I’ve been a goal-oriented person for most of my life. From always trying to get the best grades in school, to getting my chemical engineering degree, to starting an online business! I like to focus on achieving things and getting things done!

Now, while achieving things is great, it can also cause a lot of burnout. This was so true for me – I was always doing WAY too much and stressing myself WAY out to the point that I just became overwhelmed.

I knew something needed to change. And this is where the life-changing concept of MINIMALISM comes in.

What is minimalism?

Minimalism is a fairly straight-forward idea. In a nutshell, it just means to live with less.

It’s not necessarily about getting rid of all your stuff, it’s about getting rid of the thoughts and ideas that are cluttering your life and holding you back.

In other words: just focus on the things that matter.

So when it comes to you goals, minimalism and achieving go hand-in-hand because minimalism gives you FOCUS.

If you’re a goal-oriented person like I am, then I highly suggested checking out this goal planner. It’s made by this super awesome blogger, Nadalie Bardo. She’s the Queen of slaying goals and the proof is in the pudding: she’s a super successful blogger and is just pumping out amazingly helpful content ALL the time.

If you’re a bit new to the goal planning world, you can check out her awesome Goal Setting 101 Course.  This course has everything you need to focus in on your goals and just get them done!

But in mean time, you can start out with my minimalist tips for achieving your goals!

6 ways that minimalism can help you achieve your goals:

There are two different elements of minimalism – there’s the physical side (having less stuff), and then there’s the mental side (thinking about less stuff).

So let’s start with the physical side of minimalism:

1) Less crap to deal with

This one is simple, but it’s also the most important.

When you become a minimalist – or even just start following some basic minimalist principles – you’ll be getting rid of a LOT of clutter. When you do this, you’ll probably begin to notice that all of a sudden you’ll have so much more time and energy that you can spend on doing stuff you actually love rather than just focusing on cleaning/dealing with/managing all your “stuff”.

2) Less distractions

If you have a huge house with tons of electronics, multiple cars, and different gadgets, those things are very likely going to distract you. And they probably aren’t the best use of your time.

Plus, material things eventually require repair/maintenance/replacement, which can take up your time that you could be spending on more important things

To top it off, when you keep wanting to buy more things, it’ll always be on your mind. That means more time spent thinking about shopping (an extreme time-killer).

3) Less spending and more financial freedom

This one’s a no brainer. If you have less and buy less, you will spend less. That way, you’ll have more money to invest in what really matters.

Getting rid of most of my stuff was the best decision I’ve ever made.

After spending 4 months living out of a small backpack while I was traveling, I realized just how happy I can be without all my junk.

I also feel more financially free than ever, because I know that I don’t need as much stuff in order to be happy.

I no longer feel the pressure to sell my soul just to make money – because I know I don’t need that much of it. I’ll be totally happy in my life with just a modest income.

Now that we’ve gone over the 3 “physical” elements of minimalism, it’s time to take a look at some of the more “mental” elements:

4) Less worry about things that don’t matter

If you really follow the principles of minimalism, you’ll probably feel the need to get rid of not only physical clutter, but mental clutter too.

I found that there were certain things that I thought about a lot on a daily basis, but they were not really serving me. They just kind of stressed me out.

One example for me was stopping the use of social media.

Now I still have accounts, but I rarely use them. Reason being is that I found I would think about it way too much. So, I unfollowed pretty much everyone on facebook, and basically only used instagram to follow my close friends and inspirational people.

This was a long time ago, and it has brought me so much mental space for other things, it’s crazy. I actually highly suggest it to everyone because social media can be crazy addictive.

If that example isn’t as relevant to you, here are some other examples of things that you could do to reduce some mental clutter:

• Stop watching so much tv/Netflix
• Stop watching the news, or looking up irrelevant information
• Cutting out toxic people from your life (if possible)
• Stop spending your time doing things that don’t truly bring you joy
• Quitting a job or activity that is causing more stress than good

Just take a minute to think about things in your life that are taking too much of your mental energy and start reducing them. It will free you up for much better things.

5) More focus on the things that do matter

So with all that mental and physical clutter out of the way, you will naturally have more time to focus!

This is integral when it comes to achieving your goals because you really do need to be able to focus.

And then when it comes time to have a break, you can actually relax and not being doing a bunch of unnecessary things.

6) Having a clearer vision of what you want

After numbers 4 and 5 have started working, then you will naturally start to have a clearer vision of what you want.

Some of you might already have a very clear vision of what you want from life, which is amazing, but a lot of us don’t.

My vision of what I want is pretty clear now, but it wasn’t before. I had an idea, but I found I was still focusing on some of the wrong stuff.

Sometimes I still am. I find though that every day, what I want becomes clearer and clearer.

It turns into a bit of a positive feedback loop, because as my goals solidify and become clearer, everything I do is focused on that, and then I start the reassess and refine my goals even further.

Then, with that kind of clarity and focus, your goals will start to almost come to you naturally.

Obviously you will have to put some hard work in, but all that work will be completely directed at helping you achieve the life that you want.

So if you were maybe sceptical about minimalism before or you need a little extra focus with some of your goals, you should definitely give minimalism a go!

BTW – this barely scratches the surface. There are so many other ways that minimalism can change your life, mind, and overall happiness. So I will get to those soon!

If you’re interested in learning more about what lifestyle changes you can make to help you live better, then I suggest checking out my free goal setting course! Which comes with 5 days of helpful information that will help you to make the lifestyle changes that will help you reach your goals! Plus tons of other free helpful worksheets!