It was a morning of Dec 2017, when I decided to arrange my wardrobe after a series of family weddings.
When I started removing stuff to arrange it properly, it seemed as if there was some mystery hole in my wardrobe, from where all the stuff just kept coming out, it was unending! By the time, I emptied my wardrobes, I was shocked to see the amount of clothes, footwear and accessories I had.
That was when it hit me:
How much of this stuff I actually use?
How much of this stuff I actually like to see on me?
How much of this do I actually need?
How much money I have wasted buying most of these unwanted things?
Is this even making me happy?
And the answer to all the above questions was a big NO.
I decided I had to do something about it. And that was when I decided to experiment with a new lifestyle called “Minimalism”. I decided to have my New Year resolution for 2018 as experimenting with this new lifestyle called Minimalism.
So, after arranging my stuff & working on my needs, I decided to keep INR 10,000/- as my yearly personal expense on materialistic things for the year 2018. It was challenging, but I was up for the challenge.
The year went by.
On 31st Dec 2018, my personal expense was INR 8650. It was a feeling I would remember for the rest of my life. Since then I have been practicing minimalism & it has opened up new doors of possibilities in my life.
Here is how the year 2018 went by with this new experiment:
Initially, it was difficult for me to give up on temptations of buying clothes, footwear, home decor, accessories etc. when I saw something really nice in stores or online. But now as I was determined to keep up to my resolution, I somehow managed to keep away from these temptations at the beginning of the year.
During this process, I came across something interesting. When I decided to follow minimalism, I used to read stuff about how to go about it & how to not give in to the temptations. During one such reading, I came across an article on “24 hour therapy”.
It said – if I really like something & I am not sure about whether I should buy it or leave it, I should give myself 24 hours before making the final decision. It sounded interesting & I thought of giving it a try.
So during my next visit on online shopping site, I just added accessories to the online cart that I liked instead of placing order. I waited for minimum 24 hours & then visited the shopping cart again to take my final decision of placing order.
I realized that when I went after 24 hours, I actually needed or felt like buying only 1-2 things out of 10 things I had placed in the shopping cart.In this way, the 24-hour therapy worked very powerfully for me in terms of making the buying decision.
Eventually, at the end of the year 2018, I was able to practice minimalism by spending only INR 8,650.
As the year went by, minimalism lifestyle became an integral part of my life & few things have become a permanent habit in my existing lifestyle like:
1. I don’t feel like going for shopping or browse online shopping sites unless I really need it
2. When I feel that I really need something, I give it a long thought before buying
3. 24-hour therapy is helping me to make right buying decisions
Since I started applying minimalism, below is the change I experienced since 2018 till today…..
I started giving up stuff I did not need & today my cupboards are 60% empty & my mind is clutter free.
As I have fewer clothes to choose from, it saves my time to decide what to wear & I can use this time on productive things. I am now saving my hard earned money, which I am using it to build my independent investment portfolio. More productive time, clutter free mind & more savings in my bank account has lead me to experience peace of mind! Now after this successful experiment of “Minimalism” towards materialistic things, I have started experimenting “Minimalism” towards my other areas of life like physical fitness, relationships & business.
- Rani
The Meaningful Lifestyle