Transcription
If you are an impulse shopper, you see something, you want it, you buy it, and then almost immediately you feel regret, this video is for you. Your spending is happening faster than your logical brain can keep up with it sometimes, which often leaves you feeling frustrated, out of control, and ashamed with drained savings accounts, credit card balances that keep going up, and cluttered environments.
Now, I know this impulsive spending pattern so well because I lived it myself for many years and I've also spent many years studying it on a deep level and actually coming up with solutions and teaching those solutions to thousands of women that actually work. Yes, my approach is different, but it's also highly effective because it's based on you building up an understanding of what is happening in your brain when you're wanting to make that impulse purchase rather than trying to fight against your brain with discipline, budgets, or willpower.
Make sure you watch this entire video because I am going to break down for you my three-phase approach that is going to help you stop your impulse spending in its tracks. These three strategies are going to put you back in control, helping you feel peaceful, powerful, and in control with your money while still getting to spend on things that you love. So, let's get started.
So, the first thing that's really important that we define is what is the difference between impulsive spending and intentional spending. So when we are talking about impulsive spending, what we're really talking about here is the speed at which your purchases are happening. So it's this notion of I see it, I want it, I buy it. Boom, boom, boom. The purchase is happening very, very fast. There's not a whole lot of pause. There's not a whole lot of thinking. There's a lot of urgency behind the purchase. And that time that we have between your initial desire to buy something and then the actual decision to buy it, that time between those two points is very, very thin.
Another way that you can think about this is often times impulsive purchases are unplanned. So, it could be that you go to a store to buy something that is very much planned, but then let's say you're standing in the checkout line at the HomeGoods or the TJ Maxx and you know you're in that long aisle [laughter] that feels like it's like a mile long waiting to get through the checkout line and there's all that stuff on the side and you see things and you're just like throwing it in. We can also make a lot of impulsive purchases at places like Costco or Sam's Club with food, right? Like we go in for our staples, but then we end up walking around and we're like, "Ooh, that looks cool. Let me throw it in. Let me throw it in."
So, it's not only the speed at which your purchasing is happening, but it's this nature of was it planned or was it unplanned? And the reason that we want to move away from making impulsive spending purchases and having our purchases be more intentional, meaning they are slower, they are more deliberate, they are more planned, is because from what I experienced with myself and thousands of you, I would say that most of the time the rule is when you make an impulsive purchase, you will end up feeling buyer's remorse, buyer's regret. There's a crash that comes afterwards. So, not only do you not feel great about the purchase, but the other problem is that you end up buying a lot of things that you don't really get a lot of use or a lot of value out of.
I find, and you're going to know this by the time that we get to the end today, is that most impulsive purchases are not actually about the thing that you're buying. Like, of course, you see the thing that you're buying and you're like, "Ooh, that looks cool. I really like that. Like, that's cute." Or, "That looks cool." Or that would be perfect here. But the thing that actually gets you to pull the trigger and make the purchase is the need or the desire for a quick hit of dopamine, trying to escape discomfort, wanting to be entertained, wanting to make that rushed decision. And so when we do that, those are typically the purchases that we look back after the fact and we're like, why did I do that? Why did I make this purchase? Like I don't even want this thing. If I'm really looking back at it like I truly have no use of this thing.
So that's why we want to be moving away from impulsive purchases because if you were to go and take an inventory of all the impulsive purchases that you've ever made, you might be able to find a couple that you're sitting there going, "Yeah, like that was a great purchase. I don't regret it." But I think that you'll find that the majority of your purchases, you don't get a lot of use or value out of them, and there was a high amount of regret or or remorse attached to them.
When we are making these impulsive choices, we're in a very short-term mindset, and we neglect to think about the long-term consequences that these purchases are causing. And so that's why often impulsive purchasers are the leading drivers of depleted savings and increasing credit card balances and just clutter that gets built up in our environment because we're making them in a very short-term frame of mind.
If you are new here or new to my world, maybe you are and maybe you're not, but one thing needs to be abundantly clear is that spending money is not bad. Spending is abundant. It is what your money is made for. So, one thing that I want to make sure that is so clear to all of us, is that the goal of this process is not to get to a point where you're saying, "I'm never spending any money ever again at all on anything." And I know to some of you that might sound obvious, but trust me when I say that it is such a predominant message in the personal finance space that what being financially responsible looks like is to never spend money. That frugality or minimalism is the goal and that if you spend money or if you buy things or if you have stuff, you're a bad person. Okay? Spending is an abundant act. It is what your money is made for. Again, we just want to make sure that we are doing it in an intentional way versus an impulsive way.
