Early this
year I set myself all of the goals that I wanted to achieve for 2020. I
wrote everything I wanted to achieve or do down in my journal and made this
board with pictures to keep me inspired during the year. One of the things I
wanted to be better at was to be more conscious when consuming or buying a
product. The reason for this particular goal was because I’ve been doing
declutters on my room and there’s always something I’m not using enough that
could go bad quickly. I don’t want any of the products that I buy to go bad
before I can use them all because it seems like a waste of money, so I decided
that that was going to be one of my focus goals this year.
I know that
things are pretty messy right now, so much that my list of tasks and goals have
just been thrown off the window, but I still really enjoyed those months as a conscious
consumer and there are some lessons that I’ve learned during that time that I
wanted to share with you.
I’m not a
minimalist person at ALL! And on top of that, I’m a pretty messy, not organized person. However, I’ve always had a soft spot when it comes to recycling, reutilizing,
DIY or anything ecologic or sustainable so that soft spot has made me jump slowly into the “zero waste” trend which then leads me to be more minimalist but
mostly to be actually more conscious about how I am living. Like I said I’m not
minimalist, I don’t consider myself a minimalist, but if there’s something I
can learn from minimalist living, then I will try it, even more, if it can help with my anxiety.
I’ve always been an anxious person since I was a child. It took me twenty-something years of my life to assume that I was anxious about everything and honestly, that unconscious anxiety can really make you take bad choices in life. The whole point of life is to enjoy it and to live it, not to be constantly worrying about the future.
I’ve always been an anxious person since I was a child. It took me twenty-something years of my life to assume that I was anxious about everything and honestly, that unconscious anxiety can really make you take bad choices in life. The whole point of life is to enjoy it and to live it, not to be constantly worrying about the future.
There’s
nowhere that I love the most than going to buy beauty products. Nothing.
That is my happy place. But sometimes I can really spend more money than I needed
to, which is always unnecessary. I started doing this very small and simple mental exercise that I’ve heard before, that is just simply asking yourself one question: “do I
really need this?”
From that point on, I started questioning myself and set a very straight line between “needing something” and “wanting something”. Curious how I’ve never thought of this before, nor how anxious I am when buying stuff. The feeling that "maybe next time I’ll go shopping I’m not going be able to buy a certain product or it will be simply gone" was constant in my brain and I didn’t directly notice.
From that point on, I started questioning myself and set a very straight line between “needing something” and “wanting something”. Curious how I’ve never thought of this before, nor how anxious I am when buying stuff. The feeling that "maybe next time I’ll go shopping I’m not going be able to buy a certain product or it will be simply gone" was constant in my brain and I didn’t directly notice.
When I started to ask myself that question was when I started becoming more aware of my spending habits and how much affected my anxiety.
Whenever I went to buy something that wasn’t
a necessity, grabbed it and asked myself: “do I really need this? Don’t I have a product
similar to this at home?” if the answer was yes, then I’d say to myself: “Okay,
then first finish off the one you have at home and then you’ll be rewarded
buying this new product” and put the product back on the shelf. It’s funny
because it feels like I’m talking to a toddler, but it works! The truth is that in
my case, if I already have something similar at home that I really like, then
it makes sense to use it all up prior to buying another product from the same
category.
I started
to do this and noticed that my shopping anxiety started to go away randomly. I
was so relieved! I wasn’t anxious anymore and that was when I accidentally
discovered that "conscious shopping" (like I like to call it!) helps with my anxiety.
The reward system became something fun, like a game where I started to use things more frequently to get my reward which technically was trying out a new product. At the same time, it's so satisfying to use all of the products that I have before throwing them away or giving them away.
The reward system became something fun, like a game where I started to use things more frequently to get my reward which technically was trying out a new product. At the same time, it's so satisfying to use all of the products that I have before throwing them away or giving them away.
Not only
did it help with my anxiety, but it also helped me to save money! Since I wasn’t
spending so much on products I didn’t need I was saving money and the next time
I was buying something I actually needed I could spend a little more money to
get a more “luxury” product. Honestly, this small question came with so many
benefits for my mental health and side benefits that will probably make me try
new minimalist habits.
I know there are a lot of people out there that suffer from anxiety and it can be
difficult to deal with, even if you’re not fully conscious of it. I’m sharing
here my small discovery that probably will not surprise anyone, but really
worked with me and hopefully, it can help someone else too!
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