A little while ago I read the book Soulful Simplicity by Courtney Carver. It’s about how living with less can lead to so much more. Carver talks about decluttering your home, but also about how to get rid of debt. And how to be less busy and instead enjoy what matters most to you. It’s about simplifying your whole life, including your home. It’s about creating space, physically and mentally, so that you can enjoy your life more.
In this blog post, I share my favourite quotes from the book. If you’d like to declutter and organise your home, but need a little nudge to get you started, these quotes will hopefully motivate you to start your tidying festival (which is what Marie Kondo calls the process of putting your home in order). If you have already started your tidying journey, these quotes might give you a bit of extra motivation to keep you going.
When I read Soulful Simplicity, I had already decluttered and organised my south east London home, a flat on the border of Lewisham and Greenwich. So I didn’t read the book to motivate myself. For me, it was a reminder of all the fantastic benefits of decluttering, and it made me even more enthusiastic about helping others to create a calmer, more organised home too.
I hope you’ll find some inspiration in these quotes!
Clutter attracts clutter and calm attracts calm. Once you decide which one you want more of, you can begin to thoughtfully create that for yourself.
When you need to buy things for your things, it’s time for fewer things. When we start talking about organisational bins or extra storage options, we know it’s time get rid of stuff instead of accumulating more things to store it in.
A simple closet is the gateway to a simple life. Simplicity in the closet seeps into every other area of your home and life. Once I realised how little I needed in the closet not only to get by but to thrive, I wondered what else was holding me back from even more thriving and happiness.
Sometimes you have to get rid of the things that don’t matter to let the things that do rise to the surface.
Our hearts know that real treasures are smiles, tears, moments, and people.
Instead of just saying, “I’m keeping this just in case,” finish the sentence. Just in case what? Articulate what you think might happen. When you realise you’ve been holding on to things for the wrong reasons, it will be easier to let go.
The founders of The Minimalists created the 20/20 theory, proving that almost any ‘just in case’ item that you get rid of can be replaced for less than twenty dollars in less than twenty minutes. You usually don’t have to replace it, but knowing that should alleviate some of the anxiety of letting go.
When you declutter, you won’t just let go of a physical object. You’ve attached guilt and other emotions to your stuff, so consider it attached. When the stuff goes, so does the guilt.
Now that I own less, I am more grateful because what I own contributes to a happier, healthier life instead of taking away from it.
You may think you need certain things in life to be successful or happy, but I recommend continually challenging your thoughts around that. Really think about how you want to spend your days, your hours, your minutes, and your moments.
Letting go may be hard, but please consider that holding on is harder. You hold on to fear of not having enough, the stress of taking care of everything, and the guilt of spending too much or keeping things that you don’t use.
All the holding on is noisy – deafening sometimes. The calm, the peace, the relief, the joy… that’s the sound of letting go.
Inspired yet? Contact Tidylicious if you’d like some help turning your home into a Tidylicious home.
With her blog Be More with Less, Courtney Carver has become one of the top bloggers in the world on the subject of minimalism. She’s also the creator of the minimalist fashion challenge Project 333.
https://bemorewithless.com/
Joshua Fields Millburn & Ryan Nicodemus, founders of The Minimalists, promote a minimalist lifestyle through their website, books, podcast, and Netflix films.
https://www.theminimalists.com/