So, how do we do that though? How do we actually slow down our shopping, slow down our purchases when we are in those moments where emotion is really high, logic is really low, urgency and scarcity kind of prompt us to make these super fast impulsive decisions? I have three pillars that I'm going to be walking you through. And what you'll notice is that each of these pillars kind of have like A, B, and C to them. So, we're going to say like 1 A, 1 B, 1 C. But there's three main things that if you can take and implement even just some of what I teach you here in our time together today, I promise you that you will be such a more intentional spender.
Now, I do want to say I'm going to give you a lot of tools here in our time together today. And this is not to say that you need to do every single one of these. In fact, I probably wouldn't recommend doing every single one of these because if you do, it's just going to be too much for you to do. I've talked to some of you guys where you'll tell me, "Oh my god, this tool was so helpful for me." And then I'll talk to another person and they're like, "That tool didn't work at all for me. It actually had the opposite effect on me." The goal isn't to execute this perfectly and to be doing every single thing that I teach you. The goal is to be listening, learning, and picking out and applying what you think is going to work best for you with your spending in your situation. Okay, let's jump in.
Strategy one is implementing what I call the 3Ds. The 3Ds. Okay, here are the 3Ds. We want to put as much distance as we can between the initial desire that you have to buy and your decision to ultimately buy the thing, the item, the experience, whatever it is. So, distance is the key here. And when I say distance, what I mean by that is time, time, distance. Time is oxygen to your prefrontal cortex.
So here is what's happening neurologically. When there is something that you want to buy and you feel that strong urge just to go out and impulsively buy it, when that happens, your brain is being flooded with dopamine. And the prefrontal part of your brain, your prefrontal cortex, which is the part of your brain that controls decision-making and long-term thinking and goal setting, and it's the part of your brain that can weigh pros and cons and consequences, is debilitated in a sense. It's kind of like going offline. And when that part of your brain is suppressed, that is not a state of mind that we want to be making our purchasing decision from, right? So distance meaning time gives that part of your brain to come back online. If you do not give yourself any amount of time, then you are going to be making your spending choices from a very impulsive and emotional place. So the more distance that we can put between your initial desire to buy something and your decision to buy it, the better.
Now I know that in theory this sounds easy and in theory it is easy and it is simple but the real life execution of it can be a lot harder. So I want to give you some tools here that are going to help you build in this distance. So the first tool which is a tool that I think everybody needs to have and it can be in whatever form you want it to be and you can call it whatever you want to call it. I call mine a things I want to buy list. Some people call theirs a wish list, but you need to have some sort of tool or space where you can log and keep track of all of the things that you see that you want to buy but we're not going to buy right now. So, I call mine a things I want to buy list. And in fact, I have done a past podcast episode just on this tool. That past episode is episode 93 of the podcast if you want to go listen to that. But what this is is it's a separate tool that you have where you keep a running list of all the things that you want to buy. So I keep mine in Notion. You can do it in the notes app of your phone. You can just keep a running list in a journal. Like it really doesn't matter. The only thing that I would say is to keep it away from actual online stores. So for instance, a very common example I hear from this is people will want to keep their wish list like on their Amazon wish list. And I would just say like maybe don't do that because in order to access the wish list you have to go to Amazon. I think that having a place where you can just keep everything a running list from all different types of stores is best and most effective. And on that list when you see something that you want to buy, you're going to know what it is. You're going to know where it's from. You're going to know how much it costs. You're going to put links to it. Right? If you want to. If it was something that you saw in person, you might just take a picture of it and snap a picture and that could go on your list. But it's just this running list of things you want to buy.
Now, here's the reason that this tool is so effective. I know that this tool doesn't sound that earth-shattering and it doesn't seem that groundbreaking. Like, I get that. The first time I heard to do this, I was like, really? Like I don't really even think that that's going to be that effective because I think a lot of times we get into the mental trap of thinking that in order for something to be effective or to help us in a meaningful way, it has to be like super complicated. Like we think like, oh, this is too simple. It couldn't possibly work. But I'm telling you, it works. And I'm going to tell you why is because your impulsive brain is operating very much under a now or never mindset. When you see something and you want to make that impulsive decision, your brain is telling itself it's either now or never. It's do or die. And of course, when you are giving your brain those two options between now or never, which one do you think that your brain is going to choose? Right? It's going to choose the now. It's going to be like, "Let's do it now." Because if we don't do it now, we never will. And there's something in our brains called loss aversion, which is essentially FOMO. It's FOMO in our brain. It's this fear of missing out. And what they say is that the fear of loss is twice as powerful as the excitement of gaining. So often times when we are making impulsive purchases, it's not even because we're mostly chasing the rush and the high of the buy, we're actually trying to prevent ourselves from experiencing the loss or the FOMO. This is now or never.
