Choosing to live in a small or tiny house often means going against mainstream expectations. While the benefits—less clutter, more freedom, greater financial flexibility—are compelling, navigating relationships with those who don’t understand these choices requires mental preparation.
3 Foundational Beliefs for Simple Living
These mindset shifts help maintain clarity when pursuing an unconventional lifestyle.
1. Filter Advice by Results
Friends, family, and colleagues often offer opinions on subjects they haven’t experienced. Before accepting advice, ask: “Does this person have results I actually want?”
The Practice: Only accept guidance from those with demonstrated success in areas you’re pursuing. Well-meaning advice from unqualified sources often reflects their fears, not your reality.
2. Avoid Living by Others’ Rules
Nobody knows what’s best for you better than you do. While outside perspective has value, allowing others to talk you out of genuine desires typically leads to regret.
Family members may resist because they fear seeing you take risks. Others may be unconsciously jealous of your courage to do something different.
As Steve Jobs said: “Don’t be trapped by dogma—which is living with the results of other people’s thoughts.”
The Practice: Once you’ve made a considered decision, own it. If you don’t make your own choices, others will make them for you—and their choices will prioritize your safety over your dreams.
3. Embrace the Power of Less
Reducing possessions—clothing, furniture, paperwork, square footage—creates space for new experiences, relationships, and opportunities.
Physical clutter connects to mental clutter. Old possessions carry old associations. Clearing physical space often creates surprising mental clarity and focus.
The Practice: Before acquiring anything new, consider whether you’ll eventually need to get rid of it. Less stuff means more focus.
Lessons for Simplifying Your Life
- Results Matter More Than Opinions: Evaluate advice based on the advisor’s actual experience and outcomes
- Fear Often Masquerades as Concern: Others’ resistance may reflect their own discomfort with unconventional choices
- Inaction Is Also a Choice: Not deciding lets others decide for you
- Physical and Mental Clutter Connect: Clearing one often improves the other
- Less Creates More: Fewer possessions means more energy, focus, and resources for what matters
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Alex
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Great article Alex!! I think these are all great, but I really like “the power of less”. The rest is great tips for overcoming negativity/objections.
Thanks Andrew!
Your tips and articles are always great and useful advice. I recieved huge critisism from my relatives over my choice. But I do understand there not living my life. But I have to say to all that are living the with less, Where not living the other people around us lives either. As you want to be treated treat those who live in a 5000sq foot home the same as your buddy in the 210 sq. Where humans with very diffrent ideal.
I Think this is one of the best posts ever.. It goes to show there is so much more to the tiny house movement than just living in tiny small spaces.. It’s a way of life that goes way beyond tiny homes.. teaching people how to organize and get some structure in their lives. And in doing so learning to eat healthier, embracing a more stress free life style. the list is endless what the tiny house movement can provide.. Because less is really more, depending on how one applies it.. I found this quoit somewhere that reads ( I found that not needing anything more , than I have already….I want less__) and that happens to be true in my case.. Also possessions the more you own the more they own you…Hope to see more posts like this on tiny house talk As well as more interesting tiny dwellings . Keep up the good work…
Thanks Dominick I’m so glad you found it valuable!
Oh man that was maybe the best post I have read.. It’s a big pick up when so many ppl are going the other way… I really like the “power of less” it’s so true
Keep it up Alex
Thanks Oscar!
For me it’s getting rid of what I don’t need, want, or even know I have in order to enjoy what I do like and have more.
Oops, lost part of my post. Meant to say I like the first thought best. I’ve known it, but never heard it put quite that way. I am quite aware that my dad expresses “concern” in order to justify his own lifestyle, not to argue against mine. Thankfully most people in my life are accepting and even eager to see how it works. And several have begun their own reduction plans.
Thanks Mary!
I kept saying “so true, so true” as i read this. We’ve decided that downsizing our lives is the best thing for us and are embracing quality over quantity. We know that not everyone will understand our choices but that’s ok because we are happy with it.
Great superb article Alex. I will be saving it for future reference/inspiration.
