Boost Motivation With Decluttering Videos, Podcasts, & Books

This is part of Stewie's Guide to Ruthlessly Declutter Your Clothes Today.

Let me tell you about my friend Joel.

Joel didn’t just wake up one day and decide to go vegan. It wasn’t a sudden epiphany or a bold overnight transformation. Instead, it was something quieter—something gradual.

At first, he was just curious. He started watching documentaries about veganism, sustainability, and animal cruelty. Not all at once, just thirty minutes a day, like a slow drip of information reshaping how he saw food, nutrition, and even himself.

And little by little, something shifted.

At some point, it wasn’t just about what Joal was eating anymore—it was about who he was becoming. He started thinking like a vegan, aligning himself with their values and goals. Meat and dairy lost their appeal, and before he knew it, going vegan wasn’t just easy—it was inevitable.

It wasn’t willpower or discipline that carried him through. It was something deeper: he had changed his environment, and in doing so, he had changed himself.

Now, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about Joel’s transformation.

I’m not vegan (I love a good bacon cheeseburger), but if I surrounded myself with enough of that content—if I immersed myself in that world—I’d start trending in that direction, too.

That’s the power of mimetic desire.

It’s a simple but profound truth: we don’t just imitate other people—we imitate their desires.

Think about it. If your five closest friends start raving about a new book, you’ll feel like you need to read it. If they all pick up intermittent fasting, you’ll probably start skipping breakfast, too. If my daughter sees her brother grab a toy car, suddenly, that car is the only thing she wants.

We are wired to absorb the wants of the people around us. Sometimes, that’s a bad thing—chasing trends we don’t really care about, buying things we don’t actually need. But other times? It’s an incredible tool for change.

Because if we want to declutter—if we want to create more space, more simplicity, more freedom—we can use mimetic desire to our advantage.

What if, instead of being surrounded by consumer culture, we immersed ourselves in the opposite?

What if, instead of endless advertisements and shopping hauls, we filled our world with minimalist content—podcasts, books, YouTube videos, documentaries?

What if we spent time with people who value less instead of more?

What if we changed our environment just enough to make decluttering feel natural?

I know this works because I’ve done it myself.

So if you’re struggling to let go, if decluttering feels overwhelming, if you don’t know where to start—maybe don’t start with the stuff at all.

Start with what you consume.

Let yourself be influenced by people who have already found the peace you’re looking for. Immerse yourself in a world where simplicity is the goal, where decluttering is second nature.

And then, watch what happens.

Because little by little, it won’t feel like a chore anymore. It won’t feel forced. It won’t feel like something you should do—it will just feel like you.

Next steps…