Joshua Becker Quotes

The first step in crafting the life you want is to get rid of everything you don't.

Minimalism is the intentional promotion of the things we most value and the removal of anything that distracts us from it.

Owning less is better than organizing more.

We were never meant to live life accumulating stuff. We were meant to live simply enjoying the experiences of life, the people of life, and the journey of life - not the things of life.

Don't just declutter, de-own.

Own less stuff. Enjoy more freedom. It really is that simple.

You don't need more space. You need less stuff.

There is more joy to be found in owning less than can ever be found in organizing more.

Our excessive possessions are not making us happy. Even worse, they are taking us away from the things that do. Once we let go of the things that don’t matter, we are free to pursue all the things that really do matter.

Simplicity slows down life and frees us from this modern hysteria to live faster. It finds freedom to disengage.

If you are not content today, there is nothing you can buy tomorrow to change that.

Stop trying to impress others with your stuff and start trying to impress them with your life.

Your life is far too valuable to be wasted on the life that everyone else is choosing.

Sometimes, minimizing possessions means a dream must die. But this is not always a bad thing. Sometimes, it takes giving up the person we wanted to be in order to fully appreciate the person we can actually become.

Overscheduled children lose the space to simply be with themselves and learn the art of being alone. In our noisy, busy world, the importance of developing the life skill of solitude, meditation, and quietly being with oneself can not be overstated.

...minimalism in the service of others is a logical extension of the same ethos of selflessness.

Have the courage to build your life around what is really most important to you.

I don't want friends who are impressed by fancy things. I want friends who are impressed by generosity, character, gratitude, love, and selflessness. Those are the people I want closest to me.

Maybe the life you’ve always wanted is buried under everything you own!

The goal of minimalism, let’s remember, is not just to own less stuff. The goal of minimalism is to unburden our lives so we can accomplish more.

But nobody gets to the end of life wishing they had bought more things. Why is that? Because consumption never fully delivers on its promise of fulfillment or happiness. Instead, it steals our freedom and results only in an unquenchable desire for more. It brings burden and regret. It distracts us from the very things that do bring us joy.

Clutter is a visual sign of…procrastination, and carries with it just as much anxiety,

But maybe the greatest benefit of generosity is this: generous people realize that they already have enough.

Any half-awake materialist well knows – that which you hold holds you.” — Tom Robbins

Will Rogers once said, “Too many people spend money they haven’t earned to buy things they don’t want to impress people they don’t like.” 

In our overcrowded homes today, most possessions are not truly “belongings.” They are only distracting us from the things that do belong.

Be who you are, not who you wished to be.

Asking "Who can I help today?" will always lead to a more fulfilling life than "How can I make more money today?

Our excessive possessions are not making us happy. Even worse, they are taking us away from the things that do. Once we let go of the things that don't matter, we are free to pursue all the things that really do matter.

Mark Twain has been credited as saying, “The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.” And I might add a third: the day you throw off any distraction and decide to pursue your purpose fully.

Almost half the world — over three billion people — live on less than $2.50 a day. 1.1 billion people have inadequate access to clean water and 2.6 billion lack basic sanitation. Let those facts sink in for just a moment… and slowly allow gratitude and a desire to become part of the solution find a place in your heart.  

Over the course of an average lifetime, because of all the clutter we live in, we will spend 3,680 hours, or 153 days, searching for misplaced items.

If organizing your stuff worked, wouldn’t you be done by now?

You can do anything you want, but you can’t do everything.

You can’t have everything. Where would you put it?

Learn to enjoy things without owning them. Ownership is nothing, access is everything. Visit a library, a park, or a museum.

Purposefully owning less begins to take us out of the unwinnable game of comparison.

Minimalism isn't about removing the things you love. It's about removing the things that distract you from the things you love.

Kids who don’t learn boundaries become adults who don’t set them.

Reorganizing doesn’t actually constitute change in our lives. It is only a temporary fix which we will continually revisit. If organizing your stuff worked, wouldn’t you be done by now?

