Have you ever bought something on SALE only to feel regretful afterwards wondering why you bought it?
Or just felt horrible right after clicking the ‘Pay’ button?
If you’ve experienced this you’ve made an impulse buy and if you do this often I’m sorry to say, but you’re an addict.
An addiction to impulsive buying. So with the new year here if you’re serious about your new goals you’re going to have to learn the 3 keys to busting this addiction!
If you’re like most people then you probably have goals that require some money. Maybe it might be to save for a new car or to travel somewhere. Or maybe you just want to ditch the credit card and actually start seeing more 0’s on the left of that dot.
All of these things requires us to learn how to say No to impulse purchases, so that we can say ‘Hell Yeah’ to those big meaningful purchases. We’re flooded with more products to buy than ever in the history of mankind. Not to mention tempted in so many new ways through marketing that no wonder it’s crazy hard to keep our money where it belongs.
In our hands!
See picture it like this.
Your goal to buy that house/car/trip is like when you were younger and wanted to go to the circus (back in the day!). So imagine your parents said you can go and gave you $10, just enough to buy a ticket to the circus. When they drop you off to the carnival you have to walk through all the stores to get to the circus. Thing is you have all these awesome games to play for $5 or the addictive cotton candy for $2. What about that crazy corn-dog for $3 that looks soooooooooo good in the picture!?
This is what is happening with your life all the time!
These distractions come up to block you from getting what you want (to get to the circus or the cat video). So it’s vital to learn how to drown out all the noise and distractions and to focus on:
- Why you truly want it?
- What would it give you when you have it?
- What would having it make you feel?
When you consider these questions you start to then see the distractions in a new light. Through asking yourself the right questions, you’ll be able to make better decisions to overcome your impulsive habits. When you start to master your self-talk, especially when it comes to buying decisions, you can then begin to filter out the rubbish distractions to achieve your real goal. Most of all when you get this process right you can ditch that horrible ‘Buyer’s Regret’! You know that feeling after you’ve just bought that thing and then ask yourself “What the hell did I just buy?”
Let’s stop being a slave to our impulsive habits and start being a master of them.Here are the top 3 actions you can take to Bust your Impulsive Buying Urges (or any impulsive urges you have) for good:
#1 – Pay Your Taxes
The government takes taxes out of your pay before you get it. You need to apply a tax on yourself. Just pay yourself first, no matter what!
See most people never value themselves enough to put together for a savings plan. By applying this ‘tax’ on yourself first to take the money from your pay check out immediately for your goal it gives you another reason to not buy impulsively. Since there’s no money to buy it with as the funds have been ‘taxed’
#2 – The 1min Rule
When you see that awesome sale item instead of clicking add to cart and paying for it. Give yourself a time-out. Walk away from the computer, set the phone down, move onto another part of the store for 1min.
This process gives space to allow your emotions of ‘OMG it’s soooooo cheap!!’ to settle down. After the 1min is over if you really want the item then now you’ve shifted yourself into a conscious choice to buy it. Eliminating the pain of the buyer’s regret! I challenge you to try it out next time, it works a treat for the Netflix addiction! Do it after an episode ends and walk away for 1min…
You’ll finally get to feel good after watching a marathon of episodes rather than feeling crap.
#3 – Get in Control
The real barrier to most impulsive buying habits is the belief that ‘I just can’t control myself when I see a great sale, an awesome bargain or that awesome new gadget I never thought I needed!’
Stop lying to yourself about being a slave to your impulses. Who is the one that pulls the credit card out? Who is it that smiles when they put it in the bag or ship it over to you to sign?
You are responsible and you have choices. You just have to start to decide to be the master of your impulsive urges by getting crystal clear on what it is you want. When you know what it is you want you give yourself the ammunition to say ‘No’. This is so critical because the longer you can delay gratification the more likely you are to be a success. See there was this study done a while back with kids and marshmallows.
What they did was they would put a kid in the room and leave two marshmallows on the table. They would tell them that if they didn’t eat the marshmallows they would come back in an hour and give them four marshmallows. If they ate the marshmallows they wouldn’t get any more. They followed up with the kids many, many years later and those that were able to delay gratification of the rewards turned out to be earning more than those that weren’t!
The power of mastering your impulsive urges has massive impacts on the rest of your life. You’ll all know it because you’ve had to practise this in your health in order to be where you are. You’ve busted your impulsive sugar, drinking and junk food urges to have the body you want. Finances and the rest of your life follow the same rules. By following these 3 starter tips you’ll be back to breaking your impulsive shopping habits and well on your way to that big goal of yours.