Thank you Romina so glad that you found it valuable.
Best post ever Alex for sure, something we can all relate to no matter how far along the process we are.
Thanks Andy!
To pare down has been a struggle. I come from a long line of “pack rats” and have been developing similar lines of thinking over the years. My personal observations of myself and other family members leads me to realize that even though things are inanimate they can still be controlling (probably because one so willingly cedes power to things instead of reserving for oneself the power of self determination). Bottom line is things can be controlling by demanding too much of our time and attention. Life is too short for that!
Thanks, Peter, I totally agree.
Amen!
Since you asked for comments…. I would like to say that not everyone believes their “stuff” is a curse or a burden. I enjoy my stuff, my clothes, my homes – both the large one and the tiny house also. I feel blessed to have both. I am blessed to be able to clean and care for my homes and my possessions/stuff. For me, I feel powerful having choices, -such as living choices, (my big house or my tiny house). I don’t see why a person’s choice of home size should make them more or less powerful. I guess it depends on if a person is defined by their “stuff”. I don’t look at my mortgage, land, homes or stuff as a burden, only a blessing. In the tiny house movement I have met more people that belive others should down size and reduce their lifestyles way more than large home owners pushing their way of life ahd home size on others as the way to go. I like what you said – Nobody knows what’s best for you, better than you. As a tiny home owner, I don’t like to see it become a movement. Minimalist lifestyle is not for everyone, and certainly not for this tiny home owner. I consider myself a powerful woman and I have time for people and activities that are important to me. I am also able to focus my mind and energy inspite of all my stuff and owning more than one home. Just wanted to share ‘the other side’.
Thanks, Tonita, great perspective
This is an excellent post and very, very timely.
“Ruling Out Dogma
Nobody knows what’s best for you better than you.” Well stated and I agree 100%.
This past weekend a free copy of this DVD – IndoctriNation: Public Schools and the Decline –Colin Gunn $17.95, was sent to me free by director himself of The Exodus Mandate Project. Today I watched the DVD and was further informed about this timely issue in our society. Since graduating from high ‘skool’ myself, I have never attended my high school reunion. After high skool, I travelled the North America continent, visiting and staying a length in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. I had a lively time. In later life, very late in life, I went to college and finished Henderson State University not-so-recently. I have never liked public ‘skooling’ back then and now. Years ago, I read John Gatto’s books, and donated them to the local library when I lived in Bismarck, ND in an efficiency apartment. I also read, Escape from Childhood John C. Holt (Author), his other books years ago.
This DVD – IndoctriNation: Public Schools and the Decline –Colin Gunn sits alongside all of my small house books in my tiny home here in Arkansa.
The Exodus Mandate Project is offering a one-year emergency plan to rescue Christian children from the godless, pagan public schools and to place them in K-12 private Christian schools or Christian homeschooling. This rescue plan, the “Call to Dunkirk ,” is named after the World War II event of 1940 in which 340,000 British and Allied troops were miraculously rescued from the beaches of Dunkirk in the face of the German Nazi War machine. State-run public schools have become destructive to our children’s Christian faith. They no longer educate but rather indoctrinate. Not only morally corrupt, public schools are unsafe because of the violence and crime that occurs in them on a regular basis.
Barefootin’, drinking spring water and living tiny in rural south central Arkansas (I have no children in the public school system, EVER.)
Hey Alex, just wanted to thank you again for this post. Found myself re-reading it last night after I posted some tiny house floor plans that I had sketched up using Floorplanner to my FB page. I almost immediately got a load of flack from “friends” about how impractical it all was, how I’d never actually get on and make anything of it and what a huge mistake it was to even consider living in something so small. So I made the album private and deleted the comments but was stuck with this huge negative feeling about the whole experience and doubts about my plans.
After re-reading the post, all that went away. It’s MY life, not theirs. This is MY dream, not theirs, and it will be MY home, not theirs. With any luck the prospect of visiting a home they so obviously disapprove of will be enough to keep them and their negativity off my porch.
Thanks again.