The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, worry about the future, or anticipate troubles, but to live in the present moment wisely and earnestly.” - Buddha

Minimalism is the intentional promotion of the things we most value and the removal of everything that distracts from it. It is a highly personal journey that forces us to identify and articulate our highest values. Because of that, it is always going to be practiced differently by each individual.

People who give away possessions hold their remaining possessions in higher esteem. People who give their time make better use of their remaining time. And people who donate money are less wasteful with the money left over.

I cannot believe that the purpose of life is to be happy. I think the purpose of life is to be useful, to be responsible, to be compassionate. It is, above all to matter, to count, to stand for something, to have made some difference that you lived at all.” —Leo Rosten

It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it. Life is long enough, and a sufficiently generous amount has been given to us for the highest achievements if it were all well invested. But when it is wasted in heedless luxury and spent on no good activity, we are forced at last by death’s final constraint to realize that it has passed away before we knew it was passing. So it is: we are not given a short life but we make it short, and we are not ill-supplied but wasteful of it…. Life is long if you know how to use it.

Finely Tuned: How to Thrive as a Highly Sensitive Person or Empath - Barrie Davenport Simplify - Joshua Becker Psycho-Cybernetics, Updated and Expanded - Maxwell Maltz, MD, FICS The Mindset of Organization - Lisa Woodruff What is your WHAT? - Steve Olsher (follow the link to get a free copy!) Better Than Before - Gretchen Rubin Books

The goal is not to remove every person from my life who does not serve me. The goal is to bring greater intentionality into each of my relationships. I want to find people who will lead me, mentor me, and love me, but I also want to keep in my life people whom I serve and love and pour my life into. Because both are required for a balanced life.

Successful people are adamant about saying ‘no’ to things that do not align with their mission.

William Morris says it this way: “Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.” 4

You don’t need more space. You need less stuff.

Success and excess are not the same.

Generosity is an act of bravery.

The American Dream has been defined in dollar signs and square footage.

But if we're going to be putting up signs on our walls in our own homes, shouldn't they be encouraging us to do our work well and selflessly instead?

Owning less creates an opportunity to live more.

To stop letting advertisers control our lives, we must be mentally prepared to counter their assault.

People who matter are most aware that everyone else does too.” - Malcolm S. Forbes

Civilization is a limitless multiplication of unnecessary necessities.” – Mark Twain

In daily life we must see that it is not happiness that makes us grateful, but gratefulness that makes us happy.

Replace “Do I want this?” with “Do I need this?” And help your son or daughter ask the same question. It’s one of the most important lessons they will ever learn.

Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful. — William Morris

There is more joy to be found in owning less than can ever be found in pursuing more. In

Will Rogers once said, “Too many people spend money they haven’t earned to buy things they don’t want to impress people they don’t like.” 1

Don’t just drift through life. Live intentionally and on purpose.” I

The rules for parents are but three... love, limit, and let them be." —Elaine M. Ward

At its core, minimalism is the intentional promotion of the things we most value and the removal of everything that distracts us from

Life would be better lived if there was less stuff to manage and organize and clean.

Living life is indeed far more enjoyable than managing and organizing stuff!

Often it is those who live quietly, modestly, and contentedly with a simple life who are the happiest.

If we wait to be healthy, perfect, and prepared in every way, we’ll never accomplish anything.

Owning less is not about owning nothing. It’s about owning the right things—and the right number of them.

Minimalism is the intentional promotion of the things we most value and the removal of anything that distracts us from them.

The payoff isn’t just a clean house — it’s a more satisfying, more meaningful life. Minimalism is an indispensable key to the better life you’ve been searching for all along.

A home that is filled with only the things you love and use will be a home that you love to use. #minimalisthome

The pursuit and purchase of physical possessions will never fully satisfy our desire for happiness.

