Minimalism Mistakes To Avoid As A Beginner

When I discovered minimalism, I jumped right in and did not really pause to see or think exactly what I was doing. I read a lot of articles and books, watched Youtube videos and soaked in everything that was being presented to me. What I did not realise were the traps I was slowly falling into.

I got carried away and went to extreme measures of depriving myself and setting unattainable standards. I blindly followed what others were advocating, never once choosing the outcome I wanted to bring for myself. In doing so, I completely lost myself.

As I grew more mature in this journey and started to build my own identity around minimalism, I realised all the mistakes I made when I embarked on this journey. And isn’t that the beauty of making mistakes – to learn and to grow.

Hence this post to share some mistakes I made since I started this transition and hoping that this could help anybody looking to begin this life-changing switch and help you not lose yourself.

FOCUSING ON ONLY THE PHYSICAL ASPECT

The biggest misconception I had initially was that minimalism was limited to only physical belongings and once I decluttered all my stuff, I would unlock the greatest power of minimalism and live a simple happy life ever after. If only my life was a fairy-tale! 😊

I failed to recognise the non-physical forms of clutter we surround ourselves with constantly, be it all the digital content on our devices, or mental chaos making us incapable of focusing on what is important or relationships in general, where you have lost sense of who deserves your love and attention and who doesn’t.

What I now do is go through my phone and laptop at the start of every month and decide KEEP or GO for every photo and in less than 15 minutes I start feeling lighter, as if some memory space from my brain has been cleared. 😊

My conscious routine which I have spoken about in https://lifeofrai.blog/2022/04/29/creating-a-productive-and-meaningful-routine/ helps me structure my day and in turn channel my thoughts and energy to one task at a time instead of overwhelming myself with too much.

I spend some time each month to review the “friends” I have on social media and decide to unfriend/unfollow anybody I no longer feel connected to.

These small changes have brought in a sense of simplistic happiness making the experience of minimalism wholistic and well-rounded.

Practice identifying any form of physical and non-physical clutter in your lives and learn to let them go patiently. 

BLINDLY FOLLOWING AND COMPARING WITH OTHERS

Like anybody embarking on a new journey, I was using inspiration for all my decision making. But soon, that inspiration turned into mirroring what others were doing in the hope that it would work for me too.

I would look at some video and decide to get rid of things just because someone else did, not realising that the value each item had in my life was completely different from what it had in other people’s lives.

It took me a while to realise that we may all be on the same path but each one of us has our own individual journey, and no two experiences can be the same. Your version of minimalism is going to be completely different to mine.

Minimalism isn’t a contest of who owns the least number of things. The fundamentals of minimalism are to let go of desiring and owning stuff to determine your worth, and that could mean different things to different people.

Use minimalism to determine your worth based on the boundaries you create for yourself.

EXPECTING TO TRANFORM OVERNIGHT

I’m usually not the kind of person who decides and expects things to be done right away. I tend to go for things with a plan and having thought everything through well. However, having decided to start a minimalist lifestyle, I realised I had become quite impatient to start seeing results.

While I had all the motivation to organise and declutter, when reality hit that my life was not going to drastically transform within a few days, I started getting a bit discouraged. I would start doing something and give up halfway because it wasn’t “as satisfying as I expected”. Thankfully, I did not give up on the whole idea of a minimalist lifestyle and having powered through with baby steps I slowly came to see the changes my life was finally taking.

I realised I just needed to take things slow and be patient.

I also understood during this lengthy process that I wasn’t going to declutter my entire life overnight. I wasn’t going to narrow down to 10 pieces of clothing within a few days after having built a wardrobe over the last decade.

I was however going to be able to reflect, look within and process my journey. During this course of action, I realised how incredible this time was. I learnt much more than I ever imagined a simple act of decluttering would teach me about myself.

So please take things one step at a time and never forget to pause and remind yourself to enjoy this process. Start with an area of your life that you feel is easy to tackle and go from there. 

CREATING UNATTAINABLE AND UNREALISTIC GOALS

Strictly speaking, the meaning of minimalism is to reduce and to simplify. But that should not necessarily mean quantity-wise. It is not a measurement we should be living up to.

What then should be our goal?

Anything that is attainable and inclusive. Setting extreme goals such as clearing out an entire closet mindlessly or reducing to 2 pieces of furniture and suffering because of it is not realistic.

I entered a phase where I stripped our home of any décor and felt guilty buying even the smallest piece of art. But soon I realised that our home felt so bare and cold to me that I started to miss the coziness and comfort of my own space.

Soon I understood that I am depriving myself of things that had some value in my life and that is the opposite of what I was trying to achieve.

Don’t ever quantity your level of minimalism by how little you own or how empty your drawers are.

And that is it! Maybe some of you will resonate with some mistakes I have mentioned or for some of you starting this journey, this may act as a guide to avoid the common traps. Let me know in the comments other common mistakes you’ve made during your minimalism journey, so it can help our friends who are starting out new.

I just hope the biggest takeaway is that you are in charge of altering minimalism to your lifestyle and making it work for you in a manner that it brings you the most satisfaction.