How To Break Your Shopping Addiction Instantly

The meteoric rise of No-Buy challenges and movement shows how many are trying to rein in their out of control spending as costs continue to increase and put stress on often stagnant or in real dollars shrinking budgets. Unfortunately advertisers employ billions of dollars to study just how to get you to spend your hard-earned dollars on their clients’ products, almost all of which you never needed and are potentially bad for your health. For many of you this has created an addictive cycle of chasing the dopamine hits of discovering that “perfect” find. For example, you will notice checkout lines are filled with “Made in China” plastic tchotchkes because marketers know you have already worn down your willpower going through the store. The perils of fast fashion on the globe aside, this had led to overflowing closets, drained bank accounts, and a sense of missing in us.

So how can you break your addiction to consumption in an instant? My secret is a total mindset shift from consumption as your driver to production. Trust me, if you are focused on creating and producing your life’s work that solves other people’s problems, there is little to no time to shop. As we are building our business with a full-time job, kids and rentals, I barely even have time to grocery shop let alone shop for the fun of it. Time is your ultimate resource. Once you have made the decision to focus on producing, I recommend a Time Audit to learn how you currently spend your time and compare that to your goals and priorities to see whether there are any misalignments. Then you can plot next steps for using your time to build a new, profitable reality (sounds like a win-win to me!).

Instead of looking to purchases as the answer to our problems, take the action and put yourself out there to enhance not only others’ lives but your own. In my experience, putting something I have built out in to the world that helps people is so motivating and enlivening, that it makes me want to do it even more. We need to see beyond ourselves and figure out the contribution we can offer our family, friends, neighbors, and future customers. With a mindset shift from consumption to production, you can do just that! What is your passion? How can you package it to help others?

Let me know how it goes for you!