Strategic Minimalism: A Sure-Fire Way To A Happier Life

My highschool baseball coach used to drill into our heads one particular quote, over and over and over again. It has to do with running around the bases, but I’ve recently come to realize that the truth behind this one-liner is one of the basic fundamentals to living a happier, more productive life. The quote is as follows:

“The fastest way to get from point ‘A’ to point ‘B’ is to run a straight line.”

It may not seem life-changing at first glance, but give it a few hours. In time you’ll see that it has everything to do with practically everything in your life. For me, this quote was yet another piece in the now finished puzzle of something I like to call, Strategic Minimalism. I’m convinced that if you pursue Strategic Minimalism for all its worth, you’ll soon be more satisfied than you’ve ever been in your entire life!

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Here’s what you need to know about Strategic Minimalism:

• Setting your goals
• Identifying any obstacles to those goals
• Developing a strategy in order to achieve those goals
• Reaping the resultant fruit of achieving those goals

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Strategic Minimalism: The Basics

Did you have a chance to watch the Summer Olympics in London a few weeks back? Before I recently shut off our television for good, I stayed up til midnight every night of the Olympics just to see what would happen. For me, the highlight of the Olympics was the Track and Field games. One of the best events in all the Olympics also happens to be one of the briefest. That event is the 100-meter dash.

Usain Bolt was king of that event during the Beijing games and he came out on top again in London, posting a world-record time of 9.63 seconds. That’s fast! Very fast. He achieved his goal of winning the gold medal by running a fast, straight line from point ‘A’ to point ‘B.’

But what I want you to understand about Strategic Minimalism doesn’t have so much to do with the 100-meter dash as it does when comparing that race to another similar race. This other race is the 110-meter hurdle.

Aries Merritt, of the United States, won gold in that event by posting a time of 12.80 seconds, which also happened to be a new world record. Obviously this race is 10 meters (10%) longer than the 100-meter dash. However, the difference in record-setting time is over 25%. What accounts for the remarkable difference in time?

The obstacles, of course! Obstacles that had to be jumped over, rather than ignored, pushed to the side, or smashed through. This is the main difference.

The Problem Is That We Create Too Many Obstacles

What I find fascinating about the hurdle event is that throughout the preliminary trials a significant number of world-class Olympic hurdlers didn’t even finish the race because they tripped over a hurdle. And these are the best in the world! Now if that doesn’t make for a perfect example of why it is important to eliminate obstacles in our lives, then I don’t know what would!

Here’s the point I’m trying to make.

In life, everything would go smoother and simpler if we’d only eliminate the obstacles around us. Too often we create our own life-hurdles to jump over. We are able to clear many of these hurdles (e.g. bankruptcy, divorce, pink-slips from work, etc.) without too much trouble, but every once in while a hurdle catches our foot and down we go, unable to finish the race.

Strategic Minimalism is the process of how you can eliminate those hurdles altogether, rather than trying to jump higher and higher and higher still.

Minimalism is, essentially, decluttering and removing the things in life so that we are happier and less stressed. To go about this process “strategically” is where we often miss the mark.

Minimalism for minimalism’s sake is missing the target altogether. Strategic Minimalism means you have a plan, a purpose, and a goal in mind.

Points To Consider For Strategic Minimalism

If you are trying to simplify your life by decluttering your house, what exactly is your goal? What is the ultimate end you’re hoping to achieve? Here are a few examples of what I mean.

• Are you wanting your kids to pick up their toys so that their room is clean, or are you attempting to alter future behavior?
• Do you want to merely pay down your debt, or are you hoping to relieve financial stress?
• Do you want the number of your possessions to be under 100, or are you really wanting to not feel like a slave to your stuff?

You see, we need to be more strategic with our minimalism. We need to create goals so that our lifestyle isn’t only a label (i.e. Minimalism) but rather a charted course with an intended destination in mind.

Like with the Olympic hurdlers, if we become more strategic in our minimalism then we will achieve our goals more quickly, more efficiently, cheaper financially, and with a lot less stress. Moreover, we’ll find that we stumble over life’s obstacles less frequently and with a whole lot less drama.

Three Possible “Examples” Of Strategic Minimalism

1. FAITH.

• Goal: I want a closer relationship with God and other people at my church.
• Obstacles: Watching too much television, too many needless activities, blogging too much, and long work hours.
• Strategy: To create a daily plan of praying more, reading my Bible more, and getting involved in a ministry at my church. To minimize my television and digital consumption, to cut done on after-work activities, and to adjust my daily schedule accordingly (waking up earlier).
• Result: My walk with the Lord will immediately become more fulfilling. I will have less stress over the routine things in life, and my focus will become less self-centered and more others-centered.

2. FINANCES.

• Goal: I want to pay off my credit card balances, school loan, car loan, and refinance my home loan.
• Obstacles: Unplanned shopping. Frivolous spending.
• Strategy: To create a working budget and stick with it. To eat out less often, to curb my Starbucks addiction, to eliminate unnecessary spending, and to pay with cash instead of credit whenever possible. To take these savings and pay down the principal amount on my loans, starting with the smallest loan first (immediate victory!).
• Result: I expect to see at least a 17% drop in my total amount of debt over the next 6 months. 29% over the next 12 months.

3. FITNESS.

• Goal: I want to lose 25 pounds of fat. To gain muscle tone, strengthen my heart, have more energy, and feel better overall.
• Obstacles: Television and internet consumption. Too many extra-curricular activities that hoard my time.
• Strategy: To wake up one hour earlier each morning. To walk briskly for 30 minutes each morning and 30 minutes in the evening. To stretch and lift weights for 30 minutes in the morning. To eat healthier and snack less (more protein, less fats).
• Result: To lose those unwanted 25 pounds within 45 days and to see a noticeable difference in my energy level, in the mirror, and in how my clothes fit.

Easy enough, yes? Yes, you can do this!

In summary, if you are trying to become a minimalist, purely for the sake of minimalism, then you are running the wrong race. If, however, you have a strategy in mind for why you are pursuing minimalism, and what the ultimate destination is supposed to be, I am convinced that you will achieve a greater level of contentment, the quality of your relationships will skyrocket, your happiness will increase, and you won’t become a minimalist-burn out.

What Should You Do Next? Allow Me To Suggest Two Things:

1. Please leave a brief comment or suggestion below and let me know what you think about this article, whether good, bad or otherwise.
2. Look down. See those social sharers? Would you mind tweeting, sharing or “liking” it to your social media followers? (You’re awesome, by the way. Thanks!)

* Image credit: Mozzer502 (Creative Commons)