your vocation is. So, instead of saying, Im a Director
of Operations, say, Im passionate about writing (or scrap-booking or rock
climbing or whatever youre passionate about). Its nice to follow that statement
with, What are you passionate about?

Over time you can remove your identity from your career and put it into its
appropriate placeyour life. Your identity should come from your meaningful life,
not from how you earn a paycheck.

The confluence of passion and mission

You can be passionate about virtually anything. Consequently, any line of work can
be your mission. Just because something sounds boring to one person doesnt
mean its not exciting and rewarding for another. It is perfectly plausible to think
that someone can be deeply passionate about accounting the same way another
person might be passionate about horseback riding.

Passionate people
There are, however, two distinct differences that distinguish passionate people
from uninspired people. First, passionate people know what they are most
passionate about, they know what gets them excited, what gets them energized,
what gets them into a peak state.

Second, passion fuels more passion. Passionate people turn to their passions
when they are feeling uninspired.

Using what youre passionate about to keep you focused and fuel more passion is a
critical part in discovering your mission. But first you must discover what youre
passionate about.

Removal
1. Removing anchors to find your passion - it's often difficult to discover your
passions because we tend to get stuck in the laboriousness of our daily
routines.
2. Removing the anchor of identity - its hard to realize you are not your job, you are
not your stuff, you are not your debt, you are not your paycheckyou are so
much more. Find meaningful labels such as mentor, leadsr, minimalist.
3. Removing the anchor of status - 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. Place less value on what people think about your job.
4. Removing the anchor of certainty - certainty feels niceit makes you feel

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 comfortable, it makes you feel warm and fuzzy. But, its sometimes the biggest
underlying reason you dont make the changes you want to make.
5. Removing the anchor of money - the best way to remove the anchor of money is
to give money less importance in your life.

Finding your passion

Once youve removed your anchors, the horizon becomes vividly clear, which
allows you to focus on finding your passion. The first question we typically ask
people is a fairly standard question: What would you do with your life if money
wasnt an object? Followed by; "When was the last time you felt true excitement?"
"What were five other (different) experiences like this?" "Why were you excited
each of those times?"

Turning your passion into your mission

If you want to learn how to turn your passion into your mission, the fastest, most
efficient way is to emulate someone already doing it. Its called modeling, and
thats what we did. We saw the likes of Colin Wright, Leo Babauta, Tammy Strobel,
and Joshua Becker doing what we wanted to dowriting and contributing to
people in meaningful waysand we knew they already had a recipe for success.

Yes, its easier said than done. But it's worth it. You deserve to pursue your
passions, you deserve to live your mission, you deserve to live a meaningful life.

THE IMPORTANCE OF GROWTH

You must continue to improve; you must continue to grow. If youre not growing,
youre dying; and if youre dying, then, by definition, youre not living a meaningful
life.

Making changes
Once you make a change in your life, the journey isnt overyou must continue
making changes if you want to be happy long-term.

Giant leaps - some changes you make are huge and immediate. Take, for
example, ending a relationship, quitting your job on the spot.
Daily incremental changes - most change happens gradually, wherein you dont
take a one-time giant leap, but you make small, gradual changes in your
everyday life which amount to massive changes over time.

Finding leverage

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The first step in any change, big or small, is making the decision to change. Were
talking about making a real decisionone in which you make the change a must in
your lifenot something you should change someday when it becomes convenient
for you.

Leverage is your ability to associate enough satisfaction with the change that you
have no choice but to make the change a must in your life (e.g., I must exercise is
appreciably different from I should exercise). The more leverage you have, the
easier the decision is to make and follow through withbecause the satisfaction
youll experience on the other side of the change is so great that you must make
the change a reality.

Taking action
Once you decide to make a change in your lifeonce you have enough leverage
its important to take immediate action toward making the change. You should take
one step in the right direction. You must build some momentum first. These small
changes add up quickly, and they compound on top of each other. And, pretty
soon, youll glance in the rearview and be stunned by how much progress youve
made.

Raise your standards

What seemed impossible yesterday, will often seem easy tomorrow. So if you want
to continue to grow, you must continue to raise your standards; otherwise, youll
plateau. Or worse, if you lower your standards, youll atrophy.

Getting outside your comfort zone is an important part of growth. You neednt raise
the bar too high, but just high enough to make your change a little more difficult
each day.

Consistent actions
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 wont want to stop growing. Its growth that makes you
feel alive.

THE IMPORTANCE OF CONTRIBUTION

As you grow, something amazing tends to happen: you have more of yourself to
give. Its an incredible cycle: the more you grow, the more you can help others
grow; and the more you help others grow, the more you grow in return.

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A nice thing about contributing to other people is there are countless ways to do
so. And there isnt a right or wrong way to contribute: all contribution is positive.
Thus, it is important to learn how to best contribute to the people around you.

Whether youre donating your time to a charity, or youre finding new ways to
contribute to your primary relationships, you are doing one thing: adding value.

Contributing to others
There are two key ways you can contribute to others:

1. Local organisations - help out with an already established local organisation

helping out the community.
2. Start something yourself - typically, if youre going to start your own thing, you
get there by contributing to local organizations first, determining how you can
best add value in the process.

The good news about contribution is no matter how you contribute, you get to feel
an immense satisfaction from your contributionsa satisfaction like no other.

Giving is living
Unless you contribute beyond yourself, your life will feel perpetually self-serving.
Its okay to operate in your own self-interest, but doing so exclusively creates an
empty existence. A life without contribution is a life without meaning. The truth is
that giving is living. We feel truly alive only when we are growing and contributing.
Thats what a real life is all about. Thats what it means to live a meaningful lifea
life filled with great health, great relationships, and ultimate passion.

CONFLUENCE

Weve noticed over time there are often two values that rise to the top of a persons
priority list. In other words, of the Five Values, youll tend to make two of them a
priority. This can vary drastically depending on the person and their desires and
beliefs.

Its important to note that just because a person has two values on which they
focus most, that doesnt make the bottom three less important.

We recommend incorporating each of the Five Values into your daily life, because
making all five areas the core of your everyday life is the best way to ensure you are
living a meaningful life.

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The role of minimalism
Living a meaningful life and minimalism go hand in hand. Minimalism acts as a tool,
helping you focus on whats important much more easily; it clears away the clutter
so you can focus on living more deliberately. What excess items, tasks, and
relationships can you remove from your life so you can focus more of your time and
energy on all Five Values?

None of this was easy. It takes daily focus and a commitment to constant
improvement. And to continue living a meaningful life, we must continue to commit
to constantly improving each area of our lives. We must do so every day. Small daily
improvements make all the difference.

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