Minimalism isn’t about removing things you love. It’s about removing the things that distract you from the things you love. #minimalisthome

We were never meant to live life accumulating stuff. We were meant to live simply enjoying the experiences of life, the people of life, and the journey of life - not the things of life. Guiding

Sometimes, parting with our possessions means giving up an image that we have created in our mind of the person we would like to become. Sometimes, minimizing possessions means a dream must die.

Not everything your child creates is a masterpiece. Not everything they create needs to be displayed and/or stored. Keep the best. And then, challenge them to create even more of their very best.

Clutter is a form of visual distraction, and everything in our vision pulls at our attention at least a little. The less clutter, the less visual stress we have in our environments. A simple, minimalist home is calming.

Minimalism is about what it gives, not what it takes away. It’s the intentional promotion of the things we most value and the removal of anything that distracts us from them. It’s a new way of living that fills us with hope.

as your minimizing frees up resources you can share, go ahead and give them away with freedom and joy. Your heart will feel warmer. The world will be a better place. And you will discover you never even needed the stuff in the first place.

I have not met a single minimalist who denies their child the privilege of owning toys. I have met many who limit the number of toys their children own because teaching the value of boundaries allows them to flourish. And that is the very opposite of cruelty.

For example, one of the things cluttering up the garage was a set of golf clubs. I rarely used them. Would I really be playing golf much in the future? If not, was it worth keeping a set of clubs around? I decided golf was not a high priority of mine, so I got rid of the clubs.

minimizing is actually optimizing—reducing the number of your possessions until you get to the best possible level for you and your family. It’s individual, freeing, and life promoting. It’s a makeover that you can do on your own, in your current house, just by getting rid of stuff.

What if contentment is actually found in the opposite place from where we have been looking? What if contentment is found not in accumulating things for ourselves but in meeting the needs of others? It’s true that the less we need, the more we can give away. But what if the inverse is also true? What if the more we give away, the less we need? In other words, what if generosity leads to contentment? People who give away possessions hold their remaining possessions in higher esteem. People who give their time make better use of their remaining time. And people who donate money are less wasteful with the money left over.

Simplifying your life can be more than just removing physical belongings. If minimalism is the intentional promotion of the things that I most value, it is also about deciding what is most important in my life and removing the things that distract me from it. It is about removing the urgent for the sake of the important. Plain,

These, in review, are the baby steps to owning less: • Write down your goals. • Start decluttering with the easy targets in your lived-in areas. • Then go room by room, tossing out and tidying up. • Eliminate duplicates as you make your circuit. • Share your story with others to keep yourself motivated during and beyond the first steps.

More time and energy — Whether we are making the money to buy them, researching and purchasing them, cleaning and organizing them, repairing them, replacing them, or selling them, our possessions consume our time and energy. So the fewer things we have, the more of our time and energy we’ll have left to devote to other pursuits that matter more to us.

Clutter attracts clutter. If you drop the mail on the kitchen counter, someone else is going to find it natural to leave his keys there. A dresser with receipts is also going to collect coins. A purse dropped in the entry is soon going to be joined by shoes and gloves. An empty soda can on the end table usually winds up with a few candy wrappers next to it.

So this very day, donate clothing you don’t wear, sporting equipment you don’t use, books you aren’t going to read, or furniture needlessly taking up space. Make a financial donation to a charity you support. Be generous with your time by volunteering at your local school, a homeless shelter, or the nonprofit of your choice. It’s the quickest shortcut I can suggest to having a life of impact.

Approach the spaces in your home this way: First, your living room and family room. Second, your own bedroom and the other bedrooms in the house. Third, all the clothes closets. Fourth, your home's bathrooms and the laundry room. Fifth, your kitchen and dining areas. Sixth, your home office. Seventh, your storage areas, including your toy room and craft work spaces. Eighth, your garage and yard. ...this represents the easier-to-harder progression.

