I used to have a set of china, a lovely place setting for twelve. I loved it. And when my husband and I sold or gave away our household full of things, it was one of the first things I let go.

Experienced declutterers and professional organizers don’t usually advise this. The often-heard suggestion is to start gently. You could begin by discarding duplicates, for example, then move along to something messy but not emotionally messy, like a bathroom cabinet or the garage. If you ramp up like this, building momentum before tackling complicated keepsakes, it can help you keep going. This advice works well for many people embarking on the long journey of rethinking and rehoming possessions, and whatever helps people along the highly personal path is good advice.

But there is something to be said for scoring a big win early on. My tip for successfully downsizing a houseful of things? Let go of a weighty thing first.

When our children were grown and my husband and I first talked about going minimalist and traveling full time, my mind would flash to that set of inherited china. Carefully stored for so many years. Marker of success, of a nice home, of a full life. How could I ever part with it? We kept talking, though, and the possibility of a new kind of life took shape.

It was time to take a hard look at that china. Opening the cabinet in the living room where I’d kept it for years, I took out a single, pretty plate. Normally I saw the set only at Thanksgiving and Christmas. I ran my finger along the silver flowers at the edge. They weren’t rare and not a great treasure in the monetary sense, but I had loved them, and there wasn’t a chip or crack in the whole enormous set. No signs of wear because so few of them were ever out of the cabinet; even when used, I brought out a fraction for my small family.

I set the plate in my lap, felt its weight. These dishes had become the emblem for all the heavy meaning I had invested in stuff. I had to remind myself they didn’t actually hold happy Christmas memories–I held those memories, together with my family. If I could manage to part with this china, I realized, glancing around at the accumulated stuff in the house, I could tackle the rest.

But all this was new to me. I wasn’t sure I could let them go.

Several weeks later, on the sunny morning of my neighborhood’s community yard sale, I set up a card table in the front yard and displayed my dishes, pretty sure I was about to take them right back into the house, back to the living room cabinet. I set a sky-high, I-dare-you-to-buy-this-from-me price in my head, then sat on the front step and waited. A few people walked by, took a look, and kept walking.

Good, I thought.

Then one man asked if he could take a photo of my china set. “I want to see what my wife thinks,” he told me.

“Okay,” I said, and I realized I knew him, the father of a former student of mine. He was a hardworking man with a big family to provide for.

He picked up a dish, gingerly set it down, then picked up another. He liked them, clearly. He looked at his phone.

“What did she say?” I asked.

“She loves them,” he said. “She says they’re the prettiest thing she’s ever seen, but she says they would be too much.” He ran his finger lightly along the rim of a bowl and began to turn away.

I halved the figure in my head, halved it again, then again. I gave him the price, and he grinned. “That would work,” he said.

I went inside for a good box and packing paper. We were going to wrap those dishes perfectly. We would get them to her safely, no chips in the whole set.

A half hour later, I had a few dollars in my pocket and the dishes were gone. I went back inside and closed the empty cabinet. Soon after I sold that, too. We sold or gave away almost everything, all but a few items in a neat row of boxes stored at a friend’s house while my husband and I travel full time. We’re unfettered in a way I didn’t even know was possible with a burgeoning household, laden with all kinds of things. I feel free.

Recently I was visiting someone with an oddly similar set of china–a different pattern but generally the same design–and brought to mind the china I once owned. I thought of the busy mom who now owns those pretty dishes. Maybe that sweet girl who was once a Kindergartener in my class has the job of setting the table with them on holidays. I hope they are used and enjoyed, part of a full life. And my husband and I are living a different kind of full life, one made possible when we let go of stuff.

It was a hard thing for me to let go of those dishes. By tackling a tough thing first, other items more easily followed. Selling the dishes for next to nothing allowed me to see myself as the kind of person who shares things, someone who knows I don’t need a lot to have enough. I liked that view of myself.

That early win set the tone for the rest of my journey toward minimalism. The dishes were weighty in many senses of that word, and that’s exactly why I let them go.

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About the Author: Launa Hall retired early from teaching to travel with her husband, write, and read more books. Read more from her here.