Now, the reason that this tool is so effective is because it shifts that narrative from it's not a never, it's just a not right now. And that is a massive, massive difference to your brain. Again, it's a small and subtle shift, but it actually ends up making a huge difference with your purchases. Because when you take something and you put it on a things I want to buy list, what you're telling your brain in that moment is we can get it later if we want to. We're just not going to get it right now. Like, we just saw this thing. We just learned about it. We just figured out that it existed. If this is something that I truly want, I can come back and get it later. And so what you're doing is you're kind of telling your brain like the famous saying, like you're saying there's a chance, [laughter] right? It's like, okay, so you're saying there's a chance. We can come back later and we can get this thing if we want. We're just not going to get it right now. And just having that distinction of it's not an ever, it's just a not right now gives your impulsive urges so much immediate relief when you know I can put this on my list and I can revisit it at a later time.
And that leads me into the second tool in this first pillar. So things I want to buy list was 1 A. Now I'm going to take you into 1 B. And I think this is really important that you pair all of these tools together. Here is you have your things I want to buy list and then I also think it's really helpful to have something that I call pause protocols. Now, you've probably heard other people talk about this before, but a pause protocol, that's just the term that I came up with it for, is you just deciding ahead of time how much distance we are going to build in between desire and decision based on your predetermined rules for yourself and maybe what the item is or how much we're spending. So, everybody's pause protocols can and should look a little bit different, but here's just some examples of what I mean. You could set a pause protocol where you say, "Okay, anything under $50, I'm going to wait 72 hours. And then anything between like $51 and $200, I have to wait at least a week. And anything above $200, I have to wait a pay cycle or I have to wait a whole month or whatever it is." Now, again, I literally just made that up. So you can make your pause protocols whatever you want in terms of the amounts and in terms of the amount of time. But the important part here is that you decide these limits ahead of time. So you are saying that okay I see this thing that I want to buy. I'm going to stick it on my things I want to buy list. And based on where that falls within my pause protocols now it's just very clear to me how long I am going to wait for this thing.
Pause protocols are so powerful you guys. Like I'm telling you it time is like oxygen to your prefrontal cortex. I know I keep saying that but it's just so true. There have been so many times and so many instances where something has gone on my list and maybe it's like a bigger ticket item and I tell myself like I have to wait at least a pay cycle for this and then I go back and I look at it and I revisit it a month later and I'm like I don't even want this thing anymore. I just got a little excited about it in the moment or the desire for the thing has completely gone away. The desire for the thing has passed and then I just take it off the list. That alone, these two tools paired together has probably over the years that I've been utilizing them saved me thousands of dollars.
One more tool I want to offer you here. So, think of this as like 1 C, another tool that you can use to build in some distance and practice the 3Ds. It's a little bit different than your pause protocols, but it's something called consumption commandments. And if you haven't been able to tell by now, I really like alliteration. [laughter] Pause protocols. Consumption commandments, right? But consumption commandments are a little bit different than pause protocols in that they are commandments or rules in a sense. Or if you don't like to use the word rules because that feels too restrictive, just think of them as supportive boundaries or loving guidelines that you decide for yourself that help make your consumption decisions easier. And I'm going to give you some examples here of what I'm talking about, but consumption commandments can be really powerful because they make the decision for you easy in the moment. And in a lot of cases, they just make the decision for you ahead of time. When you know like, okay, doing this and making this impulsive purchase would go against one of my consumption commandments, it becomes so much easier in the moment just to walk away and just to say, okay, I'm not going to make this purchase. It's not aligned. It goes against one of my consumption commandments.
So consumption commandments are more around the nature of the purchase. So it can be the time of day that you're making the purchase. It could be um the actual items that you're buying. It's less about the amount of time that you're building in and more just around the specifics of the purchase. So, let me give you some examples. This will help. One, these are a couple for me. I don't buy things on my phone. I just decided that a couple years ago. I just decided, you know what? Buying things on my phone gets too easy, too fast, too frictionless. So, I just decided I'm just not going to buy things on my phone. If I want to buy something, has to be in person or I have to be sitting at my desktop computer to do it. Number two, again, these are just examples, but I don't buy something just because it's on sale. So, if I see something and I haven't been considering buying it prior to knowing it's on sale, if I wouldn't pay full price for the item, I don't just then go and buy it because it's on sale. So, I was talking to one of you that told me and I thought this one was really good that you don't allow yourself to make purchases at night. I thought that was really good. Christina Mihos, if you follow her, I know one thing that she's doing this year is she is trying to the best of her ability to not buy anything online, only buying things in store. I love that one. Another one for me, and this one specifically goes with like clothes or more like decorative items, is that it has to be like a full body absolute hell yes or it's a no. I want to put something on and wear something and be like, I absolutely 100% love this. It is a full body yes. It's not fine. It's not okay. It's not like eh like it works. It's good enough. It's either like a hell yes or no. Some other ones I've heard from you guys is like no fast fashion. So there's just certain stores that you know like I'm not going to be supporting these stores or I'm not going to be buying from there. A rule that I have is always shopping my closet before I go and shop something new. So anytime I have like a wedding or a shower or a work thing or whatever it is and my brain wants to offer me that thought of like, "Oh, let's go shopping. Like we're going to need a new outfit for this." I always challenge myself to go shop my closet before buying something new. And then another one that I've implemented that has saved me so much over the years is I always use up a product that I have before I go and I buy a replacement for it. So, if there is, let's just say there's a new foundation that I want to try, I don't go out and buy the new foundation that I want to try until I'm out of the current foundation that I have. Or maybe it's a fragrance that you want to try. Or maybe it's a new skin care serum that you want to try. This one can be really big and really helpful, especially in the beauty product space where we tend to have like 15 lip liners that are all the same color and 10 foundation bottles and five different serums. My consumption commandment around this is that I use up what I have. And once I use up what I have, then that can open the door for an opportunity to if I do want to try something new at that time, I can and I will.
