3 Ways To Make It Stop

In a recent post I asked When does it stop? referring to the constant thinking and planning and searching and strategizing and rationalizing and justifying that goes through the shopaholics mind as she stays on the treadmill of buying more and more.

In this post, I’d like to share some ways you can make it stop.  Nobody’s life is enhanced by constant shopping.  Nobody’s.  I have learned, the hard and soul-searching way, that life — not the kind of life you love to live anyway — is not found in the mall.

Life is not to be relished when your constant thoughts are about what you don’t have and what you want to be buying.

Life is found in connection to other people, to experiences we have, and to contributions we make.

So in the spirit of helping you locate your own beautiful life, one that isn’t centred on more and more shopping, I offer these 3 tips for making it stop.

3 Ways to Make it Stop

1. Stop focusing on what’s ‘out there’ to be purchased, to add to your wardrobe. This is essential – no real or lasting change can be made without this shift in focus. If you don’t do this, you will be forever the alcoholic walking past bar after bar, using ever-dwindling willpower to keep you out of them. Don’t set yourself up to fail that way! In fact, I encourage you to have a shopping hiatus (here’s how a shopping hiatus can help) as one way of interrupting the pattern of buy-buy-buy all the time.
2. Shift your focus to what you already have, items in your existing closet, rather than items ‘out there’ in the stores.  This tip presupposes that you will continue to focus on the clothes, but it’s who those clothes belong to and where they are located that makes all the difference in the world.  The clothes I would encourage you to focus on, if you wish to continue to focus on clothing, belong to you and are located in your own closet.  I have a whole raft of shop your wardrobe strategies – check them out here.
3. This is actually my #1, favourite tip.  This is my best suggestion because it is one that has made all the difference in the world to me as I travel on my journey of conscious consumption.  And here it is:  shift your focus away from clothing (yours and especially those in the stores) onto what kind of a life you want to live and love.  Focus on how you can create a rich, fulfilling life, a happy life, without shopping taking up so much space in it.  I can almost guarantee that, when you get to the nub of it all, a rich, fulfilling and happy life puts shopping in a much smaller place than it occupies when you are constantly thinking and planning and searching and strategizing and rationalizing and justifying about all the items you don’t own that you could buy, if you continued to shop at the rate you are now.  And if you’re looking for ideas to inspire your life instead of shopping, check out these shop less and live more daily postcards.

I wish for you the most wonderful life you could imagine.  That’s what opens my heart when I sit down to write posts like this.  How can I encourage you to get in touch with the soul kernel within yourself that yearns to soar, to love, to live… without shopping all the time?

You may also like:

When Does It Stop? How to Stop Buying Junk Clothes More Ways to Avoid Senseless Online Shopping Your Precious Life