Hey Andy thanks for sharing that, I’m so glad that the article was able to help you get past other people’s judgements about YOUR life. Rock on Andy!!
Alex,
This is one of the best posts I’ve read. It really sums up the idea of the simplified life in such a concise way. Expressing what so many of us feel, but always haven’t been able to articulate, while validating that we aren’t wacky for our way of thinking. When I talk about living in a tiny house my entire family looks at me like I’ve gone insane, yet they don’t want to care for all the stuff either, becuase “there is too much of it.” I just found your website today coming over from Tiny r(E)olution. I’m so glad I did.
Thanks, Donna! I’m really glad and honored that you found it helpful. Wishing you the best, Alex
I could not have said it better myself! Going against the grain is not easy especially if you care what others think. You have to ignore the nay-sayers! Only you know what you really want and it’s your job to go out and get it! I loved this article.
Thanks Melinda!! 🙂
Fantastic! All of it! Bizarre how the RIGHT words at the right time show up when you need it the most. Mark and I have just begun our journey toward the simple life and the Na-say-ers are coming out in force! We are losing our 3 bed house and it has forced us out of our comfort zone to follow our dream of a clean, sustainable lifestyle. We have come to find that there are many people with the same dream who can drowned out the negative talk! Family, friends, and even complete strangers have contributed to our fundraiser to build our Tiny House, we have decided to call the “Brumbillweed”. On our webpage at: http://www.gofundme.com/BuildOurTumbleweed, you can view our progress. A video blog of our building is soon to follow!
The best to you Mark and Sheri!
Case in point, in the past there were others who lived small, too: April 27, 2012
100 Years of Staying Put
By BENJAMIN WEISER and NOAH ROSENBERG
“At first, the family lived in two rooms behind the candy store, which also sold toys, cigars, newspapers and comic books, ” Ms. Jacobs recalled. The family later moved to an apartment above the shop; Ms. Jacobs described the building as “a real tenement house.” The family had a washtub in the kitchen, and shared a toilet in the hall with neighbors. “Living was very modest,” she said, adding that it was hard to invite friends over, unless they were familiar with tenement life. “
“They kept the building at No. 502 as a rental property; its rear cottage became a favorite landing spot for writers like Judith Thurman, the essayist, and later, the novelist Donna Tartt, who lived there for about a decade, until 2004. “It was a perfect retreat,” Ms. Tartt said, “like a tree house or a doll’s house you’d dream of living in as a child, with its own secret garden.” “It was also very quiet, and I could work there in perfect seclusion, reading and writing.”
Living small in rural south central sunny Arkansas
Omg, my hero lol I especially loved #1. I have this problem all the time with my family and a few friends. Best advice ever.
Hi Thanks for your page, just made me realise more fully that the things you talked about are the things I am hankering after, less stuff, less work, more time to enjoy and be creative, instead of working to create more crap to be honest….x
A kinder way is to redirect those who love us by saying things like, “you know, what I could really use is how do you do ???? whatever it is that you need. Then they transition to the helping you and moving in the same direction as you are in support of your way. We don’t have to be what we own ever! Many were fooled into that way of thinking just as many today are fooled into a one world government and one world money dream so governments can control the people. We don’t have to do that, we can be the INDIVIDUALS that God made us and still be a Community of like minded people. It’s ok to need one another and it’s ok when we don’t need someone to walk on our own. Good article Alex.
You gave great advice. Minimalism I believe is a theory. My family has given me and only me the chore off cleaning the entire house by Christmas. My husband has no room to talk. I’ll get it done. I need to downsize what I don’t craft with anymore. Getting rid of the material items will reduce my stress. Stress aggravates my rare, progressive, uncurable disease Stiff Person Syndrome with parkinsonism. Happy memories and faith reduces life’s clutter. I’ve planned for years to move and live in a Tiny House by myself and be my own boss. Free to do what I want to do when I want to do it. Did I get off topic?
I love getting rid of stuff. Makes me feel light & free. My goal is to have everything I own fitting into my Subaru Forester so moving is easy.