Okay, so those are my three best suggestions for the first impulsive to intentional pillar here of the three Ds. Remember, distance, distance, distance. That's what we're going for here. Have a things I want to buy list. Have your pause protocols and have your consumption commandments. And if you want to, you can post them in the comments so you can share them with the group. Everyone can see what they are.
Number two, and I just want to say too, I know I am so out of breath. I am seven months pregnant recording this [laughter] video. So, yes, I am very, very, very much out of breath. So, y'all just go with me here. I'm going to have to take some deep breaths as we get through this because y'all know I just get so excited about this stuff and I get going and then I like I can't breathe. I [laughter] can't breathe. So, here we go.
Okay, pillar two. Pillar two. This is where we start to dig a little deeper here. This is where we get into the more emotional side of our impulsive spending is when you slow yourself down and you ask yourself the question, what is it that I really need or want right now in this moment? What is it that I think that I'm going to be getting from making this impulsive purchase? Because it's never about the thing that you're buying, you guys. It's not it's not about the item. It's not about the book. It's not about the gadget. It's not about the sweater or the pretty earrings. It is about the promise behind the purchase.
What I teach is that your purchases are like an onion. They have lots of different layers to them. But at the very core layer of every purchase you're ever going to make is going to be what I call the emotional promise. Which means what do you think that you are going to suddenly get to feel or have relief from when you buy this thing? And often times we are buying emotional promises when we buy a product. Like we think we're buying a product, but it's really about the emotional promise that we're buying. So are you trying to buy control? Are you trying to buy excitement? Are you trying to buy relief? Are you trying to buy distraction? Are you trying to buy desirability, confidence, feeling like the best mom or the best wife or the best employee or the best friend or the best girlfriend or whatever it is? Like what is it that you're actually trying to buy?
And once you can get deeper into the, you know, the the the deeper layers of every purchase that you're trying to make, then you can ask yourself the question, is this the time to shop or is this a time to feel? Because products and purchases will only ever be able to temporarily deliver on that emotional promise. Temporarily until you're right back where you started. And then you need another product to fill that emotional hole and then another product to fill that emotional hole. And you'll just keep spending and spending and digging yourself deeper and deeper with the emotional void ultimately never ending up being truly truly met.
I think it is so much more powerful when you can be the source of meeting your emotional needs rather than having to use products or impulsive purchases or shopping to make that happen. So, I promise you what you are needing in the moment when you are wanting to make that impulsive purchase is you're really not needing more stuff. I know that you think that you are. I know you keep telling yourself, "Screw it. I've had a hard day. I can't even deal with this anymore. I deserve this." All of the permission-giving thoughts that we have that ultimately give us the green light and lead to those impulsive purchases. But I promise you, that's not what you really truly need. Maybe you need a boundary. Maybe you need presence. Maybe you need honesty. Maybe you need rest. Maybe you need acceptance. Also, another thing that I like to just ask myself is like, am I hungry? Am I tired? Do I just need a hug? Like, do I just need 10 minutes of silence and presence and deep breathing with myself? Like, is that what I really need?
But ultimately stepping back and saying, what is it that I'm trying to buy by making this impulsive purchase? Because you guys remember when you are in that heightened emotional state and the emotion that you are feeling feels very uncomfortable in your body, it will often lead us to make impulsive purchases because we're like, "This feels terrible. This feels awful in my body. I don't enjoy the vibrational experience of this. It's highly uncomfortable. I want this to be done and over. And I know that if I just go ahead and make this impulsive purchase really fast, it'll quench that emotion that I'm feeling and I will suddenly feel better momentarily, temporarily for a short period of time, but I will feel better." So asking yourself, what is it that I'm trying to buy and what is it that I actually need? And how can I find ways to give that to myself without needing to shop, spend money, or buy something new?