See also Bronnie Ware, The Top Five Regrets of the Dying: A Life Transformed by the Dearly Departing (Carlsbad, CA: Hay House, 2012). The five regrets are as follows: (1) “I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.” (2) “I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.” (3) “I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.” (4) “I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.” (5) “I wish that I had let myself be happier.

I have come to realize that the mindset of competition is based on a faulty premise. It assumes there is a finite sized pie – that one more success in another’s life equals one less success in mine. But quite frankly, this thinking is incorrect. The size of the pie is not finite.   In reality, the pie keeps growing. Another’s success does not mean I have less shot at it. In fact, another’s success can actually be my success if I had an opportunity to encourage and promote them along the way!

We come to a point where we realize there is more to life than what the world is peddling. We admit we have foolishly bought what the world is selling—and our lives are still empty. Possessions have not bought happiness. Money has not provided security. Popularity and power have not satisfied.… The answers clearly do not lie in a life conformed to the unoriginal culture of our day. We know it to be true. And we seek desperately for teachable moments to transfer this understanding to our kids.1

Who knows what advantages you might find in a smaller home, even beyond what you were initially hoping for, after you move in? Maybe you'll be inspired to become a more creative person when you take up residence in a quaint older neighborhood and get out of that suburban tract where you can have a house of any color as long as it's beige. Maybe by putting your preadolescent kids in a bedroom together, they'll socialize better and develop closer bonds. Maybe you and your spouse will rediscover each other when you're actually spending time together instead of tag-teaming on chores.

Whatever your motivation for downsizing, you're going to love the benefits that come with this change. Let me highlight a few: 1. More money... in general a smaller home costs less to buy or rent and less to maintain. 2. Less time and energy spent cleaning and maintaining... 3. Better family bonding... A smaller home naturally brings family members into proximity, leading to their having more conversations and doing more things together. 4. Less environmental impact... using less energy and fewer natural resources. 5. Easier perpetuation of your minimalism... 6. Wider market to sell.

The pull toward conformity can be strong. The desire to fit in with popular culture is significant at times, as is the desire to impress others with our clothing. And no matter how old we get, the desire to run with the cool kids can remain. But I believe that within each of us is a desire that is even stronger- the desire to be ourselves, to embrace the things we love and enjoy and that make us unique. One of the best decisions we can make is to reject the cultural expectations that change with the wind. And to accept the fact that we don't need to run with the cool kids to be happy. We can choose to be ourselves instead.

This is what makes the unexamined life so dangerous. We think we are living life to the fullest but we aren’t. Instead, we are often trading long-term purpose for short-term pleasure. When we eat unhealthily, we miss an opportunity to fuel our bodies properly. When we watch too much TV or spend too much time online, we miss opportunities to interact with people in the real world. When we neglect to exercise, we miss the opportunity to enjoy the kinds of adventures available to those with physical stamina. When we stay up late and sleep through the morning, we may be missing out on the most productive period of our day. When we buy more than we need, we miss the opportunity to live free and unburdened. When we spend more than we earn, we shackle ourselves with bondage to debt. When we spend too much money on ourselves, we miss the opportunity to find greater joy by being generous to others. The way to avoid these kinds of mistakes is to live intentionally. That is, we examine our options and make choices with larger purposes and longer-term goals in mind. If an activity, a decision, or a habit is not bringing us closer to our purpose and passion, then we should remove it. Because most of the time it is only distracting us from what really matters.

In your process of removing the unneeded excess, you’ll want to develop your own working definition of clutter. Early in our minimizing journey, my wife and I began to define clutter as (a) too much stuff in too small a space, (b) anything that we no longer used or loved, and (c) anything that led to a feeling of disorganization. Feel free to rip off that definition if you want. But there are other definitions you might find resonate better with your ideals. For example, Joshua Fields Millburn defines clutter as anything that does not “add value” to his life.1 Marie Kondo describes clutter as those things in her home that do not “spark joy.” 2 Peter Walsh goes even further, saying that clutter is anything that “interferes with the life you could be living.” 3 And William Morris says it this way: “Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.” 4