Recently, I learned a doozy of a new word that helps unpack the benefits and power of minimalism: pleiotropic.
If that isn’t a spelling bee kind of word I don’t know what is.
Pleiotropic means producing more than one effect. It is used most commonly when talking about genes and how they express themselves to positively or negatively effect other areas of your body and health. And I think it can be used to describe the plethora of things you get from minimalism.
Minimalism is, in fact, a pleiotropic intervention because it influences multiple aspects of our health and well-being.
When you choose a minimal mindset and decide to let in what adds meaning to your life you create space and spaces that positively affect your life on every level. And it is from those spaces that you can think, act, move, and grow.
A minimalist mindset and way of living affect how you live your life. It has tentacles that touch all areas of your well-being. And when it is present you make more conscious, deliberate decisions on what you need to eat well, sleep soundly, work efficiently, relate whole-heartedly, and love more deeply.
In fact, when you make meaning of what is in your physical space by digging and letting go you gain physical and mental clarity and that combination helps you be productive and successful in any endeavor you choose.
It helps you live and breathe with ease.
The power of minimalism also affects your ability to organize more specifically what you own in your head, heart, and home. When you can “organize” thoughts and things so that you can see them and use them, you function better. And that functioning well, plain and simple, makes you feel good.
It’s good to feel good and happy. So much is possible in it!
Those good feelings lead to a willingness to make changes or try something new or think outside the box. And doing those things is what pushes you to expand perhaps further than you ever thought you could.
When you feel good there is an optimism that can take over you. And it can leave you feeling as though anything is possible. {Because in fact, where there is a willingness, anything is possible.}
When you commit to minimalism – even on a small scale – the pleiotropic effect takes effect and you quickly find that living this way makes everything better.
It makes you better.
Yes, on a basic level minimizing your things and then organizing them in a way that makes sense for how you live and work, is useful. It allows you to “do” your life sanely. And sanity feels good.
But on a deeper level, it helps you more intentionally create your life. Intentionality is, in fact, more available to you when you have space mentally and physically to move. You think differently, more clearly, and perhaps more honestly. You have room to grow which is an essential component of creating anything.
In creating your life you learn about your purpose, and the impact you wish to have on the world. Purpose isn’t one, big giant thing that you discover somewhere down the road. It is a combination of things that come together to offer meaning in your life. Purpose, in fact, is the dots in your life – everything that you have done, and everything that you’re going to do – that get connected over time, that bring meaning and value to you, and to others.
All of those dots join together in the creation of your life. They make you who you are.
That is the power of minimalism. Its effects create that. It influences all aspects of your life because simply put, it allows you to produce more than one positive effect in your life.
Choose minimalism. It creates a pleiotropic intervention of the very best kind.