Okay, so that's 2 A is getting to the root and the core of what is it that I truly need in this moment? Because again, I'm telling you, it's not another impulse buy. Can promise you that.
This video is brought to you by Elevate, my three-part workshop that helps you escape your emotional shopping and expand your inner wealth. Listen, I know that if you are here, you are smart, you are successful, you are ambitious, and you are also deeply frustrated by the fact that you know better, but you really can't seem to get yourself to do better. You are tired of using shopping as your emotional crutch and you keep telling yourself, "This is going to be the last time. This is going [laughter] to be the last time that I make that impulsive purchase or that I rack up the credit card debt again or that I go through this emotional shopping cycle." You make all these grand promises, but within a matter of days or weeks, you're just right back where you started. Now, listen, hope isn't lost, and you are not alone. I have helped thousands of women with this. And what I have found is that it's not a matter of you being broken. It's that you are not addressing your emotional shopping and healing it at the root. Most emotional shoppers try to solve their emotional shopping with systems and spreadsheets. And like I said, after helping thousands of women solve this, what has become abundantly clear to me is that you cannot solve an internal emotional issue with external logical solutions. Because every time those uncomfortable emotions come up that you are not equipped to feel and handle, emotion is going to override logic every single time. This is exactly why I created Elevate, a three-part workshop that is really going to help you address and heal your emotional shopping at the root. Not with budgets or with restriction, but actually teaching you how to work with your emotions from the inside out rather than having to shop them away. Imagine not needing to shop after a long stressful day or feeling that shame spiral after you make an unplanned purchase. You finally get yourself to a point where you feel calm, regulated, and you trust yourself with money again. That is what is waiting for you inside Elevate. To join and get immediate lifetime access, go to overcomingoverspending.com/elevate or you can use the link in the description. I will see you inside.
2B dopamine replacement. This is really, really big. So often times when we are wanting to make that impulsive purchase, this goes back to what do we really need? What do we really want? Sometimes what we really want is we want that dopamine hit, right? We want that quick cheap synthetic dopamine that gives us that euphoria, that high of the buy that feels so incredible and so amazing. So when you can figure out what you're really after here is just dopamine, then the question becomes, okay, knowing that that's what I really want and need, how can I find another way to make myself feel good? And even asking yourself and evaluating this question of how do I want to go through my life making myself feel good? This is a question I had to grapple with years ago was how do I want to go through my life making myself feel good? What do I want to be the primary source of pleasure in my life? What do I want to be the primary source of dopamine in my life? Do I want the primary source of dopamine in my in my life to be all of these like cheap, fast, fleeting, synthetic forms of dopamine that come from overconsumption that come from shopping and sugar and alcohol and social media? Or do I want most of my pleasure and growth and dopamine to be coming from more pure, lasting creation sources?
When we're thinking about dopamine, you guys, dopamine can can kind of get a bad rap sometimes because we often think and associate dopamine to all of the bad stuff. We're like, "Oh, you get a lot of dopamine from all the synthetic artificial pleasures in life," which that's true. You do, right? But dopamine is meant to act as a motivation molecule and showing you, okay, this was beneficial to you and this was rewarding to you. So do more of that. Go back to that. Do that again. And what we often fail to remember is that you can get dopamine. Now, it's a different type, kind of like a different flavor of dopamine, but you can get dopamine from doing hard and challenging things, from learning new skills and doing something challenging and connecting with a friend and decluttering and moving your body, journaling, doing something creative. You can get dopamine from those sources as well. And so, I've done a past podcast episode on this. I highly recommend that you go listen to it if you haven't. It's truly in over 200 episodes, one of the favorites I've ever done about the creation versus the consumption choice. But you have to really slow yourself down and think about, do I want to be somebody who goes through life primarily consuming or primarily creating? I can make myself feel good from all of the overconsumption activities where I'm just digging myself deeper in a hole every single time I go through that loop or I can choose to have my main source of dopamine come from creation activities. And when I say creation activities, what I mean by that is you are creating something in the world. You are creating and putting value out into the world. Whether that is value for you, value for others or value for society as a whole, it means that you are creating good in your life versus digging yourself deeper into the consumption hole. So this could be things like creating more health, energy, and wellness for yourself, creating more knowledge for yourself, creating more connection and love with other people in your life, creating more money.
