Holiday Shopping Awareness Challenge
Ask these 3 simple questions before you buy to reduce impulse buying and unnecessary waste
Hello holiday shoppers!
I interrupt your regular programming to bring you this special announcement.
With the holidays officially here, and all that gift buying in full swing, I have a suggestion — a challenge, if you will:
Let’s reduce impulse buying, unconscious consumption and waste by stepping up our levels of awareness.
Are you in?
…
This challenge begins right now and runs through the entire holiday season.
While it may seem targeted to online shopping (for the reasons you can read in the excerpt below), this challenge includes in person buying too.
The task is simple. It involves asking 3 simple questions before you tap the Buy button or plunk down your credit card or cold hard-earned cash.
So again I ask, are you in?
Ahhh-ware-ness 🏡
This one simple act that can change everything.
A little reality check and why this challenge matters
[Updated excerpt from “Online Shopping is a Package Deal”]
The cold hard truth appeared in an opinion piece my inbox. I knew it was bad, I just didn’t know how bad.
The article reveals the impact that online shopping is having on New York City, which, if I cut to the chase, translates into 2.4 million packages that get delivered every single weekday.
In her essay, “The City that Never Sleeps…Or Shops in Person,” writer Sonja Anderson put it this way:
If those packages were people, they’d be metropolitan Austin, Texas. If they were stone blocks, they’d top the Great Pyramid of Giza. Even if each of those packages were as thin as the Postal Service’s smallest priority shipping box — an inch and three-quarters thick — when stacked like books, the daily pile would be as tall as 241 Empire State Buildings, one atop the other.
Every single day! 😱😳🤯
That is a tremendous amount of packaging that doesn’t just magically vanish in the ether when you discard it.
This is where you come in.
Holiday Shopping Awareness Challenge
3 questions to ask before you buy
Before you buy anything online or in person, take a pause, and ask yourself:
Do I absolutely need this?
If yes, is it something I can buy at a brick and mortar store instead [if buying online]?
If no, is there something I can give or do instead [that creates less waste and costs nothing more than little time, love, and attention]?
Consider the alternatives
It’s time to relearn the commuter’s detour, the leaving of the house or the simple abstention from an unnecessary online purchase. If you can, try cutting online ordering for a month.
Consider the difference between want and need.
Buy used things. Save money. Save carbon. Discover what your city has to offer. It’s a dare.1
It’s all about awareness
If curbing your shopping appetite proves too big a challenge, start small. Know that by simply upping your level of awareness each time you buy something you really didn’t need, or see a package at your doorstep, you are shifting the pattern of attachment.
All you need is one momentary pause of awareness. And another. And another.
Drip, drip, drip.
Strung together, these pauses of awareness start to take hold, and before you know it, you’ve changed.
As the saying goes, change happens slowly then all at once.
…
Awareness isn’t just good for curbing impulsive buying habits, it helps to curb the mind games associated with them as well.
If your mind starts spinning a litany of fearful stories or self-deprecating thoughts, use your awareness practice to name the pain, and feel the pain, with as much compassionate awareness as you can.
Repeat as often as needed until you notice and feel a shift.
Drip, drip, drip.
It takes a village
Tell us how the Awareness Challenge is going. Share anything that can help lighten the load and grow the levels of awareness for all of us. Use these prompts to help you…
What did you decide to not buy this season? And what did you do instead?
In what small ways are you changing the paradigm of consumption?
What shifts successes, shifts, synchronicities, ahas have you experienced as a result of this challenge?
In case you missed it…
From the “City That Never Sleeps… or Shops in Person,” by Sonya Anderson
I’ve recently started to volunteer at a local thrift shop that benefits our community theater, where I also volunteer to usher and have seen some amazing performances!! My daughter spent $90 to buy a dress shirt and 2 ties at kohls for my grandson to wear for homecoming. The ones that she selected were not qualified for discount or to use her kohls cash. I looked at my shop and found a beautiful blue Tommy Hilfiger dress shirt and 2 ties for $5! The shirt was $3 and each tie was $1. I paid to have the shirt laundered and starched and returned one of the ties. Total cost was less than $10! My daughter was thrilled and grandson was very impressed! Today I bought 2 old electric candles for my front bedroom window. They were 50 cents each. And don’t need solar or batteries! I just put them in my window and am very pleased 😄
Gaye
Oh such great gems here Stephanie!
We can all use these reminders to be more aware of what we buy. For me, nothing cured me more than having to go through a house full of my MILs “collections” and various nice things that she gathered over 95 years! We are blessing the thrift stores right and left and even found a home for very old organ! She would be pleased. It’s much harder to find homes for furniture but we have made a valiant effort. It’s a lot like losing weight. It’s much easier to gain it than to lose it!
All that said I don’t want to add to the huge amount of stuff that my family is lucky to have so I’m giving old toys to my grandkids and they don’t know the difference. And it warms my heart. ❤️