I know exactly what it’s like. It seems like such a good idea at the time. You’ll just put it on the card. After all, you really do need another Moroccan plate/picture frame/cordless back scratcher/you get the idea. Impulse buying, as you know, is when you end up buying something you had no intention of buying when you left the house - or even when you entered the store. So how does it happen?
It seems right at the time
Yes, we can convince ourselves (with the help of those oh so charming sales people) of anything. One woman I helped curb her impulse buying told me that 90% of the stuff in her house was actually stuff she didn’t even like and certainly didn’t want. She had spent thousands on this ‘stuff’, though. In the grip of the moment we can be swept along: ‘Yes, yes, I want it, I need it, I really should have it…’
But where does it all end?
Addiction by any other name
In fact, what used to be known as ‘greed’ and we now call ‘addiction’ can creep up on us and start to dominate our lives without our noticing. Feeling an overwhelming urge to spend when we haven’t really got the means on things we really don’t need becomes addictive. And if we use spending as a misguided attempt to ease feelings of anxiety and depression, we can see how it mirrors other more accepted addictions even more closely. And impulse buyers - those who ‘binge on buying’ - often report a trance-like experience, a build up of expectation, a forgetting of everything else and a total single focus of mind when they buy. This naturally occurring kind of hypnosis can even inadvertently program people to buy over and over in the same store, time after time.
Impulse buying: hypnotized shoppers
Hypnosis is natural and because it’s natural it can occur spontaneously - and sometimes unhelpfully. Some people find the whole shopping experience hypnotic and before they know it they have spent money they don’t have or can ill afford. The new Stop impulse buying session for hypnosisdownloads.com uses therapeutic hypnosis to give real rational choice back to the buyer.
Spending money should always be something you choose to do rather than something compelled or ‘forced’ on you by an addictive trance.
Mark
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