And so a rule that I implemented long ago was creation before consumption. This you could also kind of say that this is also one of my um consumption commandments, which it is. It's actually one of mine is create before I consume. But if you put this rule in place, you tell yourself like the deal I make with myself is like, "Okay, Paige, if you do want to go shop, if you do want to go buy something, we're going to create something first." So, here's a couple ways that that could look like. One is if I have the urge to buy new clothes, I go and I create a cute outfit and I put something on my body that I really like and that I feel really good in with clothes that I already have. I get dopamine from creativity rather than consumption. The creativity of putting a a new and cute outfit together with stuff I already own. Decluttering an area of my home, going, "Okay, if you want to go out and buy more stuff and bring more stuff in here, we're going to go declutter an area of our house. We're going to do that first." So then I go out and I declutter and then I get a, you know, a spike of dopamine from the decluttering and the organization and that makes me feel really good. Going and catching up with a friend, calling a friend and saying, "Hey, how are you doing? Catch me up. What's going on?" FaceTiming somebody and gaining connection that way versus wanting to go up to a store and have connection with people that way or with the sales associates or get attention that way. Going to the library. This one's been really big for me as a book lover is instead of going and buying another book that's going to sit in my pile of to be read that I probably won't be able to get to for months, going up to the library and checking out a physical book that you just hold in your hand. Sometimes we just want to hold stuff in our hands. We're like, I just want to hold this thing in my hand and that and that does it right. Using supplies that you already have to make something creative like journaling with a journal that you already have or painting or knitting or um just I'm not I'm not a very artsy person so honestly I don't I don't know much in this area [laughter] but y'all know what I mean. Like using stuff that you already have to make something creative. Those are great examples of creation before consumption.
Because here's the magic around this. Again, when you're evaluating what is it that I really want here, what you're really wanting is dopamine. And there are other ways to give yourself dopamine rather than shopping and buying new stuff. So, if I can find other ways to give myself dopamine through activities that are actually going to create something positive in my life, not only does that feel 100 times better, but I'm getting the dopamine that I wanted in the first place and then we're good. And the urge to shop and the urge to make that impulse buy completely just goes away.
All right. So, those are my two suggestions here for this second pillar is again evaluating, digging a little bit deeper into this emotions piece. What is it that I really want? What is it that I'm really after and having some plan for dopamine replacement? You could even say 2 C was the create before you consume. I'll give that little extra one to you. Okay, so that's our second pillar.
Third and final pillar are my best strategies to quiet the impulse. Quiet the impulse. So there's a couple things here. The first thing I really want you paying attention to is your internal narrative and internal self-talk when you're wanting to make that impulse buy. This is something that I call your inner money mean girl. Okay? Your inner money villain. It's the voice in your head that is going to be very convincing and that is going to talk to you in a way so that it gets what it wants from you, which is the cheap dopamine hit making the impulse buy. What you will start to notice about your inner money mean girl is that she's very convincing and that she talks to you in a very all or nothing black or white manner and she uses words that are very absolute and that are very polarizing and that also just flat out aren't true. Right? Okay, your money your inner money mean girl is a flatout liar. Okay, she will lie lie lie lie to you. So what I mean by this is she'll tell you things like, "Oh, you need that." The n-word need my least favorite word. You need that. You have to have it. If you don't get it now, you never will. You're going to miss out on it. You're going to regret this so badly, right? She's going to lie to you and she's going to talk to you in absolutes.
So what you have to do is again this kind of comes back to the first one with distance is you have to create mental and psychological distance between you and your inner money mean girl. I want you actually starting to view her as separate from you. So if you listen to last week's episode when we were talking about future you and I was telling you think about future you as separate from you. Also think about your inner money mean girl as being totally and completely separate from you. Think of her as like the little kind of shopping devil on your shoulder that's chirping at you where you can literally when you see her as separate from you, you can just go flick and you can just flick her away and be like, I hear you. It's like Elsa in Frozen 2, which is my daughter's current obsession. It's like, I hear you and I won't. Right? It's like, I hear you and I'm not going to listen to you. I don't have to believe every single permission-giving thought that you give me. All of this stuff that you're telling me isn't even true. It's not true that I need it. It's not true that I'll never be able to get it again. It's not true that I can't control myself. And you can just kind of quietly tell her just to like go away and like shut up and leave you alone, right? But when you don't see your inner your inner money mean girl as separate from you, it's like the thoughts feel just so all-encompassing and they just feel like so you just feel so immersed in them and it's really hard to have a sense of control over those thoughts. So you have to see your inner money mean girl as separate from you and say, "Listen, I don't have to believe you. I don't have to obey you. I don't have to listen to you. And I know that you do not have my best interest at heart." I kind of think about your inner money mean girl like a Regina George, right? Like how you know like Regina George was very like I'm going to tell you what I know that you want to hear to your face and then I'm going to go and talk crap behind your back. Like I'm going to tell you and be like super sweet and nice to you to your face, but I do not have your best interest at heart. That is your inner money mean girl. So you just need to see her as separate from you. Tell her to go away. Tell her to be quiet and just say, "Listen, you don't run the show here." Okay, I do. [laughter] All right. So, that's 3A.
