Could you STOP shopping for a whole YEAR?
LISA REGAN did... and it proved to be the biggest challenge of her life. She explains how she found happiness after losing the urge to splurge on her wardrobe
INEED to be clear about this: in 2017, I bought nothing — no new clothes, no shoes, no runners, no accessories — absolutely nothing I could put on my body. My decision came after watching a documentary about individuals who were embracing minimalism. Excessive spending and the need to constantly buy, buy, buy is a part of modern life that is hardwired into us in the Western world. New is better — we need, we deserve, we want, we get. I run my own PR company in Galway, so the material world is well and truly ingrained in my life.
Last December, I decided I would take the challenge. I would buy nothing for the whole of 2017. A challenge is nothing new to me, I challenge my body by training every day. Physical challenges are something I take on monthly, if not weekly. When I can’t do something with my body, it makes me even more determined. No matter how long it takes, I will at least try it and then try to master it. I won’t go through the handstand story again, but let’s just say that six months of daily practice and tears led to me turning myself upside down.
The no-shopping challenge has been life-changing, and I don’t say that lightly. How, do you think,
can putting your purse away really change your life?
Well, after a long and difficult journey, it has brought me to a place of complete calm. Firstly there was the ‘okay let’s do this’ enthusiasm as I faced the challenge, which was followed by a middle phase of feeling alien in my own skin, when I nearly drove myself crazy wanting, wanting wanting new things. After overcoming the urge to spend, I came to a place where I lost the lust and even any desire to go into shops. I have what I have, I’ll wear what’s here.
Don’t get me wrong, 12 months on I still have too much stuff. People have said throughout the year, ‘I’ve still never seen you in the same thing twice.’ But after a year of not buying and not wanting more, I’ve actually come to know myself better.
This might sound daft but I used to attach a lot of happiness to buying new clothes, new shoes, well, new anything really. I attached all those feelings of, ‘Oh that dress, those boots, that bag… if I have that I will be better/happier/everything will just be perfect.’
When you take direct access away from fake, short-lived highs and the distorted reality of attaching happiness to material goods, you begin an entirely new, and rather difficult, conversation with yourself.
INEVER realised how much time and energy the desire to buy new stuff took up in my head. And I don’t even shop online so I can only imagine how this could have added to the mix.
The real transition came in July, just over halfway through my challenge. I had turned a corner and moved into a place where my lust for new things truly went away. Like a reformed addict, the search for another high had gone. I had transitioned.
Initially I felt serene but then my mind opened up and I began to have some really tough conversations with myself.
What do I want from life? What am I doing? Who am I and what’s the big plan? It was actually a tough conversation with my friend Gavan that widened the lens. He asked me to challenge myself to do a few things this year that truly terrified me. Not physical challenges, but mental ones.
I thought about this and realised it needed to happen. The free space in my mind from the lack of need to be caught up in the rat race (of needing another dress for a special occasion, new runners because you’re tired of the nine pairs you own, a new pair of earrings because it’s Tuesday and you’re feeling blue) was about to leave me very vulnerable. It was not easy.
I faced so many fears this year by just being completely open. All this free space in my head meant there was nowhere to hide, I could no longer skirt around certain issues. I had no new bag or dress to hide behind. This was it.
I did things this year that terrified me, like asking two guys out (definitely the hardest thing for me to do). I opened myself up to rejection and I didn’t even have a new pair of runners to comfort me on the occasion when I was turned down.
I began to see that talking openly and laying yourself out there is powerful. For the past few months I have been doing that every Monday with my counsellor, because it’s good to start the week by crying, I say! Or at least being honest. I look after my physical health so much — why did I never think to look after my mind and prioritise my mental health?
I took on so many physical challenges that I always completed and gave 100%, but it was this year’s personal and mental challenges that really shook me to my core and made me evaluate my life and outlook so much.
It’s the end of the year and I am finishing 2017 in the southern hemisphere, where I will be travelling solo for three weeks. I have no feelings about this other than utter calmness. ‘Are you packed?’ Sure, I have nothing really to bring. There’s no rushing, no running around frantically buying rubbish that I will never wear, I’ll bring what I have and I have what I bring.
I know many readers will have
Like a reformed addict, the search for another high had gone. Initially I felt serene, but then I began to have some really tough conversations with myself
questions such as ‘Did you save much money?’ Of course I did — but I haven’t a clue how much and I don’t care. What I really want to tell people is to cool the jets on the shopping and the mass consumption that rules our lives.
Long-term happiness is not found in buying material goods — and that’s a fact. A ‘shopping high’ is so short-lived. The latest study on this subject found that no matter what size the purchase — big or small — it gave a seven-second high and then it left the building!
We are all striving for happiness. We seek it from others, from objects and hopefully from within ourselves.
We look around us and see people in social media posts and in ‘real time’ and we think we know them. We think they have it sussed and we look at ourselves and think, goodness, I need to get my life together.
I truly believe we are all pretty thrown together, we are all finding our way and we are just gathering those who can be on our team in our lives, either as a main player or as a sub who gets a call up when the time is right.
THROUGHOUT this year, many people have told me my zero shopping policy has inspired them. But I really hope it does more than that. Take action from my story and maybe think about yourself and your needs before you shop. Think, deliberate, and that urge to pull out your credit card might just leave you after a couple of days.
Ask yourself questions such as, ‘Why do I really think I want this?’ Maybe the reasons behind your compulsion to shop could be as simple as knowing it’s just a distraction from something that might be bothering you or holding you back elsewhere in your life. A version of this article first appeared on the Huffington Post website.