3B is becoming comfortable with sitting with the sensation of having unmet desire. I know this one is hard and this one is probably the most uncomfortable. Okay? But in the world that we live in today, we have all of us, even myself included, I'm raising my hand. We've all kind of developed this sense of ease entitlement of like things should be really easy and I shouldn't have to feel bad and I shouldn't have to be uncomfortable and I shouldn't have to struggle and I shouldn't have to wait for things, right? And so we have in a sense developed this intolerance for knowing that there is something that we want and saying, you know what, I'm going to have to wait for it. Right? And it's really easy nowadays with credit cards and buy now pay later services and access to capital where it's like just do it. Just buy it. It doesn't matter if you can afford it. It doesn't matter if you have the money for it. You want it right now, you go ahead and get it. Right? That's what your inner money mean girl is telling you. So, it's a combination of that messaging that prompts you to make these impulsive purchases. And then it's also combined with your inability to sit with the discomfort of having unmet desire of actually telling yourself, you know what, I'm going to have to wait for this. I'm going to have to save up for this or I'm not going to be able to get this thing right now in this moment the second that the that the desire has hit me. I've been talking to a lot of you guys and you've been telling me that this is a very prominent mindset that you guys have where you're just like, you know what, I deserve it and I should be able to do what I want whether I can afford it or not. You deserving something and actually being able to afford it have nothing to do with each other. [laughter] I love you, but they don't, right? So, you understanding that, okay, wealth is actually built in the waiting period. The more that I can be patient with my purchases, the more distance I can build in, the more that I can practice just seeing other people with things that I can admire where I'm like, "Wow, I really like that. That's really pretty. I love her outfit. I love her this. I love her that." And that also doesn't mean that I need to go out and buy it for myself either. It just means I can also just sit here and admire that she has this beautiful thing and maybe one day I can get that for myself, but someone else having something doesn't automatically create the need for me to have it either. So sitting with that unmet desire and just saying like I know that wealth is built in the waiting and being with those uncomfortable emotions in your body is sure a muscle that you have to build but it's a very important skill to have. It's saying I can sit with the discomfort of this. I don't have to rush it away by making a rush choice or a rush decision. I am capable of tolerating discomfort. I am capable of saving. I am a patient person.
All right. 3C is playing out the tape. Okay. So when I say again, remember pillar three here is is tools and strategies to quiet the impulse. Okay. So these are all strategies to just quiet the impulse. So 3C is play out the tape. When you are in an impulsive state of mind, you are in a very now focused mindset, a very short-term. Oh my gosh, I just want to do the thing that I want to do right now in the moment to get what I want. So, play out the tape. What I mean by that is think about what comes after this. Don't just think about like, okay, oh, I'm going to swipe the card or I'm going to click the buy now button and then I'm going to get the thing and the thing's going to be mine. I want you to start to think about what happens after I make this impulsive purchase. What is going to happen immediately after? How am I immediately going to feel? How am I going to feel an hour after the fact, days after the fact, weeks after the fact, months after the fact? Play out the tape. Is this something that I'm just going to buy and then it's going to get delivered in a couple of days and I'm going to open
it up and I'm going to be disappointed in myself and then I'm going to have to spend, you know, take 30 minutes out of my workday and spend my lunch break going to return it in a couple of days. Am I still going to be as excited about this thing a month from now as I am right now?
And another question that I love to answer is actually remembering that you are making an exchange with your money here. That's what spending is. Spending is an exchange of value. It's you saying, "I have money, which is a resource that I value, and I'm guessing [clears throat] I'm assuming that I'm going to value this thing. So, I'm going to make an exchange of value." but playing out the tape on how is this exchange of value going to work out in the future. So, am I in a month going to want my money back or am I still going to be sitting here being like, you know what, that was a really good purchase. If I could make the decision again all over again, I would still make the purchase because I would rather have the thing than have the money sitting out in my bank account.
Another powerful thing that you can do with playing out the tape, especially with impulsive purchases, why this is powerful, is because it will bring the realization to you that more than likely the outcome here is going to be discomfort, is going to be uncomfortable emotions. So part of it is when we're sitting with that impulsive purchase, we're like well if I don't do it and I don't say yes, I'm going to have to sit with the urge to splurge and that's going to be really uncomfortable, right? Like I'm going to have to sit with the uncomfortableness of having that unmet desire and that's really uncomfortable. But when you can then take this next step and you can play out the tape, what you also start to realize is, oh, and it's also going to be highly uncomfortable if I make the impulse buy. It's just the discomfort is going to come later. The discomfort is going to come down the road in a different flavor in regret or shame or credit card interest or depleted savings, right? Or again, my my time having to use my most precious energy of my time going to return this thing. So, when you start to play out the tape, what you start to realize is, okay, either way, I'm going to have to feel uncomfortable about this either way. So, which discomfort destination do I want to go to? Do I want to choose the flavor of discomfort that pulls me towards being a more skilled spender and a more intentional spender, or do I want to go down towards the discomfort destination of having to deal with the discomfort down the road in a different flavor that's just going to compound and come back bigger and stronger?
Remember you guys, I'm telling y'all that discomfort is like a boomerang. There is no situation where you get to avoid it. And we often think that there is. We often are trying to figure out like, okay, well, what's the path here? Like, what's the what's the path that I can choose where I don't have to feel discomfort? It doesn't exist. There is no path where discomfort doesn't exist. You throw the discomfort boomerang away for a period of time, it's just going to come back and smack you in the head bigger and stronger and better. So, play out the tape. Get yourself out of that short-term mindset and say, "Okay, what is going to happen immediately after I make this purchase?" Hours, days, weeks, months after I make this purchase. And then you recognize, "Oh, okay. So, either path I choose, there's going to be discomfort. So then which discomfort destination do I want to choose?"
My last tool for you here, so this is 3D. And this one is so big. And I will tell you this one probably takes the most amount of time, but it is the most important. Probably I saved the best for last. That in order for you to become an intentional spender rather than an impulsive one, you have to drop your identity around being an impulsive person. This one is so big with so many of you that I work at work work with where you come to me and you tell me like it is an absolute fact of the world that you are just reporting the news. Yeah, but Paige, you don't understand. I'm really impulsive. I'm really impulsive. And listen, even if that feels very true and factual to you, and even if we have a pile of past evidence that you can point to that supports that self-concept, the argument that I want to make to you here and now is that holding a self-concept of being an impulsive person does not serve you. Because whatever you believe to be true about you, that is ultimately what you're going to live into. It is what you are going to create more of. Your brain is a certainty machine. It just wants to create certainty. It wants to live into the beliefs, the truths, and the identities that you hold about the world, about money, and most of all about yourself. So when you are sitting there telling yourself, well, I'm just impulsive. Guess what? You are going to act impulsively. You are going to confirm that narrative, confirm that self-concept. And every time that you give into the urge to make an impulsive choice and fuel that identity of being an impulsive person, then that identity just becomes stronger and stronger and stronger.
So an identity that I want to offer you is I am an intentional spender. I spend money. Yes, I am somebody who spends money, but I spend it in an intentional and a purposeful way. I take my time. I don't need to get everything the second that a desire hits me. I plan my purchases ahead of time. I spend my money in the areas that are most aligned for me. I am not an impulsive person and I am not an impulsive purchaser. And even if you don't have a whole lot of evidence to back that up yet, that's okay because I truly think that identity and action is just like a continuous loop that's just always going. And a lot of us think like, well, I can't have the identity until I have the evidence. And is it more helpful to have the evidence than not? Yes, of course it is. But there's also no identity police. There's no belief police. Like, no one's going to come arrest you and take you to jail because you decide to start seeing yourself in a different way, right? So my point is is like why not just believe? Why not start seeing yourself in the way that you want to start seeing yourself that's going to support the future that you want and the results that you want to create. Right? Like what we were talking about last week with future financial you. So you have to release this security blanket of saying I'm such an impulsive person. Maybe you were in the past but we don't have to be anymore moving forward. So even if you just take that I am intentional. I am a purposeful shopper. I am responsible with money. I steward my money well. Money feels safe in my presence. Right? I could go on and on and on giving you all of these identities and affirmations, but the most important thing is is that you start seeing yourself in a new light as an intentional shopper and spender versus an impulsive one.
And if you go through and you do all these things that I've taken you through these three pillars and all the kind of sub points in each pillar, like I said, I've given you probably I don't know upwards of 10 in our time together today. And remember, you don't have to do all of these. Even if you just start with one or two of them and start implementing them and building them on top of each other, that's a great place to start. But over time, as you do that, it will also help aid in this identity of being an intentional shopper. And when you are an intentional shopper, you are planning your purchases ahead of time. You are making financial choices that actually fit within your financial boundaries and within a financial plan. And you are buying things that are highly valuable to you. You're not in a rush to get a quick hit of dopamine or to fill up your life with all this stuff that you're just not ultimately going to get to use. You get to spend your money in such a slower, more meaningful way that is going to benefit you so much more.
So, thank you for spending this time with me today. I sincerely hope it was helpful. If it was, please stick around, subscribe. I'm going to be putting out a lot more videos like this. And if this particular video spoke to you, I highly recommend that you watch this one next. All about my other favorite financial tool, my spending secret weapon on how to delay gratification with your spending without having to rely on discipline or willpower. I'll see you in the next video.